Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review • Hacker News Board

Re: Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review

#51

Post by psychomugs » Sat, Nov 19, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #50

psychomugs wrote: post #28

I think often of this jab by Rodney Brooks on my home field of human-robot interaction [1]: "A group of people who have never used a computer are recruited for an experiment, using variations of Unix commands to manipulate files from a command line interface. The users have never heard of computer files before and they don’t in any sense have the utility of files internalized. The experiment is to determine whether s…

As a youngster I got the idea that truly novel experimentation should be conducted alongside the most predictable incremental progress, in a unified way so that an overall structural approach which allows this would be an ideal thing to build. Even if it takes decades. Which is how long research labs take anyway. Maybe this means something. Talk about HCI. Coming from a guy back in 1982 who thought pointing & clickin…

Thanks for the long response and I agree that experimentation like yours needs to have more venues for exposure, which is hard to do in our contemporary content treadmill.

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." Seeing research budgets spent on equipment - that either never gets used or is poorly maintained - just to save a spot on a given funding bracket leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Re: Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review

#52

Post by elcritch » Sat, Nov 19, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

Brigand wrote: post #49

elcritch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hunch that this conservatism problem is why ADHD genes / traits remain so prevalent. The percentage of populations with it is around 5% and remarkably consistent across drastically different cultures. The reason is that those with ADHD are often physiologically incapable of not pursuing an interest. Often those interest lie in novel areas. It’s unfortunate for those with the traits, but a net benefit for soc…

Traits that are not beneficial to the individual will die out, the kind of group selection this process would require is implausible at best. I would assume that the kind of personality your are referring to is adaptive for the individual as well, especially the mild variants.

> Traits that are not beneficial to the individual will die out

Not necessarily, examples from several species where males get eaten after mating would seem to counter that. In some the males try to escape if possible to mate again.

> the kind of group selection this process would require is implausible at best.

There can certainly be group theory optimums that are less beneficial for individuals but beneficial enough to the whole group that traits bad for an individual will persist. I’d say bees dying after stinging an intruder would be an example. Well or even the hive principle where only the queen reproduces.

Still I would agree that the mild variations of adhd traits can be beneficial to some individuals. At least enough to largely eliminate the traits despite being largely maladaptive in non-nomadic societies given that we’re not hive creatures. One example I’ve read was a paper that showed increased offspring in individuals with adhd traits in nomadic tribes in Africa, with decreased reproductive rates in adjacent non-nomadic tribes.

Our modern society is odd in that it’s not like either traditional society. ADHD traits can be very beneficial for individuals in technology careers requiring creativity while simultaneously being painful due to society being largely optimized for non-adhd neurotypes.

Re: Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review

#53

Post by fuzzfactor » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 5:12 AM UTC

psychomugs wrote: post #51

fuzzfactor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a youngster I got the idea that truly novel experimentation should be conducted alongside the most predictable incremental progress, in a unified way so that an overall structural approach which allows this would be an ideal thing to build. Even if it takes decades. Which is how long research labs take anyway. Maybe this means something. Talk about HCI. Coming from a guy back in 1982 who thought pointing & clickin…

Thanks for the long response and I agree that experimentation like yours needs to have more venues for exposure, which is hard to do in our contemporary content treadmill. "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." Seeing research budgets spent on equipment - that either never gets used or is poorly maintained - just to save a spot on a given funding bracket leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I know what you mean.

I built my own laboratory from surplus research equipment where I only had certain types of pieces but I ended up with stronger resources than any one original owner.

Was able to use more features over more years doing invoiceable routine work the research way, and between vessels explore applications that were not invoiceable. That's where the real progress is, and it's possible to make it eventually pay off. Got so much more out of the equipment for many more years than the original companies. And I made money making progress on the instruments while it cost them money every inch of the way.

So what if I could have gotten a whole lot more out of millions of dollars worth of new gear, I was just making the most of the limited stuff I could get affordably instead. I was also a lot more of a loose cannon when it didn't really cost me a million dollars either.

The large petrochemical labs, with all their PhDs and virtually unlimited budgets compared to mine, could not do what I could do with their old equipment. Even after they had gotten a head start on newer models they had acquired before declaring their older ones surplus. And it took even more time before I had access to the surplus.

Even though these were industrial labs they were hampered by a carryover from the academic laboratory background.

And I was welcome to the unexplored possibilities overflowing out the basement doors with the truckloads of "obsolete" electronics. So I can't complain.

Re: Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review

#54

Post by ngcc_hk » Mon, Nov 21, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

api wrote: post #21

Frost1x wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdata from the US agrees. The best part is when funding agencies require proposal reviewers to actually send their critiques back on research proposals. I've read through many reviewers replies to proposals designed for specifically set risky/novel research funding and the responses are sometimes so conservatively comical without a truly valid argument you can't help but laugh. I've also worked at research orga…

I've thought for a long time that this is why you see so much innovation during wartime. War overrides conservatism and gets risky things funded. The same can apply to war-like scenarios. A lot of novel biological research got funded during COVID. We should expect to see a burst in advancement in biomedical technology as it bears fruit over the next 5-10 years. The core problem is probably that conservatism makes the…

Or fake crime. Solving real crime is too hard. Why not fake it.