Improving our objective understanding of reality is one of the core goals of science. This essay will discuss three main obstacles that impede this scientific progress and their impact on the scientific community and society. The first obstacle is that we are social animals. The second obstacle is that great ideas get rejected initially. The third obstacle is that science comes with uncertainties and risks. By exploring these three main obstacles in greater detail, this essay will shed light on the scientific community's challenges and propose solutions to overcome these limitations, allowing science to provide a deeper understanding of nature and better serve human society.

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5 days later

A clearly written essay, encompassing a broad scope of aspects, thank you!

I enjoyed engaging with your points, and these point to a theme that is becoming more and more unavoidable in commentaries about our scientific project, from these essays to various monographs. Here are some of my comments:

Inclusion and diversity: Right - the greater the number of viewpoints, the better refinement we get on the way to the truth. Opening up dialectic is crucial to avoid individual and group bias.
• Encourage creativity and risk-taking: Absolutely. In fact, Sabine Hossenfelder says something similar in her "Lost in Maths."
• Embrace uncertainty: Recognize that scientific research involves a degree of uncertainty
and that it is okay not to have all the answers. Ditto. Failure to embrace null results, or to be influenced by non-empirical influences like grant distribution is a failure of the scientific method.
• Engage in constructive criticism: Encourage scientists to engage in constructive criticism
of each other's ideas while also being open to receiving criticism themselves. Again, Hossenfelder absolutely agrees with you on this. You've hit the nail on the head.
• Facilitate collaboration: Encourage scientists to work together on research projects, both
within and across institutions. Again, yes! Not doing so is a sure sign of individual bias, or group bias. Such biases are fatal to objectivity in the sciences.
• Be open to new approaches: Be open to new approaches to scientific research, including
interdisciplinary collaboration, new technologies, and emerging research fields. I address similar points in my own essay, and what you've pointed out here is an important means to address the general bias which lead to stagnation and decline.

    I agree with most of your essay and those points made by AquaMarten. You have provided some very good points. However, what you have provided are very general objectives. I think what is needed are more detailed recommendations for how to achieve these objectives. How can we avoid some of these obstacles and take advantage of the challenges?

      8 days later

      Alex

      Thank you for reading my essay and for your review. I appreciate that you brought Sabine Hossenfelder's previous essay and your interesting essay to my attention.
      We all agree that our human bias and discrimination in academia are damaging to science and understanding nature on a deeper level. It is encouraging to see positive improvements in alleviating gender and racial discrimination in academia.
      However, one major issue that is overlooked is that universities and research institutes mainly hire graduates of the top universities of first-world countries. Well, it is the safest decision because the graduates of the top universities are among the best in the world. But overdoing it (the way it is happening) is destructive for science. We all have our own knowledge and vision boxes, formed by our backgrounds and alma maters. When academia highly focuses on top-rated universities, it may impede the exploration of out-of-the-box ideas and hinder breakthrough discoveries.

      Breakthroughs are the outcome of challenging conventional wisdom and exploring uncharted territories. That may come from someone in a developing or underdeveloped country because they were never in the fancy boxes.
      Unfortunately, highly creative and strong safe-made candidates who graduated from other institutes are not treated fairly in the hiring process. I hope academia soon considers this issue and judges scientists based on their knowledge and talent rather than their alma maters. That will be a win-win situation!:-)

        Donald Palmer
        Thank you for your comment and the opportunity for a discussion. This essay focuses on three main obstacles toward objective understanding and suggests practical strategies to minimize them. Here I further clarify my points. I hope you find this helpful, and I will be happy to have your feedback and opinion.
        I) Social Animal and Objective Reality: As social animals by nature, we should understand that we are unavoidably biased based on our background and our society. We are trained by our society to follow and conform to the established norms and hierarchies. We want to feel fit in the already established structures and communities. The first step to minimize this subjectivity is to be aware and conscious of it. This self-awareness helps to be more careful and objective. The next step is proactively promoting diversity and inclusion based on gender, race, and background. We should accept that by giving opportunities to the under-represented parts of society, we ultimately do a favor for ourselves. Growing up in a different socioeconomic background, academic path and etc., they may see loopholes in our current culture, knowledge, and paradigms that we are blind to.
        II)  Great Ideas Get Rejected: History shows that great ideas always get rejected until we realize their impact and values. The main unavoidable issue is that we use old paradigms to judge the impact of new ideas. To minimize the harm of this, I suggest the following strategies. First, the funding agencies and academic systems should be conscious of this fact. Here one needs to begin by defining the phenomenon in an objective manner. This will help us not to fall into the trap of relying on existing assumptions and paradigms. The next step is to seek out diverse perspectives from different backgrounds and disciplines who may have different ways of thinking about the problem, which helps to know the problem in a new light and generate fresh ideas.   
        III) Successful Scientific failures:   While it is true that scientific research typically involves a systematic and intentional approach, accidental discoveries can also play a role in advancing scientific knowledge. In fact, some of the most important scientific discoveries throughout history have been made by accident. The practical strategies in this matter are as follows. Academia and funding agencies should emphasize the importance of creativity and the value of taking risks in scientific research. The creativity level is not a factor in the current evaluation metrics based on the number of publications and citations. We need new metrics to give value also to creativity and novelness. Besides, we need to embrace uncertainty and recognize that research involves a degree of uncertainty and that it is okay not to have all the answers. We need more funding aimed at high-risk/high-reward research projects and encourage interdisciplinary collaborations.

