Thank you, Thomas. I believe we find ourselves in broad agreement.
The distinction you make between lay-legibility and expert-legibility is especially well-drawn.
One point: the confidence of researchers in their own approach may not be the right thing to look at. Perhaps a better measure is seeing who can predict not only their own approach will succed but explain in detail why other approaches won’t work. Anecdotally, very succesful researchers have a keen sense of what will work out and what won’t—in private conversation many are willing to share detailed models why other approaches will not work or are not as promising. I’d have to think about this more carefully but anecdotally the most succesful researchers have many bits of information over their competitors not just one or two.
(Note that one bit of information means that their entire advantage could be wiped out by answering a single Y/N question. Not impossible, but not typical for most cases)
Thank you, Thomas. I believe we find ourselves in broad agreement. The distinction you make between lay-legibility and expert-legibility is especially well-drawn.
One point: the confidence of researchers in their own approach may not be the right thing to look at. Perhaps a better measure is seeing who can predict not only their own approach will succed but explain in detail why other approaches won’t work. Anecdotally, very succesful researchers have a keen sense of what will work out and what won’t—in private conversation many are willing to share detailed models why other approaches will not work or are not as promising. I’d have to think about this more carefully but anecdotally the most succesful researchers have many bits of information over their competitors not just one or two. (Note that one bit of information means that their entire advantage could be wiped out by answering a single Y/N question. Not impossible, but not typical for most cases)