Hi LinenBlackbird

I'm one of those charged with reviewing your essay, and I like it very much. Its well written, the points are clear and I agree. I read your essay about a week ago and am halfway through reading it again before I conclude my review. But its a given I'll issue you a top score.

You talk about how science the mistake minimizer isn't accessible to the masses, and I cant help but wonder if recent advances in AI can serve as a translator that solves this problem. Chat GPT 4 can not only understand scientific bargains but also summarize the knowledge in simplified form. This could be a gateway for average people to gain access to the walled garden of science. My essay is about how AI may be a benefit to science, so I've already been thinking about this.

Science defined as a mistake minimizer. I take your point well. It might be that there is no better definition for now. However scientists have ego's and I wonder if such a modest mission statement will suit their self-image. đŸ˜‰ I'm guessing they/we see our role in the acquisition of knowledge in a grander light. Maybe a rebranding? I'm just joking. Me personally, I'm modest and the mistake minimizer branding suits me well. Unless of course we do get a handle on the ultimate truths of the universe, and can then make the pursuit of ultimate truths our defining asperation. Never say never.

I'm not done reading your essay again so I'll make further comments soon.
Swan

    Steven Andresen
    "You talk about how science the mistake minimizer isn't accessible to the masses, and I cant help but wonder if recent advances in AI can serve as a translator that solves this problem."
    I would like to hope that AI will eliminate the routine in science (such as ArXiv when published). But the world is dichotomous and the result may be different.

      Steven Andresen

      Thank you, I'm glad to hear you liked the essay. AI is a new tool and it will have a large impact on many fronts. I wouldn't be surprised if it also became an important instrument for the simplification and exposition of scientific insights. It may very well do.
      Right now it's difficult to say, because language models like GPT3/4 seem to be very smart on certain things and very dumb in others. Can they find deeply novel ways to reframe understanding in a way that suits the human brain better? Probably not immediately, but future generations, maybe.

      About the "mistake minimizer": I agree that some members of the community may object to aiming so "low". Why not shoot for total, perfect clarity? In the end, it depends on one's philosophical view of life, and there is no wrong answer. But I think that, at least when taken collectively, minimizing mistakes is a pretty high and meaningful target.

          Marco Giancotti Hi LinenBlackbird!

          thanks a lot for your essay, indeed a very good read and, as resonates with my own view. It is not "aiming low" but rather a more positive way of pursuing science. Having too high an expectation that gets disappointed over long times or in many attempts to reach it, is frustrating and I doubt that many people would want to continue if science were completely pursued in that manner. But starting out with the goal to just improve things as good as it gets is a much more motivating and encouraging path!

          Concerning AI, I think we are by far not there yet that such artificial neural networks could give answers to "why...?"-questions that human neural networks pose. AI is a good tool for data mining and exploration, but it may only get us down to a level to find correlations. To make causal inferences or even come up with a creative abductive reasoning to explain a natural phenomenon still seems a very long way to go.

          Cheers,
          the beige bandicoot.

              4 days later

              Hi,
              An excellent approach and well presented. I've learned to be wary of AI and agree we need to develop our OWN intelligence to better apply the SM and minimise errors, which needs new approaches to early teaching My own essay develops the consequences from the view of alien science which uses them, agreeing your view that fundamental physical understanding of the toughest problems becomes intuitively simple. But will it not need a 'shock' or revolution to overcome cognitive dissonance and achieve?

                Peter Jackson

                Hi Thistle Lion,

                just passing by here, reading the comments and thanks for pointing me to your essay that sounds like something interesting, too, as I liked the Linen Blackbird's essay!
                Concerning the shock, or paradigm shift, as you may want to call it, in my essay, I have drafted an idea how we can use our own brains to advance science and avoid the revolutions and the destruction and delays they always entail:
                https://forums.fqxi.org/d/3955-of-senses-and-sciences/16
                who wants to get frustrated over failures after trial-and-errors all the time when there is a more positive way to gain knowledge?

                Bests,
                Beige Bandicoot.

                  Hi LinenBlackbird
                  Sorry for the delay in returning to your essay and rating it. I didn't want to do so until I had the time to focus properly.

                  I like what you're suggesting, equipping individuals with a basic knowledge toolkit on how to universally approach science and also everyday tasks and challenges. Developing people's intuitions. However whenever you make a suggestion of how to do it, and it involves fundamental changes to schooling, and pop influencers and governments and science itself, I wonder how on earth such big changes can be so widely coordinated and implemented. I think changing the mindset and direction of institutions is a difficult task. And I'm not saying this to be negative, because I wonder if there is not another avenue.

                  You talk about how things have improved and how 90 percent of people are highly literate in the modern world. And so things are moving in the right direction. And yes institutional education played a significant role in this. However moving forward from here I think we need to empower people to educate themselves rather than rely upon others. Maybe its just because I've recently written an essay about AI, and so I see it as a solution to everything. But maybe it is the best solution for delivering the changes that you prescribe, that it will become an educational tool of the characteristics you describe. AI can dumb down complex themes making them accessible to the novice. And to do so it would be well advised to follow your script, breaking themes down in tt step by step explanations.

