I see this study was funded by Emergent Ventures (at least in part). I recently applied for funding from them for my own project to create a sort of ‘grassroots’ interdisciplinary think tank in a rural area where science and other academic subjects are scarce. I see it as a low budget version of the Santa Fe Institute, Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies (where Einstein and Godel worked), or Canada’s Perimeter Institute. But my project is not aimed at the ‘cream of the crop’ nor the kind of fancy (or what i call ‘gee whiz’ ) science/arts done at places like MIT’s media lab. It would have computers and WWW , but likely not supercomputers, 3D printers, particle accelerators, astronomical observatories).
I also have some of my own research projects (in biology/ecology/behavioral genetics, economics, applied math, logic etc.). I can relate to Ramanujan (whose biography I read and some of whose theorems I refer to in some of my much less advanced applied math research)---his results were hand written, not published (he just sent letters to mathematicians, only one of whom responded—G H Hardy (one of the top ones of his era). I have found it impossible to really finish anything, or get it into publishable forum (even my resume). (I did submit a few things various places but missed deadlines, had improper formatting etc. --could barely figure out how to get it into PDF document form). I long ago decided to go my own way due to health and other issues so I stayed out of PhD programs—probably a bad decision. I did get into one PhD program but got cold feet and didn’t show up. (Not everyone is a Darwin, Ramanujan, Einstein, or J Barbour and can be independent until they get recognized.)
Also, my stuff in many ways is redundant, somewhat out of the mainstream in approach (i’m basically trying find a very simple math formalism that can approximate what AI does with computers—ie a ‘Fermi calculation’ (back of the envelope calculations which can sort of generically estimate what a supercomputer will find near exactly), and not as useful as other approaches which are in the literature.
As far as funding, I do think places like NSF, NIH, NIMH, SFI, AAAS, and even universities etc should have programs and provide support—both financial and technical—for small projects like what I have proposed. Especially given the somewhat low level of cultural and scientific literacy in this country and the world. (The big institutions will build new libraries, labs and arts places (not to mention sports facilities , and fund conference travel) while outside them its a sort of an intellectual desert (lie ‘food deserts’ which exist i areas I know—nothing but liquor , junk food and and conveniance stores (eg ‘family dollar’)). Its no different than funding a local library and giving it some books and computers. Its also possible given the large number of university graduates at all levels, some of these could be similar to community health workers (as opposed to doctors) and provide advice and help to people working on what are basically ‘citizen science’ projects. (Citizen science already exists, but all of what I have seen is professional scientists in insitutions asking for volunteers to work on their projects—they never ask if any citizen might want to work on their own project as well, usually because they are considered unqualified. )
The above article primarily focuses on biology (which I follow a bit—but mostly focus on theoretical and mathematical biology—while biotech and molecular biology seem to be the biggest fields (PNAS (Proceedings of Natl Academy of Science) if i recall when i used to read it had maybe 10-30 pages devoted to fields i studied, while like 1000 pages to laboratory based biology.)
My view is biology research is moving along at the same pace it always has; and same with physics (computer science moved faster, but that was because it was a new field theoretically and technologically).
I personally think some fields in biology are possibly overfunded and others are neglected. Some reminds me of Baroque architecture or current megaprojects in architecture (eg new World Trade center, mile high skyscrapers in the mideast, when there is squalor nearby).
I also read psychology and social since papers, and some history, philosophy and political science. Alot of these to me seem to be a bit like the work of smart elementary school kids—not particularily profund or important (eg there are already say 50 books on Lincoln or Reagen but someone writes another one.) Psychology papers seem to deal often with very trivial things -- eg someone observes human shopping behavior in a store and comes up with a theory for that. )
I don’t think alot of academic work is much more profound than what I read on non-academic blogs, or even hear in conversation—its just published in professional journals, and leads to credentials and cred. .
While the highly technical research (eg mathematical) is not trivial, I sometimes think some of it is redundant, and also when people learn a few techniques they can publish many papers on the same theme, while neglecting approaches based on other techniques and ideas. (Its also known that its common practice for people to break up one paper into 4 smaller ones, and published them in different places—which makes them hard to find at times.) But its hard for me to judge (due to lack of competence) to really say if a technical paper is just an excercize at a much more advanced level but analogous to all the papers produced by a 6th grade class.
I actually sort of support a UBI or basic income (which can be phrased as a ‘Guaranteed Job’ as in the Green New Deal deal). So everyone for example can get funded to do scientific research, art, etc like a professional but at a basic level. If it turns out they produce something of high value, then they get paid for that. I read alot of papers and see books by academics which do not appear to be of higher value than what i do (and some appear to have very low value , unless they are viewed as poetry, creative writing, theology, or mythology.
