Or the cheese is just sliding off their cracker. Happens to many otherwise very bright folks.
Perhaps the reason they could stretch their domain expertise so far was precisely because they kept their mind open.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." - Einstein
Both were widely recognised as more than a bit kooky outside of their core strengths.
"When a mind is opened that far, the brain often falls out." - Tim Minchin.
* sans the quote from a random comedian
Not to mention Einstein's work as a comedian never really took off.
I didn't make any claims about their domain expertise being cross-domain.
> I didn't make any claims about their domain expertise being cross-domain
Maybe you have a different understanding of "cross domain," but they represented what you said fairly.
> Perhaps the reason they could stretch their domain expertise so far was precisely because they kept their mind open.
(Emphasis added.)
To return to the beginning you arrived here with the statement that
"[Two times] Nobel prize winner and superior[(?)] neurosurgeon criticized as quacks by two internet users"
I pointed out bad paraphrasing, both parties had recognised core skills, both famously championed beliefs that had little to no evidence or support.
Point being neither of "the two internet users" above accused the subjects of being quacks per se .. just that both had definitely publicly veered into quackery.
That's the relevant observation here, a thread about a much lauded elder astrophysicist veering into matters outside off his computational chops, into questions of metallurgy, and not receiving any support from his peers.
TBH I'm a fan of the bulk of Paulings work, quantum chemistry, molecular biology, and his promotion (and Russell's) of nuclear disarmament. I attribute his embrace of megavitamin therapy more to his age and aversion to death.
Carson seems like a talented enough knife man albeit dimmer than many others I know.
You did explicitly state that they both could "stretch their domain expertise 'so far'" which leaves a lot of ambiguity wrt just how far you intended, especially with Pauling who literally had bona fide cross domain credientials (or over lapping credentials in related science fields plus a public voice that lead to his Nobel Peace Prize.)
Minchin, FWiW, is a keenly intelligent comedian and lyricist and frequently mixes in in some on point observations from scientific rationalism, philosophy, logic, et al.
Additionally, I bear you no ill will (I've exercised no votes here) this may all be a case of two people reading past each other.
All it means is to listen. After you listen, if you judge that it’s clearly just some quack trying to Mark Seargant some people (this is clearly what’s happening), then that doesn’t make you “not open minded”.
Didn’t the twins like. Die?
This is always brought up. Ben Carson separating twins. But like. They died. Multiple sets of conjoined people he operated on died I think.
Why do people always bring this up without mentioning that the twins died
To the best of my knowledge Ben Carson is and always has been a giant self aggrandizing douche who definitely has and had equals in his field
If that's the case, then it seems like a total ethical violation to even offer the surgery. But maybe that isn't so and it's her trauma talking there, I don't really know.
Carson's Wikipedia article [2] mentions several other sets of twins, one operation resulting in a "normal neurological state," 2 resulting in the death of both twins, and another resulting in one dying and the other being "legally blind and [struggling] to walk."
I don't know what to make of all that, but you're right, that is more murky than the narrative I've heard previously.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_and_Benjamin_Binder
My understanding is that separating craniopagus twins has a pretty high risk of complication/failure, even when you know what you're doing.
I also know for a fact that Carson's pioneered hemispherectomy as treatment for severe childhood seizures, and some of those kids are now happy and healthy adults: https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/jessie-hall-medical-m...
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the guy as a politician. But he knows his way around a brain.
There is something to be said about applying Gell-Mann amnesia more broadly than journalism alone.
In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect", after physicist Murray Gell-Mann. He used this term to describe the phenomenon of experts believing news articles written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, yet acknowledging that articles written in the same publication within their fields of expertise are error-ridden and full of misunderstanding. . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
> Or the cheese is just sliding off their cracker. Happens to many otherwise very bright folks.
IIRC, as your intelligence gets higher, the friction of your cracker lowers.
Except of course when the Venn diagram of what I Want To Believe intersects.
You are basically saying that security clearance is worthless.
It is indeed possible and there is a lot of precedent for large projects with long life spans that didn't leak.
The "government" isn't a monolithic entity. It contains individuals and groups of a range of competencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs
Won't point out all the double agents for the KGB that infested western spy agencies, (and vice versa) it's more of the same, really, and there's too many names to type. And those are only the ones we know of...
But yep, the NSA is a good counterexample, however also a poor one as they primarily operate in the signals/digital space, where passive monitoring is the default, and where paper trails are far easier to not leave.
As a thought experiment, extrapolate from the NSA to "the Bush administration did 9/11, jet fuel can't melt steel, it was a controlled demolition" conspiracy theory that implicitly requires government agents lining massive skyscrapers with explosives without being noticed, without anyone having a moral crisis, especially no-one in the "crash a plane allegedly filled with American citizens into a building in New York" division.
And you'll quickly see how the NSA's quiet operations in the small don't scale to the level of competent and silent government required for faking a moon landing, or ensuring no-one knows about aliens amongst us etc etc.
I dismissed him out of hand, I'll admit.
I dismissed him out of hand, I'll admit.
I'm just really unsure why the idea that heat reduces the strength of steel enough, and that the failure of the columns located in the hottest area of the fire then caused a cascading failure across other columns, is considered less likely than massive conspiracy.
It's the usual swiss cheese model of disaster.
I think your last statement actually works against your point. The fact that the government has individuals increases the probability of leaks. Only a true monolith could remain airtight.