                  So yes, I'm with you. Its just that I think changing institutions from within would be frustrating. Instead I would hope for new technology to disrupt their inadequacies and complacencies, and AI might be just the thing to do it.

                  So anyway I'm about to give your essay top marks. I wish you well in the essay contest, and don't forget me when you've changed the world and are famous đŸ˜‰
                  Swan

                  I would like to share something else with you. My essay is in part about how AI will complement and improve the capabilities of peer review. And so I have generated a summary and review of your essay using Chat GPT 4, to demonstrate its ability. While keeping in mind it is early days for AI yet, but how it is already able to demonstrate an amazing set of abilities. Enjoy

                  Chat GPT 4
                  The essay begins by telling the story of Ignaz Semmelweis and how his belief in hand hygiene as a means to prevent childbed fever was initially ignored and even ridiculed by his contemporaries in the medical community. The essay explains that the scientific community's eventual acceptance of the "germ theory of disease" brought about by researchers such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, revolutionized medicine and saved countless lives. The author then reflects on the role of science in society, pointing out that while the scientific method has contributed significantly to human progress, science itself remains largely misunderstood and its contributions under-appreciated. The author suggests that science is not just a tool to solve problems but also fulfills a deeply human need for understanding.

                  The essay presents a compelling narrative about the challenges that Ignaz Semmelweis faced in trying to persuade his peers to adopt his hand hygiene recommendations, highlighting the importance of scientific evidence to substantiate scientific claims. The author's reflections on the broader role of science in society are thought-provoking and challenge readers to think more deeply about the purpose of science. Overall, the essay is well-written, engaging, and informative, providing a valuable lesson on the history and importance of the germ theory of disease.

                  This science essay discusses the challenges of science exposition in pop culture and argues that a focus on sensationalism and the newest and most awe-inspiring scientific discoveries in pop-science media has resulted in a lack of thorough dissemination of mistake-minimizing technology. The author proposes that the goal should be to provide everyone, regardless of personal interests, with a basic but broad "scientific survival kit" made of simple but powerful intuitions and evidence-based wisdom helpful in everyday life. The author suggests that such intuitions would introduce some vital nuance in the way we experience our lives and avoid expecting simple solutions to complex problems. The essay argues that science communication researchers and practitioners are making some progress in evidence-based communication, but there is still a need for progress in turning basic science into something that can be handled by literally everyone. The essay's argument is clear and well-supported, and the author provides compelling examples of rudimentary insights that serve as anchors that keep us from slipping towards some easy mistakes. Overall, the essay is of high quality and offers an interesting perspective on the challenges and opportunities of science communication.

                  Chat GPT 4

                  Checking in after a couple of days I find several great new comments in the thread. Nice surprise! I'll try to address your points briefly.

                  One point raised by both Thistle Lion and Beige Bandicoot is the seeming enormity of the transformation needed to achieve what I propose (democratizing scientific understanding). I agree that it's a rather big thing to wish for, and something that cannot take less than at least a generation. However, I feel that in the essay I may have not done a great job explaining how I think this transformation could come about.

                  I mentioned in the essay that realigning incentives of educators and communicators would be helpful, and that scientists would need to refocus how they spend their time. But I don't believe these changes would be the first step, nor that they can happen in a (mostly) top-down manner. Instead, the ambition of the essay is to bring attention to this seemingly underappreciated opportunity, and in doing so spur more people, scientists or not, to take up the challenge. Just like graduate students today become enthralled with cutting-edge research problems, I hope that at least a fraction of them can be enticed by cutting-edge exposition problems. And similarly for the pop science community. I see it more as a grassroots transformation, and I think (hope) one that can fuel itself once it's started. I am trying to contribute in this myself, but saying anything more than that might give away my identity too early đŸ™‚

                  As for Persimmon Swan's argument about AI helping this cause, I am very attracted to this prospect, but I prefer to take it with a mild skepticism. I'm sure AI will help greatly in all the areas mentioned in your essay, so I believe that we agree on the general point. Still, my own experience with GPT 3/4 (and thanks for generating the summary!) is that they are very good at synthesizing, but not at all at understanding—not to mention making others understand. The "open exposition problems" require something much deeper than language skills. I've been surprised by AI advances many times in the past year, so it may or may not just be a matter of time.

                    21 days later

                    Marco Giancotti Your essay is the only one whose success I control. I'm surprised at the lack of attention.
                    Everyone knows: The system is not capable of reforming itself. The withering away of the old gives way to the new - evolution and involution. Currently, acceleration is created by changing external conditions. External conditions change, those who pay. In all processes, everything depends on people. The essay proposes to influence science not only with money, but also by expanding the popularization of knowledge (information that is understandable). Popularization will require explanations of purpose and meaning, destroying the "fog" of the need for research, for research (Example. Why find thousands of exoplanets now. Without engineers, science will not reach exoplanets. Without verification, information becomes verbiage, and verbiage, information). If the providers of money demand conditions for popularization, it will be easier to see the naked king.
                    Why did I write this? Knowledge creates a worldview - understanding. Understanding is harder to destroy than information. As a result, past knowledge negates information that can change the worldview.
                    I have come across this fact. As a mistake, in my essay, I was presented with the classical definition of temperature. Knowledge of the classics allows one to ignore the fact of changes in knowledge about the nature of radiation, electrons and energy. Popularization will make it possible to overcome the excess of fundamentalism in science.

