>> Whether a stupid person can do good scientific evaluation "if taught the
>> rules" is a badly-formed question, because no one knows what the rules are.
>> They are learned via experience just as much as by explicit teaching
Wow! I'm sorry but that is a very scary, incorrect opinion. There's a really
good book called "The Game of Science" by McCain and Segal that clearly
explains all of the rules. I'll get you a copy.
I understand that most "scientists" aren't trained properly -- but that is no
reason to continue the problem by claiming that they can't be trained properly.
You make my point with your explanation of your example of biology referees.
And the Feynman example, if it is the story that I've heard before, was
actually an example of good science in action because the outlier was
eventually overruled AFTER ENOUGH GOOD DATA WAS COLLECTED to prove that the
outlier was truly an outlier and not just a mere inconvenience to someone's
theory. Feynman's exceptional intelligence allowed him to discover a
possibility that might have been correct if the point was an outlier, but good
scientific evaluation relies on data, data, and more data. Using that story as
an example shows that you don't understand how to properly run a scientific
evaluative process.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Goertzel
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Whether a stupid person can do good scientific evaluation "if taught the
rules" is a badly-formed question, because no one knows what the rules are.
They are learned via experience just as much as by explicit teaching
Furthermore, as anyone who has submitted a lot of science papers to journals
knows, even smart scientists can be horrendously bad at scientific evaluation.
I've had some really good bioscience papers rejected from journals, by
presumably intelligent referees, for extremely bad reasons (and these papers
were eventually published in good journals).
Evaluating research is not much easier than doing it. When is someone's
supposed test of statistical validity really the right test? Too many biology
referees just look for the magic number of p<.05 rather than understanding what
test actually underlies that number, because they don't know the math or don't
know how to connect the math to the experiment in a contextually appropriate
way.
As another example: When should a data point be considered an outlier
(meaning: probably due to equipment error or some other quirk) rather than a
genuine part of the data? Tricky. I recall Feynman noting that he was held
back in making a breakthrough discovery for some time, because of an outlier on
someone else's published data table, which turned out to be spurious but had
been accepted as valid by the community. In this case, Feyman's exceptional
intelligence allowed him to carry out scientific evaluation more effectively
than other, intelligent but less-so-than-him, had done...
-- Ben G
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Actually, I should have drawn a distinction . . . . there is a major
difference between performing discovery as a scientist and evaluating data as a
scientist. I was referring to the latter (which is similar to understanding
Einstein) as opposed to the former (which is being Einstein). You clearly are
referring to the creative act of discovery (Programming is also a discovery
operation).
So let me rephrase my statement -- Can a stupid person do good scientific
evaluation if taught the rules and willing to abide by them? Why or why not?
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Goertzel
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
Mark,
It is not the case that I have merely lectured rather than taught. I've
lectured (math, CS, psychology and futurology) at university, it's true ... but
I've also done extensive one-on-one math tutoring with students at various
levels ... and I've also taught small groups of kids aged 7-12, hands-on (math
& programming), and I've taught retirees various skills (mostly computer
related).
Why can't a stupid person do good science? Doing science in reality
seems to require a whole bunch of implicit, hard-to-verbalize knowledge that
stupid people just don't seem to be capable of learning. A stupid person can
possibly be trained to be a good lab assistant, in some areas of science but
not others (it depends on how flaky and how complex the lab technology involved
is in that area). But, being a scientist involves a lot of judgment, a lot of
heuristic, uncertain reasoning drawing on a wide variety of knowledge.
Could a stupid person learn to be a good scientist given, say, a thousand
years of training? Maybe. But I doubt it, because by the time they had moved
on to learning the second half of what they need to know, they would have
already forgotten the first half ;-p
You work in software engineering -- do you think a stupid person could be
trained to be a really good programmer? Again, I very much doubt it ... though
they could be (and increasingly are ;-p) trained to do routine programming
tasks.
Inevitably, in either of these cases, the person will encounter some
situation not directly covered in their training, and will need to
intelligently analogize to their experience, and will fail at this because they
are not very intelligent...
-- Ben G
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Funny, Ben.
So . . . . could you clearly state why science can't be done by anyone
willing to simply follow the recipe?
Is it really anything other than the fact that they are stopped by
their unconscious beliefs and biases? If so, what?
Instead of a snide comment, defend your opinion with facts,
explanations, and examples of what it really is.
I can give you all sorts of examples where someone is capable of doing
something "by the numbers" until they are told that they can't.
What do you believe is so difficult about science other than overcoming
the sub/unconscious?
Your statement is obviously spoken by someone who has lectured as
opposed to taught.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Goertzel
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [agi] Re: Defining AGI
>>>
*Any* human who can understand language beyond a certain point
(say, that of
a slightly sub-average human IQ) can easily be taught to be a good
scientist
if they are willing to play along. Science is a rote process that
can be
learned and executed by anyone -- as long as their beliefs and
biases don't
get in the way.
<<
This is obviously spoken by someone who has never been a professional
teacher ;-p
ben g
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Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
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Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
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