You must log in or register to comment.
Imagine telling Yann LeCun what is and isn’t right when it comes to science
thanks to melon tusk, i don’t have to
Who he?
She’s wrong though, everything following the scientific method is science. The fact that you didn’t pay out of your ass to publicize your research doesn’t matter. Of course it reaches less people, but that’s a separate issue.
The scientific method includes peer reviewing.
You don’t have to post it on a commercial database, only free one will do. But it needs to be accessible by the world.
everything following the scientific method is science
I’m fairly certain “report conclusions” is a pretty big deal in the scientific method. Principle of verifiability and all that.
True a lot of science is done in industry and the corporate world and not published to keep it a trade secret. It is still science but not shared.
I am a bit worried the response to this here is not a unified everyone’s an asshole in this screenshot.
Academic publishing is in a very sorry state for a long time by now. A lot of research that is published is not reproducible. A lot of actual research is also in fact never published like that because companies base their products on it and publish those results only as patents.
So just by trying to be smug and oppose the Muskie you show yourself to be an idiot. Well done.
at least they’re partially right instead of completely wrong like elon
Partially right versus Elon is not something I would count as a win either.
The rules and conventions to do science today are quite well known and understood by educated people (including of course Helen Mosque) … but any rules have exceptions :
Project Manhattan to produce the atomic bomb was secret science : in many countries military will have secret science development. Pharmaceutical companies will do as well.
People in those projects will not have recognition by the wider public but they will have recognition from their group.yes, but even within those “secret groups”, there are SOP and conventions of intergrity.
Thanks ! … if anyone else wants to know :
SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. Within secret scientific research groups, SOPs are established guidelines or instructions for carrying out routine operations to ensure consistency, quality, and compliance with regulations. These SOPs help maintain integrity, confidentiality, and efficiency within the research group.Secret scientific research groups? Lol. Anyone with a passing familiarity with government work knows about SOPs.
GPT told me it was “Standard Operating Procedure” in the context of the previous comment. That wasn enough for me. I didn’t have to know it applies to your job in an English speaking country.
You’re over here asking GPT about “secret scientific research groups” but wanna point out that it’s an English acronym? You could’ve asked Encyclopedia Britannica instead and gotten the right answer.
Heck, I can think of a half dozen other examples of things that aren’t published and/or can’t be reproduced but would be considered science.
If I had an unpublished workbook of Albert Einstein, would I say the work in it “isn’t science”?
If I publish a book outlining a hypothesis about the origins of the Big Bang, is it not science because it doesn’t have any reproducible experiments?
Is any research that deadends in a uninteresting way that isn’t worthy of publication not science?
I like dunking on Elon as much as the next guy, but like, “only things that are published get the title of ‘science’” seems like a pretty indefensible take to me…
How about all the research that goes into microchips in modern computers? All extremely secretive. Using published science only, it would be impossible to create today’s PC or phone
Another great example.
i agree because what I usually mean when i talk of science is scientific work even if this work doesn’t result in proving that an hypothesis is right so that it becomes a scientific theory.
For me the main criteria is to follow the scientific method.I’d say it’s just research. Science is a group activity by necessity, even if the scientific method is not.
What makes science a group activity by necessity?
Why is one person employing the scientific method to better understand the world around them “not doing science”?
Well, modern science is interdisciplinary, it relies on resource sharing and peer review to reach consensus, which all require many people. In practice, it’s merely research without collaboration if contributions aren’t being made because Science isn’t defined when you apply the scientific method. Science is what we do collectively. So when offshoot research is vetted, it becomes part of the science.
This reminds me of a few people I’ve met who believe themselves to be scientists who claim to do science by themselves, but in reality, it’s numerology nonsense. They’re arguably researching a system they invented but nobody worth their weight would take them seriously.
Why is one person employing the scientific method to better understand the world around them “not doing science”?
Why is “research” not the appropriate label?
