Comment by mikkergp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikkergp | Hacker News Reader

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Science does indeed have a lot of problems, but is the problem really that science is broken, or that our expectations of it are.

> Ideally, we’d like to measure the benefit provided by a study to society. We might ask: had this piece of research not been funded, would a given invention have been delayed? If so, for how long? And what was the impact of that on societal welfare? We could also try to estimate intermediate metrics of research usefulness, like whether a given basic research paper will end up being used as input to an application. It is an argument for humility, not epistemic nihilism.

The whole promise of basic science research is that it may be valuable in ways that are immeasurable, or certainly uncapitalizable. One major issue with science is that we're always hoping that it will say more than it should. I would take a more mindfulness-y approach to science. You do science because it is a good end, and if you do it for that reason, good things will come. If you chase "good science" you get the problems we have.

Capital S “Science” where the goal is continuous funding and reputation growth are in a likely unresolvable tizzy as long as long as humans have confirmation bias and a desire to be right. There’s far too much reason to cheat and to lie with p values, even if unintentionally. This isn’t new, it’s just had a light shown on it.

Applied sciences where the end goal needs to be something that actually works and not just getting published are in much better shape and arguably innately of more value to begin with.

But isn’t the solution to the former more funding? Make studies that check on existing ones worthy (especially if they contradict those!)

There’s a general inability to replicate as researchers aren’t publishing their data (probably because they’d be caught).

This is an incentive problem, and more funding does not fix that issue

Many people would like to get things like "cure to disease X" or "reliable way to make people healthy" or "way to transport crops to hungry regions" before things like "green jelly beans linked to acne", and this is what the complaint is about. We can fool around with jelly beans _after_ we have done the more important things.

If that's true, then it doesn't make sense for the public to invest so heavily in it. Humanities research also is valuable in ways that are immeasurable and is also a good end.

The public got invested because it had a lot of useful outcomes in the 20th century.

The point is that you don't know up front if or when that's going to happen.

Expectation of high variability or long time frame sounds different from what the other poster said.

Nobody had any use for number theory for some two and a half millenia or so, until we figured out that it can be used to secure communications and data.

How would you assess things like that?

Once, again, the original poster said that we should pursue science with little to no expectation of usefulness, and should pursue it for its own sake. I am merely arguing that IF that is the case, then it may not be worth pursuing with public money.

To your suggestion, I am not arguing that we should not fund things, just because we don't have an initial understanding of how it will be useful.

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