Maria Skłodowska Curie (1867–1934),
Dean Kamen
Dean Lawrence Kamen (born April 5, 1951) is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman. He is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers. Kamen holds over 1, ...
(born 1951),
Steve Jobs (1955–2011),
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
(1879–1955), and
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...
(born 1971).
[Melissa A. Schilling, ''Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World'', New York, Public Affairs, 2018, , p. 13.]
Schilling chose innovators in natural science and technology rather than in other fields because she found much more consensus about important contributions to natural science and technology than, for example, to art or music. She further limited the set to individuals associated with ''multiple'' innovations. "When an individual is associated with only a single major invention, it is much harder to know whether the invention was caused by the inventor's personal characteristics or by simply being at the right place at the right time."
The eight individuals were all extremely intelligent, but "that is not enough to make someone a serial breakthrough innovator."
Nearly all these innovators showed very high levels of
social detachment, or separateness (a notable exception being Benjamin Franklin). "Their isolation meant that they were less exposed to dominant ideas and norms, and their sense of not belonging meant that even when exposed to dominant ideas and norms, they were often less inclined to adopt them."
[Melissa A. Schilling, ''Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World'', New York, Public Affairs, 2018, , p. 14.] From an early age, they had all shown extreme faith in their ability to overcome obstacles—what
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
calls "
self-efficacy".
"Most
f them, writes Schilling
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
were driven by
idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
, a superordinate goal that was more important than their own comfort, reputation, or families. Nikola Tesla wanted to free mankind from labor through unlimited free
energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...
and to achieve international
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
through global
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
. Elon Musk wants to solve the world's energy problems and colonize
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. Benjamin Franklin was seeking greater social harmony and productivity through the ideals of
egalitarianism
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
,
tolerance, industriousness, temperance, and charity. Marie Curie had been inspired by
Polish Positivism
Polish Positivism was a social, literary and History of philosophy in Poland#Positivism, philosophical movement that became dominant in late-19th-century Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland following the suppression of the January Uprising, J ...
's argument that
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, which was under Tsarist Russian rule, could be preserved only through the pursuit of education and technological advance by all Poles—''including women''."
Most of the innovators also worked hard and tirelessly because they found work extremely rewarding. Some had an extremely high need for achievement. Many also appeared to find work
autotelic
An autotelic is someone or something that has a purpose in, and not apart from, itself.
Origin
The word "autotelic" derives from the Greek ''αὐτοτελής'' (''autotelēs''), formed from ''αὐτός'' (''autos'', "self") and ''τέλος ...
—rewarding for its own sake. A surprisingly large portion of the breakthrough innovators have been
autodidacts—self-taught persons—and excelled much more outside the classroom than inside.
"Almost all breakthrough innovation," writes Schilling, "starts with an unusual idea or with beliefs that break with
conventional wisdom
The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy.
Etymology
The term is often credited to the economist John ...
.... However, creative ideas alone are almost never enough. Many people have creative ideas, even brilliant ones. But usually we lack the time, knowledge, money, or motivation to act on those ideas." It is generally hard to get others' help in implementing original ideas because the ideas are often initially hard for others to understand and value. Thus each of Schilling's breakthrough innovators showed ''extraordinary'' effort and persistence. Even so, writes Schilling, "being at the right place at the right time still matter
d"
Lichenology
When Swiss botanist
Simon Schwendener discovered in the 1860s that
lichens were a
symbiotic partnership between a
fungus
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from t ...
and an
alga
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
, his finding at first met with resistance from the scientific community. After his discovery that the fungus—which cannot make its own food—provides the lichen's structure, while the alga's contribution is its
photosynthetic production of food, it was found that in some lichens a
cyanobacterium
Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, blu ...
provides the food—and a handful of lichen species contain ''both'' an alga and a cyanobacterium, along with the fungus.
A self-taught naturalist,
Trevor Goward, has helped create a
paradigm shift in the study of lichens and perhaps of all life-forms by doing something that people did in pre-scientific times: going out into nature and closely observing. His essays about lichens were largely ignored by most researchers because Goward has no scientific degrees and because some of his radical ideas are not supported by rigorous data.
When Goward told
Toby Spribille, who at the time lacked a high-school education, about some of his lichenological ideas, Goward recalls, "He said I was delusional." Ultimately Spribille passed a high-school equivalency examination, obtained a Ph.D. in lichenology at the
University of Graz
The University of Graz (german: link=no, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ), located in Graz, Austria, is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria.
History
The univers ...
in Austria, and became an assistant professor of the ecology and evolution of symbiosis at the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...
. In July 2016 Spribille and his co-authors published a ground-breaking paper in ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
'' revealing that many lichens contain a second fungus.
Spribille credits Goward with having "a huge influence on my thinking.
is essaysgave me license to think about lichens in
n unorthodox wayand freed me to see the patterns I worked out in ''
Bryoria
''Bryoria'' is a genus of lichenized fungi in the family Parmeliaceae. Many members of this genus are known as horsehair lichens. The genus has a widespread distribution, especially in boreal and cool temperate areas.
Taxonomy
''Bryoria'' w ...
'' with my co-authors." Even so, "one of the most difficult things was allowing myself to have an open mind to the idea that 150 years of literature may have entirely missed the theoretical possibility that there would be more than one fungal partner in the lichen symbiosis." Spribille says that academia's emphasis on the canon of what others have established as important is inherently limiting.
Leadership
Contrary to previous studies indicating that higher
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
makes for better
leaders
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...
in various fields of endeavor, later research suggests that, at a certain point, a higher
IQ can be viewed as harmful.
[Matthew Hutson, "Ineffective Geniuses?: People with very high IQs can be perceived as worse leaders", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 3 (March 2018), p. 20. Decades ago, psychologist
Dean Simonton
Dean Keith Simonton is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He is particularly interested in the study of human intelligence, creativity, greatness, and the psychology of science.
Simonton was born on Jan ...
suggested that brilliant leaders' words may go over people's heads, their solutions could be more complicated to implement, and followers might find it harder to relate to them. At last, in the July 2017 ''
Journal of Applied Psychology
The ''Journal of Applied Psychology'' is a monthly, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. The journal emphasizes the publication of original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understandin ...
'', he and two colleagues published the results of actual tests of the hypothesis.
