I agree too that most of incentive in Science is status (science in real life is very like political in a way as my dear MP secretary explained to me).
about removing older people from decision, I think it can be evil too. >From decision maybe, but from discussion no. I see that older people often, because they can have no huge ambition for future, because they can have enough protection to feel safe, because they can have more ego than fear of the future, those fearless people, can play the rebels... In the early 20th century , young could play the rebels, they had to, but I'm afraid modern generation of scientists are so dependent on career and funding, that they cannot take the risk to think out of the funding box. They are also often too submitted to fashion, while oldies can remind of a period when things were different. they will be what Norbert Alter called "alien", people who Today in many controversies,; I see only oldies, who take , for best and worst (I don't agree, mostly for best), crazy positions against the consensus, based on old knowledge, old evidences, of their memory of a period where feeling and trends were different. In the late 19th century, oldies were conservatives in a stable society. Today oldies are keepers of dead times, of dead culture, of outdated consensus, washed by waves of fashions and new consensus. Oldies are rebels, aliens, foreigner of their time, like were the young before. Like old heros, they can decide to suicide their career to defend their micro-ethics, not afraid of anything worse than the planned story... retirement and death. Maybe they are wrong, but sure you should not remove them from the story. They are what the young were before. If you look for young rebel, forget in science, go to business. However I agree that out of science, oldies often are more defending their honeypot, surfing on fashion, rather than rebels or defender of old values. 2013/9/25 Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> > James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: > > There is also opposition from many ordinary people and many stupid >>> people at places like Wikipedia >>> >>> >> In all of these cases we're dealing with the incentives of social status >> more than authority structure. >> > > I agree. I would say it is ordinary primate behavior, similar to what you > see in our cousins the chimpanzees, and in other group hunting predators > such as wolves. (I am not denigrating this behavior. I have great respect > for other species.) > > > >> So how do you identify the Jason(s) most likely to be more concerned with >> national security than peer pressure? >> > > I wouldn't know. I have never met 'em. I don't even know who they all are. > I know some people who have met with them, and meet with them every year. I > get the impression the Jasons are a bunch of washed up old farts who are > opposed to everything that wasn't discovered before they turned 30, which > was a long time ago. But I could be wrong. > > I know that one or two of them often pull strings to have cold fusion > funding cancelled. > > It is big mistake to give any scientist over 30 a role in allocating money > or making decisions. The way to make progress is get a large pot of money > and hand it out to young people, letting them do whatever they please with > it. Some of them will waste it. A few may steal it. But most will make far > better use of it than an old scientist could. Young people succeed in doing > things the older people think are impossible, because the young people have > not yet learned where the boundary between possible and impossible likes. > Actually, that boundary is imaginary, like a geographical boundary -- a > state line, or a property line. No one knows what is possible and what > isn't. No one can even imagine. > > - Jed > >
