It’s not necessary for each person to personally identify the best minds on all topics and exclusively defer to them. It’s more a heuristic of deferring to the people those you trust most defer to on specific topics, and calibrating your confidence according to your own level of ability to parse who to trust and who not to.
But really these are two separate issues: how to exercise judgment in deciding who to trust, and the causes of research being “memetic.” I still say research is memetic not because mediocre researchers are blithely kicking around nonsense ideas that take on an exaggerated life of their own, but mainly because of politics and business ramifications of the research.
The idea that wine is good for you is memetic both because of its way of poking at “established wisdom” and because the alcohol industry sponsors research in that direction.
Similar for implicit bias tests, which are a whole little industry of their own.
Clinical trials represent decades of investment in a therapeutic strategy. Even if an informed person would be skeptical that current Alzheimer’s approaches are the way to go, businesses that have invested in it are best served by gambling on another try and hoping to turn a profit. So they’re incentivized to keep plugging the idea that their strategy really is striking at the root of the disease.
I really feel like we’re talking past each other here, because I have no idea how any of what you said relates to what I said, except the first paragraph.
As for that, what you describe sounds worse than a median researcher problem, instead sounding like a situation ripe for group think instead!
Yes, I agree it’s worse. If ONLY a better understanding of statistics by Phd students and research faculty was at the root of our cultural confusion around science.
It’s not necessary for each person to personally identify the best minds on all topics and exclusively defer to them. It’s more a heuristic of deferring to the people those you trust most defer to on specific topics, and calibrating your confidence according to your own level of ability to parse who to trust and who not to.
But really these are two separate issues: how to exercise judgment in deciding who to trust, and the causes of research being “memetic.” I still say research is memetic not because mediocre researchers are blithely kicking around nonsense ideas that take on an exaggerated life of their own, but mainly because of politics and business ramifications of the research.
The idea that wine is good for you is memetic both because of its way of poking at “established wisdom” and because the alcohol industry sponsors research in that direction.
Similar for implicit bias tests, which are a whole little industry of their own.
Clinical trials represent decades of investment in a therapeutic strategy. Even if an informed person would be skeptical that current Alzheimer’s approaches are the way to go, businesses that have invested in it are best served by gambling on another try and hoping to turn a profit. So they’re incentivized to keep plugging the idea that their strategy really is striking at the root of the disease.
I really feel like we’re talking past each other here, because I have no idea how any of what you said relates to what I said, except the first paragraph.
As for that, what you describe sounds worse than a median researcher problem, instead sounding like a situation ripe for group think instead!
Yes, I agree it’s worse. If ONLY a better understanding of statistics by Phd students and research faculty was at the root of our cultural confusion around science.