Studied were 379 men and women business leaders in 30 countries, including the fields of banking, retail, and technology. The managers took IQ tests—an imperfect but robust predictor of performance in many areas—and each was rated on leadership style and effectiveness by an average of 8 co-workers. IQ correlated positively with ratings of leadership effectiveness,
strategy formation,
vision
Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to:
Perception Optical perception
* Visual perception, the sense of sight
* Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight
* Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...
, and several other characteristics—up to a point. The ratings peaked at an IQ of about 120, which is higher than some 80% of office workers. Beyond that, the ratings declined. The researchers suggested that the ideal IQ could be higher or lower in various fields, depending on whether technical or
social skills are more valued in a given work culture.
Psychologist Paul Sackett, not involved in the research, comments: "To me, the right interpretation of the work would be that it highlights a need to understand what high-IQ leaders do that leads to lower perceptions by followers. The wrong interpretation would be,'Don't hire high-IQ leaders.'"
The study's
lead author
In academic publishing, the lead author or first author is the first named author of a publication such as a research article or audit.
Academic authorship standards vary widely across disciplines. In many academic subjects, including the natural ...
, psychologist
John Antonakis
John Antonakis (born March 29, 1969) is a professor of organizational behavior at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne and current editor-in-chief of '' The Leadership Quarterly''.
Life
He was born and raised in Sou ...
, suggests that leaders should use their intelligence to generate creative
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
s that will persuade and inspire others. "I think the only way a smart person can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the people," says Antonakis, "is to speak in
charismatic ways."
Sociology of science
Specialization
Academic specialization In academic, specialization (or specialisation) may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field in which a specialist practices. In the case of an educator, academic specialization pertains to the subject th ...
produces great benefits for science and technology by focusing effort on discrete disciplines. But excessively narrow specialization can act as a roadblock to productive collaboration between traditional disciplines.
In 2017, in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
James Harris Simons
James Harris Simons (; born 25 April 1938) is an American mathematician, billionaire hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his f ...
, a noted mathematician and retired founder of one of the world's largest
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...
s, inaugurated the
Flatiron Institute
The Flatiron Institute is an internal research division of the Simons Foundation, launched in 2016. It comprises five centers for computational science: the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA); the Center for Computational Biology (CCB); ...
, a nonprofit enterprise whose goal is to apply his hedge fund's analytical strategies to projects dedicated to expanding knowledge and helping humanity. He has established computational divisions for research in astrophysics, biology, and quantum physics, and an interdisciplinary division for
climate modelling
Numerical climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the important drivers of climate, including atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the ...
that interfaces geology, oceanography, atmospheric science, biology, and climatology.
[D.T. Max, "The Numbers King: ]Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s made Jim Simons a Wall Street billionaire. His new research center helps scientists mine data for the common good", ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', 18 & 25 December 2017, p. 83.
The latter, fourth Flatiron Institute division was inspired by a 2017 presentation to the institute's leadership by
John Grotzinger, a "bio-geoscientist" from the
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
, who explained the challenges of climate modelling. Grotzinger was a specialist in historical climate change—specifically, what had caused the great
Permian extinction
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozo ...
, during which virtually all species died. To properly assess this cataclysm, one had to understand both the rock record and the ocean's composition, but
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
s did not interact much with
physical oceanographers
Physical may refer to:
*Physical examination
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...
. Grotzinger's own best collaboration had resulted from a fortuitous lunch with an oceanographer. Climate modelling was an intrinsically difficult problem made worse by
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
's structural divisions. "If you had it all under one umbrella... it could result
uch sooner
Uch ( pa, ;
ur, ), frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf ( pa, ;
ur, ; ''"Noble Uch"''), is a historic city in the southern part of Pakistan's Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town founded by Alexan ...
in a major breakthrough." Simons and his team found Grotzinger's presentation compelling, and the Flatiron Institute decided to establish its fourth and final computational division.
Mentoring
Sociologist
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
, in her 1977 study of natural-science
Nobel laureates in the United States, was struck by the fact that more than half (48) of the 92 laureates who did their prize-winning research in the U.S. by 1972 had worked either as students, postdoctorates, or junior collaborators under older Nobel laureates. Furthermore, those 48 future laureates had worked under a total of 71 laureate masters.
Social viscosity ensures that not every qualified novice scientist attains access to the most productive centers of scientific thought. Nevertheless, writes Zuckerman, "To some extent, students of promise can choose masters with whom to work and masters can choose among the cohorts of students who present themselves for study. This process of bilateral assortative selection is conspicuously at work among the ultra-elite of science. Actual and prospective members of that elite select their scientist parents and therewith their scientist ancestors just as later they select their scientist progeny and therewith their scientist descendants."
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
, ''Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States'', New York, The Free Press, 1977, p. 104.
Zuckerman writes: "
e lines of elite apprentices to elite masters who had themselves been elite apprentices, and so on indefinitely, often reach far back into the
history of science, long before 1900, when
lfredNobel's will inaugurated what now amounts to the International Academy of Sciences. As an example of the many long historical chains of elite masters and apprentices, consider the German-born English laureate Hans Adolf Krebs, Hans Krebs (1953), who traces his scientific lineage
..back through his master, the 1931 laureate Otto Heinrich Warburg, Otto Warburg. Warburg had studied with Hermann Emil Fischer, Emil Fis[c]her [1852–1919], recipient of a prize in 1902 at the age of 50, three years before it was awarded [in 1905] to ''his'' teacher, Adolf von Baeyer [1835–1917], at age 70. This lineage of four Nobel masters and apprentices has its own pre-Nobelian antecedents. Von Baeyer had been the apprentice of August Kekule, F[riedrich] A[ugust] Kekulé [1829–96], whose ideas of structural formulae revolutionized organic chemistry and who is perhaps best known for the often retold story about his having hit upon the ring structure of benzene in a dream (1865). Kekulé himself had been trained by the great organic chemistry, organic chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–73), who had studied at the University of Paris, Sorbonne with the master Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, J[oseph] L[ouis] Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), himself once apprenticed to Claude Louis Berthollet (1748–1822). Among his many institutional and cognitive accomplishments, Berthollet helped found the ''École Polytechnique'', served as science advisor to Napoleon in Egypt, and, more significant for our purposes here, worked with Antoine Lavoisier, [Antoine] Lavoisier [1743–94] to revise the standard system of chemical nomenclature."