Also, I think some people who do not get funded nor accepted into academic programs is (as noted above) partly because people find them too eccentric, different, and/or unpleasant . I remember when I was checking into some programs I was turned off because I went there to discuss science, and all the people were talking about who is going to some conference, or how some (possibly trivial) paper they published is a ‘hit’ and ‘talk of the town’ (eg they counted how many plastic bags are the sea, a neccesary chore but not too interesting, or how their fallacious paper on social biology or psychoogy is generating alot of discussion and might even lead to a book contract—because it repeats popular myths.) . Also if your research interests (or paradigm, and even social and political views) conflict with the ones held by prominent people in various institutions , in general you may as well hit the door. Its not like Galileo or Darwin were recognized and canonized as Saints.
Also, especially in my academic field, alot of research is torture both mentally and physically (ie in my case endless debugging of computer programs, which were on interesting problems, but basically discussing the theory of why we were even writing these programs was not encouraged. It was like being told you have to fight a war without being allowed to discuss why one is fighting the war. They say we can discuss that when we have time—after we win. This is also discouraged because if you discuss the theory for the war or computer program, you may realize that is not the optimal approach.)
p.s. I just read the article (and comments) in more detail. Its ‘spot on’, though primarily appears be focused on lab researchers in biology. (its also a fairly long and detailed article with many references). the field of biology I was in is much smaller, though i think just about every biology department in a research university has a theoretical/mathematical biologist, or a few—especially in ecology and genetics. however, alot of people have never even heard of this area; and some biologists thinks it mostly irrelevant.
While i cannot claim to be (and am almost am not a genius) Every single ‘bad habit’ or ‘trait’ described in the section ‘nobody cares if you are a genius’ applies to me . Sometimes it only takes me once sentence to get ‘downvoted’ (or banned) by people i’m around—sometimes this is because i grew up and often am around people who speak ‘dialect’ (or non-pc speech—though my values are basically pc) and i say something that others find offensive. Also among some academics (and musicians—since that is another of my interests) if you mention the name of a scientist who actually is a sort of arch-rival to the scientist you are talking to, that’s often the end of the conversation (the same is true in music—you better not say you like some musician that the musician you are talking to hates.)
last, to a certain extent its possible my own ‘research program’ is partly meaningless or useless. I know some projects i worked on but never published on (in biology and economics) were basically correct, and the problems were generating many confused papers at the time (and actually still do), but many people have published papers basically saying my points to a large degree (and sometimes with more technical detail—my math skills are not wht they should be for me to say what i want to say). my current project (which is on multiobjective optimization) may be a ‘tangent’ to the main work in that area (most of which involves algorithms). so it may just be a curiosity (i’ve seen papers in math and physics entitled things like ‘my failed proof of the reimman conjecture’, or fermat’s last theorem , or 4 color problem. ) There are whole books on such failed proofs.
Another example of ‘teams’ (eg Feynman and Dyson) is Einstein—who needed someone expert in differential geometry—who he found. Ramanujan needed someone who knew how to turn notes into accepted mathematics and could deal with beurocracy (and he found G H Hardy to help write it up).
(I need someone who knows how to do some basic computer work (eg show me how to use google docs, create PDFs...) and ideally someone who knows a bit more number theory and computer programming than me (i learned C++, but python/R/netlogo may be more relevant and i’m too lazy and incomeptnt to learn them). While theoretical biology projects were mathematical, eventually you had to put them on a computer. My current project is like that.
From an EA view, one is really talking about ‘transaction costs’ and ‘barriers and bounds to rationality’ (name of a book by D Foley and P Albin). If one was a good mathematician this could be phrased in those terms (and Foley has affiliations with SFI and a few people there are familiar with some of the math formalism required.)
While i applied to Tyler Cowan’s grant program (visions) and read some of his blog, papers and other things from Mercatus center (one person there collaborates with a person at SFI who i contacted but got no reply) i think my politics means they would never fund me. (Same with Templeton, and even some more ‘left leaning ’ organizations like IPS and ones in economics. They do fund redundant and incomplete, second rate work so long as the people have credentials, and can pack their books and papers with alot of data (numbers) which are basically meaningless to anyone who is not fluent in things like all the masses of the atomic elements and elementary particles, or exchange rate between dollars, pounds,s euros, yen and bitcoin).
If i was organized one project i have is to write a a reply to a paper from Mercatus .