                        Aleksandr Maltsev

                        Dear Purple Yak,

                        thanks for that inspiring comment, I totally agree that popularisation of science could greatly help to gain a deeper understanding. As Feynman once said, if you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it. But it takes quite a broad overview and expertise and a separation between what's actually necessary and what is only sufficient to understand a certain phenomenon. Thus, I think, the approach of hierarchical knowledge gain that I sketch in my essay could be very useful to reach that goal and find better explanations everybody can understand, or at least, partition a complex phenomenon into its parts to identify those fundamentals that can become general knowledge and the more complex details that are rather for experts in the field. (should have mentioned that as well, but it took this discussion to bring me to that insight! đŸ™‚ )

                        Bests,
                        Beige Bandicoot.

                          Everything depends on people's perception. Delusions of grandeur (even in modest amounts) and no one has checked the effects of hygiene on mortality. Megalomania arises from fundamentalism. Fundamentalism in religion and science is dual. Duality can be used with flexibility. Flexibility comes when the going gets tough. Difficulties of understanding are weakened by the creation of images - physical meaning. Further on the text of your essay.

                          Marco Giancotti

                          Der Linen Blackbird,

                          ...I am just slowly catching up on all the discussions here, but wanted to drop you a brief comment to your last reply that I definitely agree that we all should spend much more time on thinking how to explain the things we found than just looking at it from a single angle, which is mostly the one that our 5 next colleagues can follow. I myself am also quite active in outreach and this is exactly my motivation to do it: these people out there ask totally different questions than my peers and it is often the most "naive" questions that are so hard to answer. Besides this, we usually have one way of explaining a finding but trying to cast it into different words or changing the viewing angle yield a deeper understanding than just giving the same expert-talk over and again. Yet, if we want to foster this culture among the next generation of scientists, we need more people who are willing to change their viewing angle, reach out to establish interdisciplinary collaborations, and are given the time and the opportunities to be more creative and innovative. Hence, institutions should provide less hamster wheels of admin and all other kinds of tasks but promote creative and innovative thinking by giving people more freedom and time to explore. (In some cases, I think, it would already suffice to reduce the work load of duties to free people's minds)

                          Best wishes,
                          Beige Bandicoot.

                              i've read this a few weeks with neutral attitude, now i've looked in for words like pollution, ecology, environment , sound noise, should this words be omnipresent in every scientific presentation ?i don't know , maybe, or this are already well known and by default already known knowledge among the readers

                                Aleksandr Maltsev

                                Hi PurpleYak, thank you for the wise comments. Understanding is indeed a powerful force to change a human system, and that's what I hoped to convey. I'm glad you agree.

                                I would go even further to say that we need to spread more than understanding. We need to find ways to expand people's ability to understand on their own. I think that this is done not so much with information, but with mental framings, or lenses to see the world.

                                (By the way, I'm curious to know what you meant with your first sentence: "Your essay is the only one whose success I control". It sounds a bit mysterious to me đŸ™‚ )

                                    Jenny Wagner

                                    Dear Beige Bandicoot, your point is well taken and I agree completely:

                                    if we want to foster this culture among the next generation of scientists, we need more people who are willing to change their viewing angle, reach out to establish interdisciplinary collaborations, and are given the time and the opportunities to be more creative and innovative.

                                    No systemic change can happen with a single intervention from a single angle. In my essay I proposed one way, which I find easier to act on from my own position, but your point about top-down changes in university management and in the role of scientists is just as important (if perhaps harder).

                                    Perhaps the most likely path to success is to do these things (and more) in parallel, a bit at a time, so that they can synergize and gradually snowball into something bigger.

                                        cristi marcovici

                                        Hi AmaranthLion, thank you for reading the essay. I don't think you'll find those environmentalism-related keywords in that specific text. Not because they aren't important—they are absolutely critical topics that must be discussed regularly and acted upon. The keywords aren't included because I believe there are many ways for science to be better. Some of these directly reference environmental concerns, while others tackle other problems. Even in the latter case, I'm confident that a better science will, even indirectly, make for a more sustainable society.

                                        In the specific case of my essay, I think that if we succeed in spreading the key insights of science to very many people, then those people will naturally care about the environment more. Climate change is a very counterintuitive idea, and even scientifically-minded people struggle to understand it fully. If, as I hope, we learn to clarify complexity and chaos theory (among other things) to the masses, then climate change will become a more obvious threat, and something that people viscerally want to fight.