          DandelionCod
          I think we are on the same page about a number of concerns. I will only address your first point here (which I believe leads into your next two): Being subjective beings, objectivity is a difficult objective to achieve - usually we can only hope to approach it. Diversity appears everywhere in nature and is key to evolutionary progress. The subjective human perspective many times is at odds with diversity and hones in on a singular figure, tribe, culture, religion, theory, discipline, etc. With so many people in the world intentionally or unintentionally focused on the singular, diversity in science becomes difficult - so (I agree) proactively promoting diversity becomes key. How to promote diversity and inclusion, especially against the strong current of singular thinking, becomes the question.
          Open discussions among many different people would seem appropriate here (as with this essay contest). Maybe we could include wider sources of discussion groups and research platforms than (to refer to another essay topic) arXiv and even peer-reviewed journals. This will likely hit the challenge of large volumes of articles, papers, etc. that are written by many people not educated in the details of a specific theory or discipline. Too often the disciplinary response is to ignore, scoff at, and deride these sources/authors. How this leads to diversity and inclusion I do not understand. Better responses might be to educate and encourage to learn more about the subject. This takes time and effort (on both sides) and likely hits that volume challenge quickly. The combined challenges of education and volume appear key, in my mind. Can automated tools (e.g. AI) assist in these two challenges?

            17 days later

            Hi DandelionCod.
            Totally agree with you!
            You said, that:
            "Breakthroughs are the outcome of challenging conventional wisdom and exploring uncharted territories. That may come from someone in a developing or underdeveloped country because they were never in the fancy boxes."

            You have to think big!
            It is known that Newton determined the gravitational coefficient through the parameters of the orbits of the planets of the solar system. If the gravitational coefficient is determined in a similar way from the parameters of the orbits of electrons in the Hydrogen atom, then the gravitational coefficient of the planetary system of the Hydrogen atom becomes 40 orders of magnitude greater than in the solar system. Then the Planck parameters of the Hydrogen atom are the parameters of an electron with its radius equal to the radius of the Compton wave of the electron. Those. each level of fractal matter has its own “Planck parameters”, and the generally accepted Planck parameters are an abstract delusion and have no real meaning at all. Indeed, what relation does the gravitational coefficient from the parameters of the Solar system have to the parameters of the planetary system of the Hydrogen atom? None!!!

            You have to think big!
            The fine structure constant can be easily calculated with an accuracy of up to 7 digits, assuming that all elements of matter have a fractal structure. Then, therefore, "black holes" do not exist, and there is no event horizon. Those. inside putative "black holes", there is deterministic matter that obeys the simple quantum laws of fractal matter, which unify gravity and quantum phenomena of the deterministic functioning of matter on all scales of the universe [ appendix: https://s3.amazonaws.com/fqxi.data/data/essay-contest-files/16/reference_id_2304.pdf
            https://qspace.fqxi.org/competitions/entry/2304#control_panel ].

              In a nutshell, you mention most of the obstacles to good science that it takes me 9 pages to relate in "Global Externalities and a new science." As you say, "In this essay, I focused on three obstacles and discussed possible strategies to overcome those limitations and achieve greater success" An element of accident was involved on a hill in NJ when 2 scientists discovered a cosmic echo of the universe. New approaches by a minority physicist regarding cosmology. Then there is the bias wrought by agenda-bound corporate control in the culture of our world. Your essay was well done and quite succinct.

              6 days later

              Vladimir Fedorov
              Thank you for reading this essay and your feedback. I appreciate for bringing your article to my attention. I am not sure if I can follow your arguments since I am not familiar with the fractal matter. I would like to discuss more once I have your name and can read your papers.
              The main conceptual issue I would like to understand about your argument is as follows.
              We know that quantum systems can be entangled, which has no classical analog. Based on that, Bell's theorem proved quantum mechanics is not in agreement with local hidden variables. Now my question is how a fractal matter can violate Bell's theorem?

                  Donald Palmer
                  Thank you for your valuable feedback and question.
                  You mentioned the possible impact of Al on broadening the range of scientific fields. You nailed it, and for sure AI can help since it can consider multidisciplinary sources and also experts from diverse backgrounds.

                  Moreover, the key to diversifying our scientific research lies in embracing curiosity, being open to new ideas, and actively seeking out diverse subjects. In this direction, I found online colloquiums on different but related subfields helpful in forming fresh perspectives and insights.

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