It’s weird how this headline and article makes it sound like Hawkins is being coy about his theories, or preferring to work in secret than explain them. But On Intelligence was published years ago, and contained a section on testable predictions. Likewise, Numenta has published papers, and made source code available.

So it doesn’t seem to me that the problem is that Hawkins has been uncommunicative, it’s that the wider academic and research community just hasn’t been interested. Perhaps that’s simply because his theories don’t have merit, but it’s also hard to shake the feeling that’s it more because his career, and therefore his theories, hasn’t fit the standard academic mould.

It seems to me that, if you want to be an influential theorist, you’re expected to study at a prestigious university, work with an older, respected researcher while getting your PhD, then become a professor, setup a research lab, mentor some PhD students of your own, then finally maybe spin off your research into some startups, or take a high-paying research position at a big company.

Hawkins hasn’t followed this path, so he has no network of peers and former students to evangelise his work and carry it forward. He’s done research and published it, like the scientific ideal says you should, but he’s missing the structure necessary to make it land in the research world.

It’s like a sort-of reverse cargo cult. He’s done the work of constructing a real airstrip and working planes, but he can’t persuade anybody to fly, because they’ve never seen or heard of air travel before.