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
, ''Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States'', New York, The Free Press, 1977, p. 105.
Collaboration
Sociologist Michael P. Farrell has studied close creative groups and writes: "Most of the fragile insights that laid the foundation of a new vision emerged not when the whole group was together, and not when members worked alone, but when they collaborated and repsonded to one another in pairs." François Jacob, who, with Jacques Monod, pioneered the study of gene regulation, notes that by the mid-20th century, most research in molecular biology was conducted by twosomes. "Two are better than one for dreaming up theories and constructing models," writes Jacob. "For with two minds working on a problem, ideas fly thicker and faster. They are bounced from partner to partner.... And in the process, illusions are sooner nipped in the bud." As of 2018, in the previous 35 years, some half of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine had gone to scientific partnerships. James Somers describes a remarkable partnership between Google's top software engineers, Jeff Dean (computer scientist), Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat.
Twosome collaborations have also been prominent in creative endeavors outside the
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
; examples are Monet's and Renoir's 1869 joint creation of Impressionism, Pablo Picasso's and Georges Braque's six-year collaborative creation of Cubism, and John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's collaborations on Beatles songs. "Everyone", writes James Somers, "falls into creative ruts, but two people rarely do so at the same time."
The same point was made by
Francis Crick, member of what may be history's most famous scientific duo, Francis Crick and James D. Watson, James Watson, who together discovered the structure of the genetic material,
DNA. At the end of a
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
television documentary on James Watson, in a video clipping Crick explains to Watson that their collaboration had been crucial to their discovery because, when one of them was wrong, the other would set him straight.
Politics
Big Science
What has been dubbed "Big Science" emerged from the United States' World War II Manhattan Project that produced the world's first nuclear weapons; and Big Science has since been associated with
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
, which requires massive particle accelerators. In
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, Big Science debuted in 1990 with the Human Genome Project to sequence human
DNA. In 2013 neuroscience became a Big Science domain when the U.S. announced a BRAIN Initiative and the European Union announced a Human Brain Project. Major new brain-research initiatives were also announced by Israel, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China.
Earlier successful Big Science projects had habituated politicians, mass media, and the public to view Big Science programs with sometimes uncritical favor.
[Stefan Theil, "Trouble in Mind", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 313, no. 4 (October 2015), p. 42.
The U.S.'s BRAIN Initiative was inspired by concern about the spread and cost of mental disorders and by excitement about new brain-manipulation technologies such as optogenetics.
[Stefan Theil, "Trouble in Mind", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 313, no. 4 (October 2015), p. 39. After some early false starts, the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health let the country's brain scientists define the BRAIN Initiative, and this led to an ambitious interdisciplinary program to develop new technological tools to better monitor, measure, and simulate the brain. Competition in research was ensured by the National Institute of Mental Health's peer review, peer-review process.
In the European Union, the European Commission's Human Brain Project got off to a rockier start because political and economic considerations obscured questions concerning the feasibility of the Project's initial scientific program, based principally on computer modeling of neural circuits. Four years earlier, in 2009, fearing that the European Union would fall further behind the U.S. in computer and other technologies, the European Union had begun creating a competition for Big Science projects, and the initial program for the Human Brain Project seemed a good fit for a European program that might take a lead in advanced and emerging technologies.
Only in 2015, after over 800 European neuroscientists threatened to boycott the European-wide collaboration, were changes introduced into the Human Brain Project, supplanting many of the original political and economic considerations with scientific ones.
As of 2019, the European Union's Human Brain Project had not lived up to its extravagant promise.
Funding
Government funding
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer and founder of Microsoft Research, argues that the funding of basic science cannot be left to the private sector—that "without government resources, basic science will grind to a halt."
[Nathan Myhrvold, "Even Genius Needs a Benefactor: Without government resources, basic science will grind to a halt", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 314, no. 2 (February 2016), p. 11. He notes that
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
general theory of relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric scientific theory, theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current descr ...
, published in 1915, did not spring full-blown from his brain in a eureka moment; he worked at it for years—finally driven to complete it by a rivalry with mathematician David Hilbert.
The history of almost any iconic scientific discovery or technological invention—the lightbulb, the transistor,
DNA, even the Internet—shows that the famous names credited with the breakthrough "were only a few steps ahead of a pack of competitors." Some writers and elected officials have used this phenomenon of "list of multiple discoveries, parallel innovation" to argue against public financing of basic research: government, they assert, should leave it to companies to finance the research they need.
Myhrvold writes that such arguments are dangerously wrong: without government support, most basic scientific research will never happen. "This is most clearly true for the kind of pure research that has delivered... great intellectual benefits but no profits, such as the work that brought us the Higgs boson, or the understanding that a supermassive black hole sits at the center of the Milky Way, or the discovery of methane seas on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan (moon), Titan. Company research laboratories used to do this kind of work: experimental evidence for the
Big Bang was discovered at AT&T's Bell Labs, resulting in a Nobel Prize. Now those days are gone."
Even in applied fields such as materials science and
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
, writes Myhrvold, "companies now understand that basic research is a form of Charity (practice), charity—so they avoid it." Bell Labs scientists created the transistor, but that invention earned billions for Intel and Microsoft. Xerox PARC engineers invented the modern graphical user interface, but Apple Inc., Apple and Microsoft profited most. IBM researchers pioneered the use of giant magnetoresistance to boost hard-disk capacity but soon lost the disk-drive business to Seagate Technology, Seagate and Western Digital.
Company researchers now have to focus narrowly on innovations that can quickly bring revenue; otherwise the research budget could not be justified to the company's investors. "Those who believe profit-driven companies will altruistically pay for basic science that has wide-ranging benefits—but mostly to others and not for a generation—are naive.... If government were to leave it to the private sector to pay for basic research, most
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
would come to a screeching halt. What research survived would be done largely in secret, for fear of handing the next big thing to a rival."
Governmental investment is equally vital in the field of biological research. According to William A. Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of that university's cancer and HIV / AIDS research departments, early efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic were hampered by governments and industry everywhere having "pulled the plug on coronavirus research funding in 2006 after the first SARS
..pandemic faded away and again in the years immediately following the MERS [outbreak, also caused by a coronavirus] when it seemed to be controllable.