So, first and foremost it is important to recognize we are having a definition argument. The crux of our disagreement is over the definition of “science,” specifically as it relates to the act of doing it.
Now, obviously anyone can claim that any word means anything they want. I can claim that the definition of “doing science” is making grilled cheese sandwiches. That doesn’t make it so.
So, as with all arguments over the definition of words, I find appealing to the dictionary a good place to start. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science Which, having read through all the possible definitions, does not seem to carry any connotation of mandatory collaboration.
Now, the dictionary is obviously not the be all and end all. Words have colloquial meanings that are sometimes not captured, or nuance can be lost in transcribing the straight meaning of the word. But I think that the onus is on you to justify why you believe that meaning is lost.
And note, what I’m not arguing is that science isn’t collaborative. Of course it is. There are huge benefits to collaboration, and it is very much the norm. But you have stated an absolute. “Science isn’t science without collaboration.” And that is the crux of our disagreement.
And as to why I wouldn’t just call it “research.” First, I see no reason to. By both my colloquial definition and the one in the dictionary (by my estimation), it is in fact science. But, more importantly, if we take your definition, you are relegating the likes of great scientists like Newton, Cavendish, Mendel, and Killing to the title of mere “researchers.” And I find the idea of calling any of those greats anything short of a scientist absurdly reductive.
I mostly agree with you.
But you have stated an absolute. “Science isn’t science without collaboration.”
I don’t think that’s what I’m saying, at least, that’s not my stance. I’m trying to say that how we formally define Science is one thing. But in practice, Science can only be collaborative because of the complexity of topics, the nuance that needs to be captured in experimental design, and the human error that needs to be avoided. There’s also the connotation that science is the collective body beyond its works that encompasses a community, a culture, a history, a way of thinking, and so on. If you’re “doing science”, then we have the mutual understanding that you’re participating in all of the above, because otherwise, you’re just conducting independent research that could eventually find its way into the whole.
But if it doesn’t ever find its way into the greater body of science, how can we label that as doing science if it hasn’t made an impact besides personal profits? And even if those findings work as advertised in a product, how do we know that the hand-waiving explanation in this black box isn’t true? It does nothing for our understanding. I won’t argue that it works as a colloquial term because a theory could mean whatever possibility popped into someone’s head even if it’s wrong. Strictly speaking, a theory is much more than a plausible thought and I think that analogy carries on.
you are relegating the likes of great scientists like Newton, Cavendish, Mendel, and Killing to the title of mere “researchers.”
That’s a relic of what worked back then but their independent research eventually made it into the science, which is consistent with what I’m saying. Labeling them as researchers takes nothing away from their great achievements. I see no issue with calling an apple a fruit when broadly speaking.
If you aren’t saying that “science isn’t science without collaboration,” can you give an example of something that is science without collaboration? I only ask because you state that’s not what you’re saying, but follow it up with what, to my attempt at reading comprehension, is you just restating the thing you said you aren’t saying.
And I would argue science done in secret can have enormous impacts beyond “simply profits.” The Manhattan Project for example. I think it would be absurd to say what was going on there was anything but science, but there was no collaboration with the greater scientific community or intent to share their findings.
And look, of course you can be a researcher without being a scientist. Historians are researchers but not scientists obviously. But when what you are researching is physics and natural sciences, you are a scientist. That’s what the word literally means. When your definition requires you to eliminate Sir Isaac Newton, maybe it’s your definition that’s wrong.
You say you see no problem with calling an apple a fruit when broadly speaking. Neither do I. But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be absolutely delusional to insist that an apple wasn’t actually an apple.
Because you can’t employ the scientific method with only one person.
You need at least 2 to perform peer reviews.
Peer review isn’t typically included in the list of steps to the scientific method. Or, if it is, it’s a coda, not part of the main steps.
Dictionary.com for example lists the commonly accepted steps, and then follows it up with “usually followed by peer review and publication.”
