12 milli-blog - greenology and the danger in numbers effect

#update #meta #society
parents:: milli-blog
daily note:: 2025-01-11

Danger in numbers in question asking

The number of questions asked during, say, a lecture or a panel, often scales inversely with the size of the audience (and never doesn't grows even close to proportionally). When it's a lecture given to 1, there's going to be a lot of questions. While very few people will be willing to risk looking dumb in front of a whole stadium full of potential enemies, friends, future mates. Because yes, in many instances we are still cavemen. (Note: I don't actually have data for this). Let's call this the danger in numbers effect.

The slowdown of science

I wonder if something similar applies to ideas. I've read a smattering of articles and podcasts and videos based on the observation that, despite the increasing number of people and increasing investment in scientific research, the rate of progress has seemed to stall. Of course, the question of how does one even measure progress in the first place is a little bit contentious. If one measures in terms of shear volume of papers or citations, then we're doing great! But if we instead look at metrics of the impact of innovation on the economy, then you see something like this:

(from Against the Burden of Knowledge - by Maxwell Tabarrok)

The usual explanation is the "burden of knowledge" (as evidenced by the existence of counterarguments against it). This says that the primary reason for a slowdown in scientific production is that, in order to make it to the forefront of any modern field, one needs to first reach the frontier. That frontier takes longer to reach the more knowledge we've built up in a particular field.

This is a very compelling argument, and one that I mostly buy.

However, I'd like to entertain a different argument. What if the reason is danger in numbers?

Greenology - a fable

Say, I, a budding researcher in Greenology, suddenly wonder, what if we can do something other than just vary the saturation or brightness of green? What if we try to change the frequency of the light? Would that make any difference? Would that create a non-green?

Unfortunately, as a theoretician, I don't have access to the experimental apparatus to test this hypothesis. My options are

  1. Post to Twitter asking this question
  2. Try to publish a theory paper that discusses the possible effects of changing the frequency of light.
  3. Stick to studying green.

Option 1: well... I only have 30 followers. For each of them, my tweet will be led and followed by fluffy cats and drone strikes. That is to say, effectively non-existent. But, you know who does end up reading it? The folks in charge of hiring decisions at Massachusetts Institute of Greenology (MIG) when I'm on the job market in 3 years. They're about to decide to hire me, but do a quick social media check just to make sure I'm not a socialist or a fascist or a pianist. Unfortunately, they find out that the situations is even more dire than that. Ah, the danger in numbers.

Option 2: I write up a great paper. It posits the existence of a whole spectrum of colors! There might even be a color wheel, and you might be able to combine different colors to get new colors!
The reviewers receive the paper, and they might think one of a few things:

Option 3: I stick to studying green, I publish at each of the big conferences every six months or so. Papers titled "Green is all you need", or "White - the complete lack of green". I go on to a tenured position at MIG where I advise my curious and ambitious students not to wonder about the frequency of light.

"Why?" They might ask.

"Ah, the danger in numbers."