..The development of promising anti-SARS and MERS drugs, which might have been active against SARS–CoV-2 [in the Covid-19 pandemic] as well, was left unfinished for lack of money."
[William A. Haseltine, "What We Learned from AIDS: Lessons from another pandemic for fighting COVID–19", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 323, no. 4 (October 2020), pp. 36–41. (p. 41.) Haseltine continues:
Private funding
A complementary perspective on the funding of scientific research is given by D.T. Max, writing about the
Flatiron Institute
The Flatiron Institute is an internal research division of the Simons Foundation, launched in 2016. It comprises five centers for computational science: the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA); the Center for Computational Biology (CCB); ...
, a computational center set up in 2017 in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
to provide scientists with mathematical assistance. The Flatiron Institute was established by
James Harris Simons
James Harris Simons (; born 25 April 1938) is an American mathematician, billionaire hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his f ...
, a mathematician who had used mathematical
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s to make himself a
Wall Street billionaire. The institute has three computational divisions dedicated respectively to astrophysics,
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, and
quantum physics, and is working on a fourth division for climate modeling that will involve interfaces of geology, oceanography, atmospheric science,
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, and climatology.
The Flatiron Institute is part of a trend in the sciences toward privately funded research. In the United States, basic science has traditionally been financed by universities or the government, but private institutes are often faster and more focused. Since the 1990s, when Silicon Valley began producing billionaires, private institutes have sprung up across the U.S. In 1997 Larry Ellison launched the Ellison Medical Foundation to study the biology of aging. In 2003 Paul Allen founded the
Allen Institute for Brain Science
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a division of the Allen Institute, based in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on bioscience research. Founded in 2003, it is dedicated to accelerating the understanding of how the human brain works. Wit ...
. In 2010 Eric Schmidt founded the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
[D.T. Max, "The Numbers King: ]Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s made Jim Simons a Wall Street billionaire. His new research center helps scientists mine data for the common good", ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', 18 & 25 December 2017, p. 75.
These institutes have done much good, partly by providing alternatives to more rigid systems. But private foundations also have liabilities. Wealthy benefactors tend to direct their funding toward their personal enthusiasms. And foundations are not taxed; much of the money that supports them would otherwise have gone to the government.
Funding biases
John P.A. Ioannidis, of Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University Medical School, writes that "There is increasing evidence that some of the ways we conduct, evaluate, report and disseminate research are miserably ineffective. A series of papers in 2014 in ''The Lancet''... estimated that 85 percent of investment in
biomedical research is wasted. Many other disciplines have similar problems."
[John P.A. Ioannidis, "Rethink Funding: The way we pay for science does not encourage the best results" (State of the World's Science, 2018), '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), p. 54. Ioannidis identifies some science-funding biases that undermine the efficiency of the scientific enterprise, and proposes solutions:
Funding too few scientists: "[M]ajor success [in scientific research] is largely the result of luck, as well as hard work. The investigators currently enjoying huge funding are not necessarily genuine superstars; they may simply be the best connected." Solutions: "Use a lottery to decide which grant applications to fund (perhaps after they pass a basic review).... Shift... funds from senior people to younger researchers..."
No reward for Open research, transparency: "Many scientific protocols, analysis methods, computational processes and data are opaque. [M]any top findings cannot be Reproducibility, reproduced. That is the case for two out of three top psychology papers, one out of three top papers in experimental economics and more than 75 percent of top papers identifying new cancer drug targets. [S]cientists are not rewarded for sharing their techniques." Solutions: "Create better infrastructure for enabling transparency, openness and sharing. Make transparency a prerequisite for funding. [P]referentially hire, promote or tenure... champions of transparency."
No encouragement for Reproducibility, replication: Replication is indispensable to the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...
. Yet, under pressure to produce new
discoveries, researchers tend to have little incentive, and much counterincentive, to try replicating results of previous studies. Solutions: "Funding agencies must pay for replication studies. Scientists' advancement should be based not only on their discoveries but also on their replication track record."
No funding for young scientists: "Werner Heisenberg,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
, Paul Dirac and Wolfgang Pauli made their top contributions in their mid-20s." But the average age of biomedical scientists receiving their first substantial grant is 46. The average age for a full professor in the U.S. is 55. Solutions: "A larger proportion of funding should be earmarked for young investigators. Universities should try to shift the aging distribution of their faculty by hiring more young investigators."
Biased funding sources: "Most funding for research and development in the U.S. comes not from the government but from private, for-profit sources, raising unavoidable conflicts of interest and pressure to deliver results favorable to the sponsor." Solutions: "Restrict or even ban funding that has overt conflicts of interest. Scientific journal, Journals should not accept research with such conflicts. For less conspicuous conflicts, at a minimum ensure transparent and thorough disclosure."
[John P.A. Ioannidis, "Rethink Funding: The way we pay for science does not encourage the best results" (State of the World's Science, 2018), '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), p. 55.
Funding the wrong fields: "Well-funded fields attract more scientists to work for them, which increases their lobbying reach, fueling a vicious circle. Some entrenched fields absorb enormous funding even though they have clearly demonstrated limited yield or uncorrectable flaws." Solutions: "Independent, impartial assessment of output is necessary for lavishly funded fields. More funds should be earmarked for new fields and fields that are high risk. Researchers should be encouraged to switch fields, whereas currently they are incentivized to focus in one area."
Not spending enough: The U.S. military budget ($886 billion) is 24 times the budget of the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
($37 billion). "Investment in science benefits society at large, yet attempts to convince the public often make matters worse when otherwise well-intentioned science leaders promise the impossible, such as promptly eliminating all cancer or Alzheimer's disease." Solutions: "We need to communicate how science funding is used by making the process of science clearer, including the number of scientists it takes to make major accomplishments.... We would also make a more convincing case for science if we could show that we do work hard on improving how we run it."
Rewarding big spenders: "Hiring, promotion and
tenure
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
decisions primarily rest on a researcher's ability to secure high levels of funding. But the expense of a project does not necessarily correlate with its importance. Such reward structures select mostly for politically savvy managers who know how to absorb money." Solutions: "We should reward scientists for high-quality work, reproducibility and social value rather than for securing funding. Excellent research can be done with little to no funding other than protected time. Institutions should provide this time and respect scientists who can do great work without wasting tons of money."
