
Disciplines wax and wane often for incidental reasons. Three examples: statistics, human vision research, adult developmental psychology… 
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Σ As a student, statistics seemed like the ugliest, more boring, most stagnant field I’d ever heard of.
It’s now the one I’m most excited about. What changed? Smart people realized the boring stuff also doesn’t work. There’s a meta-rational revolution going on in the field.2 replies 8 retweets 18 likesShow this thread -
Σ The meta-rational revolution in statistics is partly driven by external force, namely the replication crisis and research practices reform movement. (Fast computers enabling new methods do also play a role.) 1︎⃣1 reply 0 retweets 8 likesShow this thread -

Human vision research appears to have ended around 1990 (based on a recent two-day-long literature search). That’s when I finished my PhD and stopped following the field.
What happened? There were exciting open questions, and good methods for addressing them.2 replies 0 retweets 5 likesShow this thread -

My impression is that fMRI killed the field. It had tremendous promise, so everyone switched to using it, and then it took a couple decades to figure out it doesn’t really work, and by that time the old methods had been forgotten. 2︎⃣2 replies 1 retweet 10 likesShow this thread -

Adult developmental psychology also ended in the early 1990s. There were strong results, exciting open questions, and good methods. The studies under way in the late 80s, which should have answered key questions, were never published.
Did they get null or ambiguous results?5 replies 0 retweets 7 likesShow this thread -

Theory and evidence suggested that some adults have qualitatively different, and superior, cognitive capacities to others. Tremendous potential if these could be trained (as I think they can, and hope to help show how).1 reply 1 retweet 8 likesShow this thread -

Evidence was that these capacities are unevenly distributed demographically. This could be taken as reason to find ways to enhance cognitive development in disadvantaged groups. Instead, I suspect it was too politically hot, and everyone exited the field. 3︎⃣4 replies 0 retweets 12 likesShow this thread -
Gotta sell my ideas
SOMEhow… I know, I’ll try a cheap gimmick!
Suitable for drawing the attention
of eight-year-olds!
It worked for DoCoMo! 
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