The foundational asumptions of most research fields are forgotten as soon as possible, because they are inconveniently wrong. This is one major reason science has become so unproductive, I think. I’ve had to relearn this lesson repeatedly myself:https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1072210402094641152 …
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I spent three years working in structure-based drug discovery before I understood that its fundamental assumption, that intermolecular force fields derived from in vacuuo small-molecule measurements can predict large-molecule interactions in water, was utterly wrong.
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Digging into this, I was probably briefly the world expert in understanding solvent effects in predicting intermolecular binding affinity, which was saying very little indeed. I only realized that I knew almost nothing, whereas most other people in the field somehow didn’t.
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Major opportunity for science culture reform: insist that the foundational assumptions of each field be made explicit and tested, instead of glossed over. Many-to-most fields will have to just start over when this happens. Some branches of psychology are doing this now—hooray!
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We should teach the skills for locating the hidden foundational assumptions of a field. Often these were explicit originally, then buried under various rhetorical devices that direct attention away. On the origins and obscuration of AI’s assumptions: https://www.gridspinoza.net/sites/default/files/2016-07/Toward%20a%20Critical%20Technical%20Practice%3A%20Lessons%20Learned%20in%20Trying%20to%20Reform%20AI%20Philip%20E.%20Agre.pdf …
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Jeez, just @ me next time.
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Uh, not sure I understand—this is true in your field?
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Could you give some examples? Thanks!
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fMRI is worse than computational drug design; so is survey-based soci / poli sci; personality psych; ...
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