Some outstanding researchers recognize the problem and go independent, hoping that it’s easier to do serious thinking outside an institutional context than within one.
In this
@vgr explains some of the reasons that mostly doesn’t work:https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195789557465153536 …
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David Chapman Retweeted Venkatesh brrrRao
We urgently need alternative mechanisms/institutions for research support. This
from @vgr crunches some numbers: what would that cost? Answer: surprisingly little, in the scale of things.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195937380210921472 …David Chapman added,
Venkatesh brrrRao @vgrThinking about my thread this morning on why independent research is hard, and what it would take to make it possible, and whether it’s within the reach of private investors who ALL complain endlessly about how they have far too much capital and don’t know where to put it. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195789557465153536 …Show this thread2 replies 4 retweets 18 likesShow this thread -
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@vgr’s
also covers many of the issues that come up in discussions of alt-research funding and institutions. This is a common, live discussion among people I talk with often. There’s growing momentum and consensus in the conversation, but will it lead to action?3 replies 0 retweets 8 likesShow this thread -
I suspect the central challenge here is to find alternative mechanisms for selecting what research/researchers to fund. How do grantors know their money is being well-spent? Who makes those decisions? Is there a way to do this that doesn’t just replicate the existing pathologies?
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Replying to @Meaningness
Keeping the admin of assessment on the funder and not on the scientists has been useful in the past (DARPA) and I think
@cziscience may be an interesting current case study for this.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @mrgunn @Meaningness
The effective altruism community has successfully built a mechanism to get SV millionaires to part with their money for their causes.
@tylercowen &@vgr's funding threads seem to be arguing for a kind of "effective science".1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Not really, that’s a bad comparison at least for what I’m getting at. That’s actually what’s kinda slowly choking traditional research (citation numbers, impact factors, patent counts, ROI mentality). I’m thinking more a kind of disciplined narrative-driven visionary romanticism.
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EA does have a strong narrative & vision, so can serve as a useful guide for more romantic efforts in how to get attention. Also, the problem with metrics isn't metrics, but the gap between the metric & what it's a proxy for.
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So if CZI is directing its funding to things aligned with its values, and foundations collectively are also doing so, that reflects the collective will & vision of society. Part of the problem is how vision has been subjugated to metrics, yes, but also how poor the metrics are.
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There seems to be a specificity gap between funders’ “vision” and execution. “We want to use this money to enable innovative scientific research” is not really a vision; it lacks a how. (I know almost nothing about CZI specifically.)
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In the absence of an innovative “how” you mostly end up just dumping more money into the existing model that isn’t working. Exciting for me is seeing some (very small scale, so far) innovation in the way grantees are selected, resulting in funding new types of projects.
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mrgunn Retweeted Nick Fox 🌹
The state of the art, based on what I learned from
#metascience19, seems to be leaning in to the lottery aspect:https://twitter.com/NickFoxstats/status/1196837637664989185 …mrgunn added,
0 replies 0 retweets 1 likeThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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