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/scientific-method
Note the “usually.”
It’s also worth noting that there is no real “formalized” or “official” scientific method. Just some agreed upon commonalities. Any dozen science books will give you a dozen different graphs of the steps, and no two will be the same.
If you science in a lab and no one is around to review it did you make a science?
well it still goes back to the original arguement that it has to be published and reproducible.
else it would be forgotten and re-discovered again at a later stage.
some scientific discoveries of the mordern era were actually discovered by earlier ancient people before mordern science started recording such discoveries.
Does it have to be a new discovery to qualify as “science”?
No
The difference between science and fucking around is writing it down - Adam Savage
The second, implied part, is that writing it down is for OTHER people to learn from.
So, although I hate the eletist gatekeeping language… I think I agree more with the professional scientist than I do the professional clown.
Corollary: If it can’t be reproduced you’ve failed to write down something critical.
That is to say: it’s fucking around and, if you’re good at it, finding out.
deleted by creator
Academic Journals frantically spinning up botnets to retweet this
Seems like a very elitist and gatekeeping perspective, specially considering how closed off the academic world is for the rest of society in some places, never mind expensive to publish. It’s also basically saying that if you, say, come up with a groundbreaking hypothesis, that that’s not science until you get a research paper out, and that might require mastery that goes beyond the hypothesis.
Sure, this might stop most of the looney theories from being called Science, but it also prevents public access in favor of those with the means and capacity to sustain an ever more complex geocentric model of the fashion of the times, from which any divergent theories must generally part from or involve renown in.
You think the person who made that hypothesis will die bitter and forgotten? Is that the general view of people who are not Scientists by Scientists? They might know what’s up, and might not want the gatekeeper to take all the credit, as is often the case in academic circles, and might just feel satisfaction in seeing their hypothesis gratified. They might place more importance in exploring and understanding reality than compensating for personal insecurities. Perhaps it is science itself that might stagnate by stalling until it itself is able to discover these hypothesis under the properly accepted emeritus when they are eventually able to get to it.
Mostly it’s just looney theories, but given Musk is involved, I imagine this discussion involves proprietary patents that do have a lot of research involved and under peer review of teams under non-disclosure agreements. Then again, it’s Musk, could be mostly looney theories too. But the fact that it involves Musk, the man living off of Nikola Tesla’s fame, a man whose demise could have been described to have occurred under the circumstances of a bitter and forgotten end, makes the gatekeeping particularly ironic.
It doesn’t need to be published in a scientific journal. Publication in journals is the most streamlined way to go through the process, but you could publish your hypothesis and methodology to a blog and potentially get the same benefits.
Even patents need to be published. Publication is how discoveries are shared and verified.
You would still need to be recognized before someone more recognizable takes it and sticks their name on it the moment they see any validity in it. Plagiarism isn’t a myth, and good luck getting recognition even just for a hypothesis without a master and just as a hobbyist.
Academics want a well prepared research paper without evidencing crude freshman mistakes, and by its nature yours might be far cruder than academic standards. Even if you do end up releasing it and if it does by some miracle get acknowledged, it will by its nature take longer and run more risks from a lack of peer review that might discard it due to simple but correctable mistakes while running the risk of getting it plagiarized by someone capable of fixing it up, and no one is going to take a random blog as the proof of a preexisting theory over a research paper with a name with some masters to it that claims the idea was entirely theirs shortly thereafter. And if all you care about is the study of reality and science, why risk the heartbreak of getting personally involved?
Patents don’t need to be a full comprehensive research pieces, they just have to be enough to define and identify particular intellectual property.
It’s free to publish.
never mind expensive to publish.
Academic world is very not happy about it either. Academic world hates journals publishing corporations.
See lawsuits against ResearchGate, lawsuits against Sci-Hub and lawsuits against many students and academics that shared scientific papers.
