More Wrong Things I Said in Papers
scottaaronson.com
scottaaronson.com
The initial post should be a comment period where you ask for feedback and no matter how large your mistake, it should be considered okay.
And slowly as you get more eyes on it, it should solidify into a more accepted paper.
It's not like scientists are in it for the money...
In fact, that makes ego validation easier: "I contributed these insights, reviewed these contributions, and received these upvotes/contribution acceptances."
Have you seen papers in particle physics? Sometimes they don't fit on a single page!
Of course you can see the contributions in the VCS history, but that doesn't translate to public recognition.
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/classical/articles/peanu...
Lijie Chen (the student Scott mentioned) used arXiv.org's preprints for this purpose.
Today's system is already collaborative. It is precisely those people with the expertise, interest, time and funding in a particular problem that co-author the papers. Then there is the review process to provide feedback and spot the serious mistakes and problems with the papers. After which, for significant works, there are follow up papers by various authors to expand, refute or clarify the original work.
Right now, there are websites which allow people to discuss papers, but the problem is that a paper has no "home", so the discussion takes place on different sites, and therefore gets watered down. I guess we need to agree on a standard.
Phew, I feel better getting that off my chest. Good thing nobody reads dissertations.
Are you "not smart enough" in all areas, or just not not in (deep) math? Rhetorical question.
Look at "IQ". There is no such thing as "IQ" - simply because there are so man vastly different things that you should measure. I forgot the lecture, but you can show that the exact same "IQ" can be for people with vastly different skill sets, or different IQs with a completely different distribution of abilities, and the higher IQ losing out in one or more fields. The guy with the Einstein math and physics abilities can be a total dimwit when it comes to managing or just dealing with people, for example, something I would argue the world is in much greater need of compared to getting more math geniuses.
When you don't understand something ask yourself: Do I actually need to understand this?
I took about 70 edX and Coursera courses mostly in completely different fields then my own (CS). One of the most important lessons is that there is sooooooo much knowledge.
Have a look at this little story of a very simple product that humans make (ignore which concrete one they chose): https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499...
Summary quote (product name replaced with "X"):
> The number of individuals who know how to make X is zero.
> The number of individual nations that could produce X is zero.
You do not need to understand each and every subject. You are not dumb if you don't. You may be dumb if you think you are dumb that you don't understand every single random subject... :)
When you measure vastly different things, like reaction time and performance in IQ tests, there is surprisingly strong correlation (> 0.8 without correction for attenuation). This supports the hypothesis that there is such thing as G-factor.
None of those vastly different things we can measure measures it directly, but they all together point into the same direction. What has reaction time have to do with academic performance, job attainment, income, or IQ tests?
Most of those who argue for different intelligences don't provide good evidense against strong correlation.
Of course averages work fine when you look at the grander things, but they are useless when looking at individuals. So sure, IQ "works" in that sense, for "big picture stats". It's not good for individuals. (Necessary additional comment: Looking at more than one individual is not "looking at an individual", but it again is "statistics".)
If you only want to place "the best" on average, going for "IQ" is enough. If you want to match each one (individually, not by global average - in which case after hiring by IQ you just place them anywhere) to the appropriate job it isn't. The distribution of skills under a given IQ score can be very different.
> IQ is an imperfect predictor of many outcomes. A person who scores very low
> on a competently administered IQ test is likely to struggle in many domains.
> However, an IQ score will miss the mark in many individuals, in both directions.
It's _very_ often the best single predictor.
As the article you quote puts it:
>IQ is an imperfect predictor of many outcomes. A person who scores very low on a competently administered IQ test is likely to struggle in many domains. However, an IQ score will miss the mark in many individuals, in both directions.
If IQ test misjudges 5-20% of applicants, it's still hell of a predictor.
> it's still hell of a predictor.
I wrote "If you only want to place "the best" on average, going for "IQ" is enough. If you want to match each one (individually, not by global average - in which case after hiring by IQ you just place them anywhere) to the appropriate job it isn't."
It's the same as arguing for racial profiling because "it works". Well it does! If you don't care about people (individuals) but only about peoples.
www.pubpeer.com
I'm a big fan of not just writing to write, but focusing on having something to say. I find that when you think you do, you're almost always correct.