I see this study was funded by Emergent Ventures (at least in part). I recently applied for funding from them for my own project to create a sort of ‘grassroots’ interdisciplinary think tank in a rural area where science and other academic subjects are scarce. I see it as a low budget version of the Santa Fe Institute, Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies (where Einstein and Godel worked), or Canada’s Perimeter Institute. But my project is not aimed at the ‘cream of the crop’ nor the kind of fancy (or what i call ‘gee whiz’ ) science/arts done at places like MIT’s media lab. It would have computers and WWW , but likely not supercomputers, 3D printers, particle accelerators, astronomical observatories).
I also have some of my own research projects (in biology/ecology/behavioral genetics, economics, applied math, logic etc.). I can relate to Ramanujan (whose biography I read and some of whose theorems I refer to in some of my much less advanced applied math research)---his results were hand written, not published (he just sent letters to mathematicians, only one of whom responded—G H Hardy (one of the top ones of his era). I have found it impossible to really finish anything, or get it into publishable forum (even my resume). (I did submit a few things various places but missed deadlines, had improper formatting etc. --could barely figure out how to get it into PDF document form). I long ago decided to go my own way due to health and other issues so I stayed out of PhD programs—probably a bad decision. I did get into one PhD program but got cold feet and didn’t show up. (Not everyone is a Darwin, Ramanujan, Einstein, or J Barbour and can be independent until they get recognized.)
Also, my stuff in many ways is redundant, somewhat out of the mainstream in approach (i’m basically trying find a very simple math formalism that can approximate what AI does with computers—ie a ‘Fermi calculation’ (back of the envelope calculations which can sort of generically estimate what a supercomputer will find near exactly), and not as useful as other approaches which are in the literature.
As far as funding, I do think places like NSF, NIH, NIMH, SFI, AAAS, and even universities etc should have programs and provide support—both financial and technical—for small projects like what I have proposed. Especially given the somewhat low level of cultural and scientific literacy in this country and the world. (The big institutions will build new libraries, labs and arts places (not to mention sports facilities , and fund conference travel) while outside them its a sort of an intellectual desert (lie ‘food deserts’ which exist i areas I know—nothing but liquor , junk food and and conveniance stores (eg ‘family dollar’)). Its no different than funding a local library and giving it some books and computers. Its also possible given the large number of university graduates at all levels, some of these could be similar to community health workers (as opposed to doctors) and provide advice and help to people working on what are basically ‘citizen science’ projects. (Citizen science already exists, but all of what I have seen is professional scientists in insitutions asking for volunteers to work on their projects—they never ask if any citizen might want to work on their own project as well, usually because they are considered unqualified. )
The above article primarily focuses on biology (which I follow a bit—but mostly focus on theoretical and mathematical biology—while biotech and molecular biology seem to be the biggest fields (PNAS (Proceedings of Natl Academy of Science) if i recall when i used to read it had maybe 10-30 pages devoted to fields i studied, while like 1000 pages to laboratory based biology.)
My view is biology research is moving along at the same pace it always has; and same with physics (computer science moved faster, but that was because it was a new field theoretically and technologically).
I personally think some fields in biology are possibly overfunded and others are neglected. Some reminds me of Baroque architecture or current megaprojects in architecture (eg new World Trade center, mile high skyscrapers in the mideast, when there is squalor nearby).
I also read psychology and social since papers, and some history, philosophy and political science. Alot of these to me seem to be a bit like the work of smart elementary school kids—not particularily profund or important (eg there are already say 50 books on Lincoln or Reagen but someone writes another one.) Psychology papers seem to deal often with very trivial things -- eg someone observes human shopping behavior in a store and comes up with a theory for that. )
I don’t think alot of academic work is much more profound than what I read on non-academic blogs, or even hear in conversation—its just published in professional journals, and leads to credentials and cred. .
While the highly technical research (eg mathematical) is not trivial, I sometimes think some of it is redundant, and also when people learn a few techniques they can publish many papers on the same theme, while neglecting approaches based on other techniques and ideas. (Its also known that its common practice for people to break up one paper into 4 smaller ones, and published them in different places—which makes them hard to find at times.) But its hard for me to judge (due to lack of competence) to really say if a technical paper is just an excercize at a much more advanced level but analogous to all the papers produced by a 6th grade class.
I actually sort of support a UBI or basic income (which can be phrased as a ‘Guaranteed Job’ as in the Green New Deal deal). So everyone for example can get funded to do scientific research, art, etc like a professional but at a basic level. If it turns out they produce something of high value, then they get paid for that. I read alot of papers and see books by academics which do not appear to be of higher value than what i do (and some appear to have very low value , unless they are viewed as poetry, creative writing, theology, or mythology.