Couldn’t science papers be hosted on a git-platform for review? Instead of costly publishing and the reviewers have to buy it then…
There are open access platform that is more reputable than git, like arxiv or hal.
Plus most conferences, at least in my field, support open access. But unfortunately for some of them, you do need to pay a fee in order to get the article to be open-access.
The prestige of the conference/journal is still the best way to get your article known, so that others can review and built upon your work, as of now.
Science devolved into politics. :-(
I find it especially amusing that in my Lemmy feed the post right before this one is a quote from a book by a Nobel laureate talking about the importance of self-marketing, politicking and ladder climbing in academia. You know, all the stuff that isn’t science that plays a part in what Yann LeCun considers to play a vital role in what counts as science.
ladder climbing in academia is not fun, but I feel like communicating (or marketing) science is a essential part of scientific process, as we are often the only person able to describe our work in great technical detail.
A famous professor once told me “we are all entertainers”, which seems absurd from an outside prospective, but is a notion that I and many of my colleagues have now found peace with.
Scrambled and unreadable mathematics should seldom be valued in modern scientific community, IMO; not everyone is Ramanujan after all. Even among geniuses, from Poincaré to Hilbert to Godel to Grothendick and to Tao, most genius are able to communicate their research quite well, and thrive in academia.
deleted by creator
Although I have no doubt that, like every other field, academia is filled with politics; and publishing process probably helps enforce such politics.
However, I would argue that modern academic publishing is absolutely necessary to produce “useful” science. In order for people to build upon others’ result, they will need strong guarantee of correctness, which necessitates the review process ; and top conferences can also save researchers a lot of time to find impactful new research, especially new ideas.
That being said, I am absolutely not suggesting the publishing system is not without its problems; but I kind of agree with LeCun here, publishing is a important part of the process, and it is will probably out-last both Tesla and Elon.
deleted by creator
how about you figure out how to make a gas pedal that doesn’t try to kill people before you talk shit?
They’ll have to publish the science to a public board, which doesn’t make him money.
Yann LeCun is not a good person, but at least he’s significantly smarter than Elon
I wish he was even smarter so that he would choose not to play chess with a pigeon.
I really don’t mind him making Musk look like an idiot
They both come across as pompous asses in this one.
If you develop a product in secret, take it to market, and make a fortune off it, far more people will know your name than almost any scientist.
Spot on
They’ve been feuding for a while so I’d be surprised if they both didn’t try to one-up the other insufferably.
Sure, but then you aren’t considered a scientist nor your work science.
I think most people outside the scientific community would consider that science.
Every time I see Elon’s picture in one of these posts, my brain tells me he’s wearing an Ant Man costume.
it’s worse than that, he’s in a WoW costume or something similar.
Well somebody is about to find his Twitter account closed for a spurious reason.
But my freeze peach!
What the fuck is LeCum thinking about? I work in academia and I couldn’t give a shit about being remembered, I just want to live to fight another day like the next guy.
This feels like billionaire banter.
Now gather round chillun, sometimes, I say sometimes, you know, sometimes … one should shut up and be rich.
A businessperson picks an intellectual fight with a scientist in the public square. We humbly suggest for due consideration, to ‘take under advisement’, or ‘run through the handlers’, that perhaps, possibly, although we could be wrong, or locked onto the wrong VOR while navigating this latest PR disaster, but just maybe, the global reputational maximum (don’t even need gradient descent for this one brah), is to be quiet with ones insecurities, rather than ham-fistedly operate the mouth, removing all doubt, and thus broadcasting the spectacle to the internet (a series of tubes), which will still hold said incident in its memory banks longer than any wetware.
Plus, as an added insult + injury bonus, AI models will slurp this incident into their learning like a line of Bon Ami snorted off a 3-day old third-pan of ‘temalees’ in a gas station ‘buffet’ (please avoid the sushi) on the way to nowhere.
All nibbles and bytes are immortal now and forever more!
DWord to your motherboard.