No funding for high-risk ideas: "The pressure that taxpayer money be 'well spent' leads government funders to back projects most likely to pay off with a positive result, even if riskier projects might lead to more important, but less assured, advances. Industry also avoids investing in high-risk projects... Innovation is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to predict..." Solutions: "Fund excellent scientists rather than projects and give them freedom to pursue research avenues as they see fit. Some institutions such as Howard Hughes Medical Institute already use this model with success." It must be communicated to the public and to policy-makers that science is a cumulative investment, that no one can know in advance which projects will succeed, and that success must be judged on the total agenda, not on a single experiment or result.
Lack of good data: "There is relatively limited evidence about which scientific practices work best. We need more research on research ('meta-research') to understand how to best perform, evaluate, review, disseminate and reward science." Solutions: "We should invest in studying how to get the best science and how to choose and reward the best scientists."
Diversity
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, professor of the
history of science at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, writes about the desirability of diversity in the backgrounds of scientists.
Sexual bias
Claire Pomeroy, president of the Lasker Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing medical research, points out that woman scientist, women scientists continue to be subjected to discrimination in professional advancement.
[Claire Pomeroy, "Academia's Gender Problem", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 314, no. 1 (January 2016), p. 11.
Though the percentage of doctorates awarded to women in life sciences in the United States increased from 15 to 52 percent between 1969 and 2009, only a third of assistant professors and less than a fifth of full professors in biology-related fields in 2009 were women. Women make up only 15 percent of permanent department chairs in medical schools and barely 16 percent of medical-school deans.
The problem is a culture of unconscious bias that leaves many women feeling demoralized and marginalized. In one study, science faculty were given identical résumés in which the names and genders of two applicants were interchanged; both male ''and'' female faculty judged the male applicant to be more competent and offered him a higher salary.
Unconscious bias also appears as "microassaults" against woman scientist, women scientists: purportedly insignificant sexism, sexist jokes and insults that accumulate over the years and undermine confidence and ambition. Writes Claire Pomeroy: "Each time it is assumed that the only woman in the lab group will play the role of recording secretary, each time a research plan becomes finalized in the men's lavatory between conference sessions, each time a woman is not invited to go out for a beer after the plenary lecture to talk shop, the damage is reinforced."
"When I speak to groups of women scientists," writes Pomeroy, "I often ask them if they have ever been in a meeting where they made a recommendation, had it ignored, and then heard a man receive praise and support for making the same point a few minutes later. Each time the majority of women in the audience raise their hands. Microassaults are especially damaging when they come from a high school, high-school science teacher, college mentor, university dean or a member of the scientific elite who has been awarded a prestigious prize—the very people who should be inspiring and supporting the next generation of scientists."
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is more prevalent in
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
than in any other social sector except the military. A June 2018 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine states that sexual harassment hurts individuals, diminishes the pool of scientific talent, and ultimately damages the integrity of science.
[Clara Moskowitz, "End Harassment: A leader of a major report on sexual misconduct explains how to make science accessible to everyone" (State of the World's Science, 2018), '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), p. 61.
Paula Johnson, co-chair of the committee that drew up the report, describes some measures for preventing sexual harassment in science. One would be to replace trainees' individual mentoring with group mentoring, and to uncouple the mentoring relationship from the trainee's financial dependence on the mentor. Another way would be to prohibit the use of confidentiality agreements in connection with harassment cases.
A novel approach to the reporting of sexual harassment, dubbed ''Callisto'', that has been adopted by some institutions of higher education, lets aggrieved persons record experiences of sexual harassment, date-stamped, without actually formally reporting them. This program lets people see if others have recorded experiences of harassment from the same individual, and share information anonymously.
Deterrent stereotypes
Psychologist Andrei Cimpian and
philosophy professor Sarah-Jane Leslie have proposed a theory to explain why American women and African-Americans are often subtly deterred from seeking to enter certain academic fields by a misplaced emphasis on genius. Cimpian and Leslie had noticed that their respective fields are similar in their substance but hold different views on what is important for success. Much more than psychologists, philosophers value a certain ''kind of person'': the "brilliant superstar" with an exceptional mind. Psychologists are more likely to believe that the leading lights in psychology grew to achieve their positions through hard work and experience. In 2015, women accounted for less than 30% of doctorates granted in philosophy; African-Americans made up only 1% of philosophy Ph.D.s. Psychology, on the other hand, has been successful in attracting women (72% of 2015 psychology Ph.D.s) and African-Americans (6% of psychology Ph.D.s).
An early insight into these disparities was provided to Cimpian and Leslie by the work of psychologist Carol Dweck. She and her colleagues had shown that a person's beliefs about Aptitude, ability matter a great deal for that person's ultimate success. A person who sees talent as a stable trait is motivated to "show off this aptitude" and to avoid making Error, mistakes. By contrast, a person who adopts a "growth mindset" sees his or her current capacity as a work in progress: for such a person, mistakes are not an indictment but a valuable signal highlighting which of their skills are in need of work. Cimpian and Leslie and their collaborators tested the hypothesis that attitudes, about "genius" and about the unacceptability of making mistakes, within various academic fields may account for the relative attractiveness of those fields for American women and African-Americans. They did so by contacting academic professionals from a wide range of disciplines and asking them whether they thought that some form of exceptional intellectual talent was required for success in their field. The answers received from almost 2,000 academics in 30 fields matched the distribution of Ph.D.s in the way that Cimpian and Leslie had expected: fields that placed more value on brilliance also conferred fewer Ph.D.s on women and African-Americans. The proportion of women and African-American Ph.D.s in psychology, for example, was higher than the parallel proportions for philosophy, mathematics, or physics.
