No I don’t think the academic process is aligned with making paradigm-shifting breakthroughs. Scott Alexander wrote a good piece that address this question. His purpose was to rebut the notion that modern scientists are way less efficient than their historical counterparts. I generally agree with his conclusion that the modern academic research apparatus isn’t hampering scientific advancement in any way that would affect the trendlines. Yet I think he also cites a lot of good evidence which rebuts the opposite notion: that academic research has done anything positive for scientific advancement. Although Scott himself doesn’t come to that conclusion.
Most of the examples of paradigm shifting work I can think of came from giving people who were very smart a large stipend of money to live off of and allowing them to research what they wanted (Newton, Liebniz, even Einstein counts as working as a patent examiner essentially gave him a stipend and an office where he got to do thought experiments). The other similar effective method is getting a lot of smart people working together, give them a bunch of money of course, and also give them a goal to accomplish within a few years (i.e. Manhattan Project, cryptography protocols).
Money and smart people seems to be a good baseline for what’s required for scientific advancement. Academic research has a lot of money and smart people that’s for sure! But it also has a lot of other features, the features you describe in your post, and it’s not clear to me that they actually do anything. Based on historical evidence it seems that if we gave research grants to smart and personable university graduates and gave them carte blanche to do with the money what they wished that would work just as well as the current system.
if we gave research grants to smart and personable university graduates and gave them carte blanche to do with the money what they wished that would work just as well as the current system
This thought is not unique to you; see e.g. the French CNRS system. My impression is that it works kind of as you would expect; a lot of them go on to do solid work, some do great work, and a few stop working after a couple of years. Of course we can not really know how things would have turned out if the same people had been given more conventional positions,
No I don’t think the academic process is aligned with making paradigm-shifting breakthroughs. Scott Alexander wrote a good piece that address this question. His purpose was to rebut the notion that modern scientists are way less efficient than their historical counterparts. I generally agree with his conclusion that the modern academic research apparatus isn’t hampering scientific advancement in any way that would affect the trendlines. Yet I think he also cites a lot of good evidence which rebuts the opposite notion: that academic research has done anything positive for scientific advancement. Although Scott himself doesn’t come to that conclusion.
Most of the examples of paradigm shifting work I can think of came from giving people who were very smart a large stipend of money to live off of and allowing them to research what they wanted (Newton, Liebniz, even Einstein counts as working as a patent examiner essentially gave him a stipend and an office where he got to do thought experiments). The other similar effective method is getting a lot of smart people working together, give them a bunch of money of course, and also give them a goal to accomplish within a few years (i.e. Manhattan Project, cryptography protocols).
Money and smart people seems to be a good baseline for what’s required for scientific advancement. Academic research has a lot of money and smart people that’s for sure! But it also has a lot of other features, the features you describe in your post, and it’s not clear to me that they actually do anything. Based on historical evidence it seems that if we gave research grants to smart and personable university graduates and gave them carte blanche to do with the money what they wished that would work just as well as the current system.
This thought is not unique to you; see e.g. the French CNRS system. My impression is that it works kind of as you would expect; a lot of them go on to do solid work, some do great work, and a few stop working after a couple of years. Of course we can not really know how things would have turned out if the same people had been given more conventional positions,