These concerns are widely shared for research in the hard sciences (e.g., nuclear physics), but are valid as well for the social sciences.
Social science infohazards are not a thing because they must be implemented by an organization to work and organizations leak like a sieve. Even nuclear secrets leak. This demand for secrecy is an blatant excuse used to obstruct oversight and to prevent peer review. What you’re doing is the opposite of science.
This demand for secrecy is an blatant excuse used to obstruct oversight and to prevent peer review. What you’re doing is the opposite of science.
Interestingly, “peer review” occurs pretty late in the development of scientific culture. It’s not something we see in our case studies on early electricity, for example, which currently cover the period between 1600 and 1820.
What we do see throughout the history is the norm of researchers sharing their findings with others interested in the same topics. It’s an open question whether Leverage 1.0 violated this norm. On the one hand, they had a quite vibrant and open culture around their findings internally and did seek out others who might have something to offer to their project. On the other hand, they certainly didn’t make any of this easily accessible to outsiders. I’m inclined to think they violated some scientific norms in this regard, but I think the work they were doing is pretty clearly science albeit early stage science.
I want to draw attention to the fact that “Kerry Vaughan” is a brand new account that has made exactly three comments, all of them on this thread. “Kerry Vaughan” is associated with Leverage. “Kerry Vaughan”’s use of “they” to describe Leverage is deliberately misleading.
If “it’s not unscientific because it merely takes science back 200-400 years” is the best defense that LEVERAGE ITSELF can give for its own epistemic standards then any claims it has to scientific rigor are laughable. 1600 was the time of William Shakespeare.
Edit: I’m not saying that science in 1600 was laughable. I’m saying that performing 1600-style science today is laughable.
I want to draw attention to the fact that “Kerry Vaughan” is a brand new account that has made exactly three comments, all of them on this thread. “Kerry Vaughan” is associated with Leverage. “Kerry Vaughan”’s use of “they” to describe Leverage is deliberately misleading.
I’m not hiding my connection to Leverage which is why I used my real name, mentioned that I work at Leverage in other comments, and used “we” in connection with a link to Leverage’s case studies. I used “they” to refer to Leverage 1.0 since I didn’t work at Leverage during that time.
I want to draw attention to the fact that “Kerry Vaughan” is a brand new account that has made exactly three comments, all of them on this thread. “Kerry Vaughan” is associated with Leverage. “Kerry Vaughan”’s use of “they” to describe Leverage is deliberately misleading.
To be fair, KV was open about that association in both previous comments, using ‘we’ in the first and including this disclaimer in the second --
(I currently work at Leverage research but did not work at Leverage during Leverage 1.0 (although I interacted with Leverage 1.0 and know many of the people involved). Before working at Leverage I did EA community building at CEA between Summer 2014 and early 2019.)
-- which also seems to explain the use of ‘they’ in KV’s third comment, which referred specifically to “Leverage 1.0”.
(I hope this goes without saying on LW, but I don’t mean this as a general defense of Leverage or of KV’s opinions. I know nothing about either beyond what I’ve read here, and I haven’t even read all the relevant comments. Personally I wouldn’t get involved with an organisation like Leverage.)
Social science infohazards are not a thing because they must be implemented by an organization to work and organizations leak like a sieve. Even nuclear secrets leak. This demand for secrecy is an blatant excuse used to obstruct oversight and to prevent peer review. What you’re doing is the opposite of science.
Interestingly, “peer review” occurs pretty late in the development of scientific culture. It’s not something we see in our case studies on early electricity, for example, which currently cover the period between 1600 and 1820.
What we do see throughout the history is the norm of researchers sharing their findings with others interested in the same topics. It’s an open question whether Leverage 1.0 violated this norm. On the one hand, they had a quite vibrant and open culture around their findings internally and did seek out others who might have something to offer to their project. On the other hand, they certainly didn’t make any of this easily accessible to outsiders. I’m inclined to think they violated some scientific norms in this regard, but I think the work they were doing is pretty clearly science albeit early stage science.
I want to draw attention to the fact that “Kerry Vaughan” is a brand new account that has made exactly three comments, all of them on this thread. “Kerry Vaughan” is associated with Leverage. “Kerry Vaughan”’s use of “they” to describe Leverage is deliberately misleading.
If “it’s not unscientific because it merely takes science back 200-400 years” is the best defense that LEVERAGE ITSELF can give for its own epistemic standards then any claims it has to scientific rigor are laughable. 1600 was the time of William Shakespeare.
Edit: I’m not saying that science in 1600 was laughable. I’m saying that performing 1600-style science today is laughable.
I’m not hiding my connection to Leverage which is why I used my real name, mentioned that I work at Leverage in other comments, and used “we” in connection with a link to Leverage’s case studies. I used “they” to refer to Leverage 1.0 since I didn’t work at Leverage during that time.
To be fair, KV was open about that association in both previous comments, using ‘we’ in the first and including this disclaimer in the second --
-- which also seems to explain the use of ‘they’ in KV’s third comment, which referred specifically to “Leverage 1.0”.
(I hope this goes without saying on LW, but I don’t mean this as a general defense of Leverage or of KV’s opinions. I know nothing about either beyond what I’ve read here, and I haven’t even read all the relevant comments. Personally I wouldn’t get involved with an organisation like Leverage.)
The problem is that currents academic standards lead to fields like psychology being very unproductive.
Experimenting with going back to scientific norms from before the great stagnation is one way to work to achieve scientific progress.
(This account is the same Kerry btw, my guess is Kerry happened to try logging in with google, which doesn’t actually connect to existing accounts)
I don’t think that’s my account actually. It’s entirely possible that I never created a LW account before now.