A

Azadeh Maleknejad

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 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.

I enjoyed reading your well-written and engaging essay. You nailed it by pointing out that breakthrough discoveries require risk-making and supporting new ideas with an open mind. As you said, We should be confident enough to retreat in our ideas, even at the cost of explanatory power, and be willing to approach new ideas with open minds.

Another issue that I believe has been overlooked in academia 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 & 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. Someone with a different background and educational system can bring new perspectives and ideas.
I should also mention I liked FQXi's anonymity rule.

I raised related ideas in my essay and would be happy to have your opinion on them.

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!:-)