tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post3753539197979185882..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Confessions of a ContrarianAnne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-67029119567549467702016-08-25T18:14:24.291-04:002016-08-25T18:14:24.291-04:00To those who say that if one constantly repeats a ...To those who say that if one constantly repeats a criticism one just dulls and drives away the audience, then what about those who constantly repeat their boasts, exaggerations, and overstatements? People listen to that! It's because it makes them think doing the same thing that's being repeatedly exaggerated will be rewarded (with attention, publication, grants promotion). And, in our time and perhaps generally, it's true. But that doesn't mean that voicing criticism should cease because occasionally somebody will listen and perhaps that will lead him/her to think of something better to do. Then they get a Nobel Prize or a Macarthur etc.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-48802027191650152942016-08-24T13:43:06.021-04:002016-08-24T13:43:06.021-04:00It would seem to be important to understand how br...It would seem to be important to understand how brain 'wiring' works, if it is consistent enough to even ask such a question that way. We know that there are functional regions that seem reasonably conserved among individuals--but that can remap during life--but how much we'll learn from the proposed sorts of brain neural maps is at most problematic.<br /><br />I know several neuroscientists who say that the 'connectome' kinds of projects are Big-Science me-too boondoggles, using up a lot of public money that could be spent on more focused projects. One (who shall remain anonymous!) told us once that the Connectome project was obvious bunkum but that to get funding one needed to join up with it. This is a very common phenomenon ('we know it's bunk but we can't say so and have to be part of it'), and a kind of deep dishonesty in science as practiced today.<br /><br />It will take a lot of resistance and protest, with some leaders from the top and a lot of un- or underemployed neuroscientists or students to turn this huge inertial system in some different direction. Showing the wastefulness and repetitive under-performance, which happens weekly it seems, makes no real difference, at least not yet.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-21995598408932255002016-08-24T13:31:37.726-04:002016-08-24T13:31:37.726-04:00I'm reminded of this billion Euro boondoggle t...I'm reminded of this billion Euro boondoggle that was actually scaled back when it failed to deliver: 'brain in a box'. Turns out modeling some aspects of the brain is a far cry from simulating a brain. (Theory might have helped with that, and dare I even say philosophy as well.)<br />https://forbetterscience.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/the-laborious-delivery-of-markrams-brainchild/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-45500954215371837492016-08-24T12:33:18.225-04:002016-08-24T12:33:18.225-04:00Of course, I agree. Machines will always catch som...Of course, I agree. Machines will always catch some 'fish', but don't suffer the tragedy if they're wrong, the way biomedical 'fish' may lead to ineffective or dangerous treatment, or forestall better understanding. One problem is that without good causal theory, you have little or no way to know what's right and what's wrong, or how right or wrong they are, or whether the error level even matters.<br /><br />Bragging about giving up hypothesis-driven science was many investigators' rationale (excuse?) for securing very costly, too-big-to-terminate projects, deferring any actual analysis for years, and then saying they need even more, longer-term data, etc. etc. It's a viable strategy in our computer-enamored, vested-interest system. Massive number crunching just 'seems' right, and focused hypothesis-based science archaic, from this point of view. The leading people doing this know very well what they are doing.<br /><br />I am not knowledgeable enough to know how strong a signal a plane of Little Green People would have to send for us to detect it, and how encoded it would have to be for us to realize that it was an encoded signal of some sort. We've written many times (e.g., our recent LGP post) on the silliness of hints that we'll go there some time and shake hands (or fight) with them....<br /><br />Saying this makes one a 'contrarian', because calling it 'truth-telling' is too dangerous. It would force people to think more deeply, and that's really difficult to do. And even more difficult to get a salary doing, in our current system of science.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-32043362816793004742016-08-24T12:16:02.596-04:002016-08-24T12:16:02.596-04:00An astute contarians performs a useful societal fu...An astute contarians performs a useful societal function, even if it is evident at the time only to fellow contrarians.<br /><br />I think SETI is worthless. If there are civilizations out there capable of contacting us, we need do nothing to hear from them. <br /><br />As for these multi-million/billion, long-term, multi-lab big research programs creating through vast data sets, mapping, associations (often but not always of biological phenomena with -ome neologisms), I think they herald a new era of science. Call it Big Data, Posthuman Science, or even Post-Science; doesn't matter. There are major scientists approvingly hailing the death of hypothesis testing. Just massive number crunching, endless observation and pattern recognition at a speed, scale, and kind no human or even group of humans can do. An endless fishing expedition. One potential problem is that if machines are generating data and analyses, perhaps only machines will 'understand' it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com