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Science Is Getting Harder

mattsclancy.substack.com

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Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#121

Post by killjoywashere »

Fomite wrote: post #108
cycomanic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Being a scientist has become worse (although I would argue that is true for many other jobs as well). A PI nowadays really works like the leader of a small startup constantly looking for money to keep the ship afloat without the prospect of a big payout at the end.

This. I am a PI. What I spent my day doing was dealing with managerial tasks, fiddly stuff for funding applications, etc. I got to actually code for a whole day last week, and it was marvelous . It was also only possible because it was an all-hands-on-deck, everything else can wait situation.

I spent like 10 total hours writing analytical code in 2020; maybe another 100 hours of analytic design. The rest was meetings, politics, coordination. I got a national award and millions in funding. I would trade it for more time playing with the puzzles. Do I feel good that my people got published and covered rent, hit major life goals (marriages, home purchases)? Yes. But, man, do I wish I got to do more science…

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#122

Post by skellington »

Although we could try to use science to prove that science is harder, it seems pretty clear just through intuition that it must on the average be harder. Inventing calculus was amazing, but it's pretty simple compared to what people called advanced math today. Imagine trying to make an interesting discovery in math today compared to adding something to number theory 300 years ago.

There might be a lot of space for applied math/physics, but perhaps this is closer to engineering than research though the distinction is often blurry.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#123

Post by sortalongo »

The thesis of the article is plausible, but I think it’s missing the broader perspective.

It makes sense that science picks “low hanging fruit” early on. Then, on average, later discoveries require more effort.

But the rate of progress depends on both how much effort a discovery takes AND how much effort is available. The progress of society has made it possible to aim exponentially more resources at solving problems. Computers let us automate things. Medicine & farming mean more humans can do higher value work. Better politics means fewer people dying in wars.

So I don’t care if each discovery takes more effort than the last. As long as we get exponentially more resources to go along with it, we can keep creating exponentially more knowledge for a looong time.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#124

Post by bjornsing »

groffee wrote: post #40
bjornsing wrote: post #9

Sorry if this sounds elitist to anyone but (I guess it is): When the R&D workforce expands at the rate it has over the last few decades you will invariably see less talented and less talented people entering the field. Also, various forms of overhead will grow with the size of the workforce. As an example about 20 people attended the 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics. How many attend a conference today? With the grow…

> 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics The Solvay conference was invite only, but I think your point still stands.

Yea I know. But I figured the point would stand anyway so used the example. Which 20 people in physics would you even invite today? (Rhetorical question.)

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#125

Post by Helmut10001 »

We are in need for new metrics beyond citation count or quantity of published papers. A century ago, there was more content in each paper than it is today. This is mainly related to the incentives that exist today to publish, e.g. for getting a raise in salary or getting a getting a new academic position. I like to cite older papers because I can reference them multiple times in a single manuscript, reducing the number of references (e.g. below 60). If I would cite new papers, results are spread across 10 or more publication what was once published in a single paper.

I haven't found a fair way to assess quality of papers - I think it depends highly on individual author motivations. If we are able to identify the right patterns among authors' motivations, it may be possible to come up with a better rating system for papers published. Current rating systems focus too much on individual papers/journals, and too less on authors.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#126

Post by kmmlng »

aborsy wrote: post #78
cycomanic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we underestimate the amount of politics that was going on in science previously. Really compared to the shenanigans with Newton, Leibnitz or Hooke and Newton, much of what we see today is quite harmless. Or take for a more recent example Teller and Oppenheimer. I think in science (but not only in science) we tend to idealise the old days and scientists, because we remember the discoveries not the politics and…

Teller touches upon this subject. In an interview published on YouTube, he says, increasing scholarships and science funding further doesn’t help; because money doesn’t buy science, money buys technology; we actually don’t have enough scientists on whom to spend the money. And that, most of the advances in quantum mechanics and atomic physics were made by individuals genuinely interested in problems in these domains,…

> because money doesn’t buy science, money buys technology; we actually don’t have enough scientists on whom to spend the money.

I can only speak from personal experience and observations in my environment, but to me this statement sound like a dark, cynical joke.

There is plenty of scientists who would love to work on interesting things, are hired as scientists, but once they are hired, no one actually lets them work on scientific problems.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#127

Post by kmmlng »

cycomanic wrote: post #118
aborsy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teller touches upon this subject. In an interview published on YouTube, he says, increasing scholarships and science funding further doesn’t help; because money doesn’t buy science, money buys technology; we actually don’t have enough scientists on whom to spend the money. And that, most of the advances in quantum mechanics and atomic physics were made by individuals genuinely interested in problems in these domains,…

The argument does not hold any sort of deeper inspection. The greats of quantum mechanics, people like Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger etc. we're all professors, which at the time put you up in the highest ranks of the middle class or the lower upper class + the status of the title it implied in Germany for example. They were amongst the highest paid salaried employees. In comparison now a typical professor salary is l…

Since you specifically mention Germany: professors are incredibly well paid in Germany and also enjoy high social status. Of course, a lot of them don't do any science, they are the CEO equivalent of an institute.

Salaries for PhDs and PostDocs are a different story of course. They are alright in theory, but often you can only get a part time job, which in reality means a > full time job with a part time salary.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#128

Post by abyssin »

xkcd1963 wrote: post #98
paulpauper wrote: post #36

This is especially true in math and physics. You will find that no matter what problem you can think of, either it has already been solved to the highest level of abstraction, or it's an unsolved and famous problem, or not worthwhile/trivial. Like, what about analogous of elliptic functions for non-elliptic integrals? already been done. The past century has seen a huge explosion of research into STEM subjects, from m…

I would argue psychology is not a science and I'm not alone with that opinion

If biology is a science, some part of psychology is science. But I agree with the idea that many things that are called psychology have little to do with science. The first coming to mind is psychoanalysis. As a psychology student, I'm absolutely shocked at how much credit is given to charlatans.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#129

Post by kmmlng »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #125

We are in need for new metrics beyond citation count or quantity of published papers. A century ago, there was more content in each paper than it is today. This is mainly related to the incentives that exist today to publish, e.g. for getting a raise in salary or getting a getting a new academic position. I like to cite older papers because I can reference them multiple times in a single manuscript, reducing the numb…

I have a feeling whatever metric you define will just create different problems. The high emphasis on metrics itself is the problem, because quantifying someone's research quality is not at all trivial.

To your other point: I get what you mean, and I don't even disagree, but I could also make the exact opposite point. Papers today often are these big, overly structured manuscripts that actually cointain a multitude of ideas so that it can become hard to see what exactly the point of the paper is. In the past, papers often were much more atomic. They presented one idea with some relevant context. There was no need to prove you had surveyed the entire field just to present an idea. No useless context, more relevance, more focus.

Re: Science Is Getting Harder

#130

Post by gtsnexp »

aborsy wrote: post #38

Having been long in academia, what has increased is commercialization of all kinds of science, number of science managers (like modern day billionaires, taking credit for the work actually done by the graduate students and postdocs, growing to be huge), number of politicians putting their names in various papers (I see managers co-authoring on average a paper per week), brutal competition for status and citations, ex…

interesting thoughts, would you mind sharing the reference from Balaji? I'd like to hear his point.
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