Further investigation showed that non-academics share similar ideas of which fields require brilliance. Exposure to these ideas at home or school could discourage young members of stereotyped groups from pursuing certain careers, such as those in the natural sciences or engineering. To explore this, Cimpian and Leslie asked hundreds of five-, six-, and seven-year-old boys and girls questions that measured whether they associated being "really, really smart" (i.e., "brilliant") with their sex. The results, published in January 2017 in ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
'', were consistent with scientific literature on the early acquisition of sex stereotypes. Five-year-old boys and girls showed no difference in their self-assessment; but by age six, girls were less likely to think that girls are "really, really smart." The authors next introduced another group of five-, six-, and seven-year-olds to unfamiliar gamelike activities that the authors described as being "for children who are really, really smart." Comparison of boys' and girls' interest in these activities at each age showed no sex difference at age five but significantly greater interest from boys at ages six and seven—exactly the ages when stereotypes emerge.
[Andrei Cimpian and Sarah-Jane Leslie, "The Brilliance Trap", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 317, no. 3 (September 2017), p. 65.
Cimpian and Leslie conclude that, "Given current societal stereotypes, messages that portray [genius or brilliance] as singularly necessary [for academic success] may needlessly discourage talented members of stereotyped groups."
Academic snobbery
Largely as a result of his growing popularity, astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan, creator of the 1980
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
TV ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Cosmos'' series, came to be ridiculed by scientist peers and failed to receive tenure at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in the 1960s and membership in the National Academy of Sciences in the 1990s. The eponymous "Sagan effect" persists: as a group, scientists still discourage individual investigators from engaging with the public unless they are already well-established senior researchers.
[Susana Martinez-Conde, Devin Powell and Stephen L. Macknik, "The Plight of the Celebrity Scientist", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 315, no. 4 (October 2016), p. 65.[The Editors, "Go Public or Perish: When universities discourage scientists from speaking out, society suffers", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 2 (February 2018), p. 6.
The operation of the Sagan effect deprives society of the full range of expertise needed to make informed decisions about complex questions, including genetic engineering,
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, and
energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...
alternatives. Fewer scientific voices mean fewer arguments to counter antiscience or pseudoscientific discussion. The Sagan effect also creates the false impression that science is the domain of older white men (who dominate the senior ranks), thereby tending to discourage women and minorities from considering science careers.
A number of factors contribute to the Sagan effect's durability. At the height of the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, many researchers emulated the example of
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
, who dedicated himself to physics and mathematics and never married. These scientists were viewed as pure seekers of truth who were not distracted by more mundane concerns. Similarly, today anything that takes scientists away from their research, such as having a hobby or taking part in public debates, can undermine their credibility as researchers.
[Susana Martinez-Conde, Devin Powell and Stephen L. Macknik, "The Plight of the Celebrity Scientist", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 315, no. 4 (October 2016), p. 66.
Another, more prosaic factor in the Sagan effect's persistence may be professional jealousy.
However, there appear to be some signs that engaging with the rest of society is becoming less hazardous to a career in science. So many people have social-media accounts now that becoming a public figure is not as unusual for scientists as previously. Moreover, as traditional funding sources stagnate, going public sometimes leads to new, unconventional funding streams. A few institutions such as Emory University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have begun to appreciate outreach as an area of academic activity, in addition to the traditional roles of research, teaching, and administration. Exceptional among federal funding agencies, the National Science Foundation now officially favors popularization.
Institutional snobbery
Like
infectious disease
An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...
s, ideas in
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
are contagious. But why some ideas gain great currency while equally good ones remain in relative obscurity had been unclear. A team of
computer scientists has used an epidemiology, epidemiological model to simulate how ideas move from one academic institution to another. The model-based findings, published in October 2018, show that ideas originating at prestigious institutions cause bigger "epidemics" than equally good ideas from less prominent places. The finding reveals a big weakness in how science is done. Many highly trained people with good ideas do not obtain posts at the most prestigious institutions; much good work published by workers at less prestigious places is overlooked by other scientists and scholars because they are not paying attention.
[Viviane Callier, "Idea Epidemic: An infectious disease model shows how science knowledge spreads", '']Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 320, no. 2 (February 2019), p. 14.
Public relations
Resistance, among some of the public, to accepting vaccination and the reality of
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
may be traceable partly to several decades of partisan attacks on government, leading to distrust of government science and then of science generally.
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Scientists: Please Speak Plainly", ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 4 (October 2021), p. 88.
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
identifies another factor that "turns people off": scientists' frequent use of jargon – of expressions that tend to be misinterpreted by, or incomprehensible to, laypersons.
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Scientists: Please Speak Plainly", ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 4 (October 2021), p. 88.
In climatological parlance, "positive feedback" refers to amplifying feedback loops, such as the ice-albedo feedback. ("Albedo", another piece of jargon, simply means "reflectivity".) The positive loop in question develops when global warming causes Arctic ice to melt, exposing water that is darker and reflects less of the sun's warming rays, leading to more warming, which leads to more melting... and so on. In climatology, such positive feedback is a bad thing; but for most laypersons, "it conjures reassuring images, such as receiving praise from your boss.".
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Scientists: Please Speak Plainly", ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 4 (October 2021), p. 88.
See also
* Agnotology
* Cancel culture
* Chinese room
* Demarcation problem
* Denialism
* Economics of science
* Economics of scientific knowledge
* Hard and soft science
* Historiography of science
* History of military technology
* History of science
* History of science policy
* History of technology
* Interdisciplinarity
* Invalid science
* List of examples of Stigler's law
* List of misnamed theorems
* List of scientific misconduct incidents
* ''Little Science, Big Science''
* Matilda effect
* Matthew effect
* Mertonian norms
* Philosophy of science
* Politicization of science
* Pseudoscience
* Publication bias
* Publish or perish
* Replicability
* Replication crisis
* Reproducibility Project
* Role of chance in scientific discoveries
* Science and technology studies
* Science of science policy
* Science studies
* Science, technology and society
* Scientific misconduct
* Scientometrics
* Serendipity
* Sociology of knowledge
* Sociology of science
* Sociology of scientific ignorance
* Sociology of scientific knowledge
* Stigler's law of eponymy
* Technological singularity
* Women in computing
* Women in science
* Women in STEM fields
* Woozle effect
* Workplace bullying in academia
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
* Viviane Callier, "Idea Epidemic: An infectious disease model shows how science knowledge spreads", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 320, no. 2 (February 2019), p. 14.
* Andrei Cimpian and Sarah-Jane Leslie, "The Brilliance Trap", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 317, no. 3 (September 2017), pp. 60–65.