Also, I think some people who do not get funded nor accepted into academic programs is (as noted above) partly because people find them too eccentric, different, and/or unpleasant . I remember when I was checking into some programs I was turned off because I went there to discuss science, and all the people were talking about who is going to some conference, or how some (possibly trivial) paper they published is a ‘hit’ and ‘talk of the town’ (eg they counted how many plastic bags are the sea, a neccesary chore but not too interesting, or how their fallacious paper on social biology or psychoogy is generating alot of discussion and might even lead to a book contract—because it repeats popular myths.) . Also if your research interests (or paradigm, and even social and political views) conflict with the ones held by prominent people in various institutions , in general you may as well hit the door. Its not like Galileo or Darwin were recognized and canonized as Saints.
Also, especially in my academic field, alot of research is torture both mentally and physically (ie in my case endless debugging of computer programs, which were on interesting problems, but basically discussing the theory of why we were even writing these programs was not encouraged. It was like being told you have to fight a war without being allowed to discuss why one is fighting the war. They say we can discuss that when we have time—after we win. This is also discouraged because if you discuss the theory for the war or computer program, you may realize that is not the optimal approach.)
p.s. I just read the article (and comments) in more detail. Its ‘spot on’, though primarily appears be focused on lab researchers in biology. (its also a fairly long and detailed article with many references). the field of biology I was in is much smaller, though i think just about every biology department in a research university has a theoretical/mathematical biologist, or a few—especially in ecology and genetics. however, alot of people have never even heard of this area; and some biologists thinks it mostly irrelevant.
While i cannot claim to be (and am almost am not a genius) Every single ‘bad habit’ or ‘trait’ described in the section ‘nobody cares if you are a genius’ applies to me . Sometimes it only takes me once sentence to get ‘downvoted’ (or banned) by people i’m around—sometimes this is because i grew up and often am around people who speak ‘dialect’ (or non-pc speech—though my values are basically pc) and i say something that others find offensive. Also among some academics (and musicians—since that is another of my interests) if you mention the name of a scientist who actually is a sort of arch-rival to the scientist you are talking to, that’s often the end of the conversation (the same is true in music—you better not say you like some musician that the musician you are talking to hates.)
last, to a certain extent its possible my own ‘research program’ is partly meaningless or useless. I know some projects i worked on but never published on (in biology and economics) were basically correct, and the problems were generating many confused papers at the time (and actually still do), but many people have published papers basically saying my points to a large degree (and sometimes with more technical detail—my math skills are not wht they should be for me to say what i want to say). my current project (which is on multiobjective optimization) may be a ‘tangent’ to the main work in that area (most of which involves algorithms). so it may just be a curiosity (i’ve seen papers in math and physics entitled things like ‘my failed proof of the reimman conjecture’, or fermat’s last theorem , or 4 color problem. ) There are whole books on such failed proofs.
Another example of ‘teams’ (eg Feynman and Dyson) is Einstein—who needed someone expert in differential geometry—who he found. Ramanujan needed someone who knew how to turn notes into accepted mathematics and could deal with beurocracy (and he found G H Hardy to help write it up).
(I need someone who knows how to do some basic computer work (eg show me how to use google docs, create PDFs...) and ideally someone who knows a bit more number theory and computer programming than me (i learned C++, but python/R/netlogo may be more relevant and i’m too lazy and incomeptnt to learn them). While theoretical biology projects were mathematical, eventually you had to put them on a computer. My current project is like that.
From an EA view, one is really talking about ‘transaction costs’ and ‘barriers and bounds to rationality’ (name of a book by D Foley and P Albin). If one was a good mathematician this could be phrased in those terms (and Foley has affiliations with SFI and a few people there are familiar with some of the math formalism required.)
While i applied to Tyler Cowan’s grant program (visions) and read some of his blog, papers and other things from Mercatus center (one person there collaborates with a person at SFI who i contacted but got no reply) i think my politics means they would never fund me. (Same with Templeton, and even some more ‘left leaning ’ organizations like IPS and ones in economics. They do fund redundant and incomplete, second rate work so long as the people have credentials, and can pack their books and papers with alot of data (numbers) which are basically meaningless to anyone who is not fluent in things like all the masses of the atomic elements and elementary particles, or exchange rate between dollars, pounds,s euros, yen and bitcoin).
If i was organized one project i have is to write a a reply to a paper from Mercatus .