*
Kenneth Cukier, "Ready for Robots? How to Think about the Future of AI", ''
Foreign Affairs'', vol. 98, no. 4 (July/August 2019), pp. 192–98.
* Lydia Denworth, "A Significant Problem: Standard scientific methods are under fire. Will anything change?", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 321, no. 4 (October 2019), pp. 62–67.
*
Pedro Domingos, "Our Digital Doubles: AI will serve our species, not control it", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 3 (September 2018), pp. 88–93.
*
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...
, "The Case for Blunders" (review of
Mario Livio
Mario Livio (born June 19, 1945) is an Israeli-American astrophysicist and an author of works that popularize science and mathematics. For 24 years (1991-2015) he was an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates th ...
, ''Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein—Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists that Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe'', Simon and Schuster), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXI, no. 4 (March 6, 2014), pp. 4–8.
* The Editors, "Go Public or Perish: When universities discourage scientists from speaking out, society suffers", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 2 (February 2018), p. 6.
* Erica Gies, "The Meaning of Lichen: How a self-taught naturalist unearthed hidden symbioses in the wilds of British Columbia—and helped to overturn 150 years of accepted scientific wisdom", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 316, no. 6 (June 2017), pp. 52–59.
*
Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser (born March 19, 1959) is a Brazilian physicist and astronomer. He is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College and was the 2019 recipient of the Templeton Prize.
Early life and education
Gleiser received ...
, "How Much Can We Know? The reach of the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...
is constrained by the limitations of our tools and the intrinsic impenetrability of some of nature's deepest questions", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 6 (June 2018), pp. 72–73.
* Aleksander Głowacki, ''On Discoveries and Inventions: A Public Lecture Delivered on 23 March 1873 by Aleksander Głowacki [Bolesław Prus]'', Passed by the [Russian] Censor (Warsaw, 21 April 1873), Warsaw, Printed by F. Krokoszyńska, 1873
* Brian Greene, interviewed about theoretical physics by Walter Isaacson on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
' ''Amanpour & Company'', 24 October 2018.
* A. Rupert Hall, ''Philosophers at War: The Quarrel between Newton and Leibniz'', New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980, .
* William A. Haseltine, "What We Learned from AIDS: Lessons from another pandemic for fighting COVID–19", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 323, no. 4 (October 2020), pp. 36–41.
*
Jim Holt, "At the Core of Science" (a review of
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interac ...
, ''To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science'', Harper, 2015, ), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXII, no. 14 (September 24, 2015), p. 53–54.
* Matthew Hutson, "Ineffective Geniuses?: People with very high IQs can be perceived as worse leaders", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 3 (March 2018), p. 20.
* John P.A. Ioannidis, "Rethink Funding: The way we pay for science does not encourage the best results" (State of the World's Science, 2018), ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), pp. 53–55.
* Steven Johnson (author), Steven Johnson, ''Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation'', New York, Riverhead Books, 2010, .
* Christopher Kasparek, "Prus' ''Pharaoh (Prus novel), Pharaoh'': the Creation of a Historical Novel," ''The Polish Review'', vol. XXXIX, no. 1 (1994), pp. 45–50.
* Christopher Kasparek, review of Robert Olby, ''The Path to the Double Helix'' (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1974), in ''Zagadnienia naukoznawstwa'' (''Logology'', or ''Science of Science''), Warsaw, vol. 14, no. 3 (1978), pp. 461–63.
* Q[ing] Ke; et al. (2015). "Defining and identifying Sleeping Beauties in science". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112: 7426–7431. doi:10.1073/pnas.1424329112.
* Thomas S. Kuhn, ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'', 1st ed., Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1962.
* David Lamb and S.M. Easton, ''Multiple Discovery: The Pattern of Scientific Progress'', Amersham, Avebury Press, 1984, .
*
Gary Marcus
Gary F. Marcus (born February 8, 1970) is a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University. In 2014 he founded Geometric Intelligence, a machine-learning company later acquired by Uber. Marcus's books include '' Gui ...
, "Am I Human?: Researchers need new ways to distinguish
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
from the natural kind", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 316, no. 3 (March 2017), pp. 58–63.
*
Gary Marcus
Gary F. Marcus (born February 8, 1970) is a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University. In 2014 he founded Geometric Intelligence, a machine-learning company later acquired by Uber. Marcus's books include '' Gui ...
, "Artificial Confidence: Even the newest, buzziest systems of artificial general intelligence are stymied by the same old problems", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 327, no. 4 (October 2022), pp. 42–45.
* Susana Martinez-Conde, Devin Powell and Stephen L. Macknik, "The Plight of the Celebrity Scientist", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 315, no. 4 (October 2016), pp. 64–67.
* D.T. Max, "The Numbers King:
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s made
Jim Simons a
Wall Street billionaire. His new research center helps scientists mine data for the common good", ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', 18 & 25 December 2017, pp. 72–76, 78–83.
*
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
, ''On Social Structure and Science'', edited and with an introduction by Piotr Sztompka, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
*
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
, ''The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations'', Chicago, University of Chicago Press,1973.
* Clara Moskowitz, "End Harassment: A leader of a major report on sexual misconduct explains how to make science accessible to everyone" (State of the World's Science, 2018), ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), p. 61.
* Nathan Myhrvold, "Even Genius Needs a Benefactor: Without government resources, basic science will grind to a halt", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 314, no. 2 (February 2016), p. 11.
*
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, ...
, "Listening to Reason" (a review of T.M. Scanlon, ''Being Realistic about Reasons'', Oxford University Press, 132 pp.), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXI, no. 15 (October 9, 2014), pp. 47–49.
*
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Is Science Actually 'Right'?: It doesn't deliver absolute truth, but it contains useful elements of truth", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 1 (July 2021), p. 78.
*
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Scientists: Please Speak Plainly", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 4 (October 2021), p. 88.
*
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Sexism and Racism Persist in Science: We kid ourselves if we insist that the system will magically correct itself", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 323, no. 4 (October 2020), p. 81.
*
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "Tainted Money Taints Research: How sex offender Jeffrey Epstein bought influence at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 323, no. 3 (September 2020), p. 84.
*
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes (; born November 25, 1958) is an American historian of science. She became Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University in 2013, after 15 years as Professor of H ...
, "The Appeal of Bad Science: Nonreplicable studies are cited strangely often", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 325, no. 2 (August 2021), p. 82.
*
Maria Ossowska
Maria Ossowska (''née'' Maria Niedźwiecka, 16 January 1896, Warsaw – 13 August 1974, Warsaw) was a Polish sociologist and social philosopher.
Life
A student of the philosopher Tadeusz Kotarbiński, she originally in 1925 received a doctorat ...
and
Stanisław Ossowski, "The Science of Science", reprinted in Bohdan Walentynowicz, ed., ''Polish Contributions to the Science of Science'', Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, pp. 82–95.
*
Shannon Palus, "Make Research Reproducible: Better incentives could reduce the alarming number of studies that turn out to be wrong when repeated" (State of the World's Science, 2018), ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 319, no. 4 (October 2018), pp. 56–59.
* Claire Pomeroy, "Academia's Gender Problem", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 314, no. 1 (January 2016), p. 11.
*
Bolesław Prus
Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, as well as a distinctive voice in world li ...
, ''On Discoveries and Inventions: A Public Lecture Delivered on 23 March 1873 by Aleksander Głowacki [Bolesław Prus]'', Passed by the [Russian] Censor (Warsaw, 21 April 1873), Warsaw, Printed by F. Krokoszyńska, 1873
* Tori Reeve, ''Down House: the Home of
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
'', London, English Heritage, 2009.
* Joshua Rothman (journalist), Joshua Rothman, "The Rules of the Game: How does science really work?" (review of Michael Strevens, ''The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science'', Liveright), ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', 5 October 2020, pp. 67–71.
* Melissa A. Schilling, ''Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World'', New York, Public Affairs, 2018, .
*
John R. Searle, "What Your Computer Can't Know" (review of Luciano Floridi, ''The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere Is Reshaping Human Reality'', Oxford University Press, 2014; and Nick Bostrom, ''Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies'', Oxford University Press, 2014), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXI, no. 15 (October 9, 2014), pp. 52–55.
*
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of ''Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientifi ...
, "''Scientia Humanitatis'': Reason, empiricism and skepticism are not virtues of science alone", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 312, no. 6 (June 2015), p. 80.
* James Somers, "Binary Stars: The friendship that made Google huge", ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', 10 December 2018, pp. 28–35.
* Herbert Spencer, ''First Principles'', part I: "The Unknowable", chapter IV: "The Relativity of All Knowledge", 1862.
* :pl:Klemens Szaniawski, Klemens Szaniawski, "Preface", ''Polish Contributions to the Science of Science'', Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, , pp. VII–X.
* Paul Taylor, "Insanely Complicated, Hopelessly Inadequate" (review of Brian Cantwell Smith, ''The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment'', MIT, October 2019, , 157 pp.;
Gary Marcus
Gary F. Marcus (born February 8, 1970) is a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University. In 2014 he founded Geometric Intelligence, a machine-learning company later acquired by Uber. Marcus's books include '' Gui ...
and Ernest Davis, ''Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust'', Ballantine, September 2019, , 304 pp.; Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie, ''The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect'', Penguin, May 2019, , 418 pp.), ''London Review of Books'', vol. 43, no. 2 (21 January 2021), pp. 37–39.
* Stefan Theil, "Trouble in Mind: Two years in, a $1-billion-plus effort to simulate the human brain is in disarray. Was it poor management, or is something fundamentally wrong with Big Science?", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 313, no. 4 (October 2015), pp. 36–42.
* G.W. Trompf, ''The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, from Antiquity to the Reformation'', Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979, .
* :pl:Bohdan Walentynowicz, Bohdan Walentynowicz, ed., ''Polish Contributions to the Science of Science'', Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, .
* :pl:Bohdan Walentynowicz, Bohdan Walentynowicz, "Editor's Note", ''Polish Contributions to the Science of Science'', Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, , pp. XI–XII.
*
Florian Znaniecki
Florian Witold Znaniecki (15 January 1882 – 23 March 1958) was a Polish philosopher and sociologist who taught and wrote in Poland and in the United States. Over the course of his work he shifted his focus from philosophy to sociology. H ...
, "The Subject Matter and Tasks of the Science of Knowledge" (English translation), in Bohdan Walentynowicz, ed., ''Polish Contributions to the Science of Science'', Dordrecht, Holland, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982, , pp. 1–81.
*
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
, ''Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States'', New York, The Free Press, 1977.
Further reading
* Dominus, Susan, "Sidelined: American women have been advancing science and technology for centuries. But their achievements weren't recognized until a tough-minded scholar [Margaret W. Rossiter] hit the road and rattled the academic world", ''Smithsonian'', vol. 50, no. 6 (October 2019), pp. 42–53, 80.
* Ann Finkbeiner, Finkbeiner, Ann, "Women Take On the Stars: A new wave of astronomers are leading a revolution in scientific culture", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 326, no. 4 (April 2022), pp. 32–39. Women astronomers have been making progress against professional discrimination and sexual harassment toward women.
* Priyamvada Natarajan, Natarajan, Priyamvada, "Calculating Women" (review of Margot Lee Shetterly, ''Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race'', William Morrow; Dava Sobel, ''The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars'', Viking; and Nathalia Holt, ''Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars'', Little, Brown), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXIV, no. 9 (25 May 2017), pp. 38–39.
* Jessica Riskin, Riskin, Jessica, "Just Use Your Thinking Pump!" (review of Henry M. Cowles, ''The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey'', Harvard University Press, 372 pp.), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXVII, no. 11 (2 July 2020), pp. 48–50.
* Steven Rose, "Pissing in the Snow" (review of Audra J. Wolfe, ''Freedom's Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science'', Johns Hopkins, January 2019, , 302 pp.), ''London Review of Books'', vol. 41, no. 14 (18 July 2019), pp. 31–33.
* ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'' Board of Editors, "Science Suffers from Harassment: A leading organization has said that sexual harassment is scientific misconduct. Where are the others?", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'', vol. 318, no. 3 (March 2018), p. 8.
* James D. Watson, Watson, James D., ''The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of
DNA'', New York, Atheneum, 1968.
External links
''American Masters: Decoding Watson''-
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
documentary about
James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of
DNA, including interviews with Watson, his family, and colleagues. 2019-01-02.
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