The streetlight effect & science

[greenshots]

Few other examples illustrate scientific ignorance more. Methylation is definitely looking into the darkest regions of science but the limitations of human ignorance blind us to this overwhelming field of study. It makes you wonder how many new channels will be discovered within the next century and why people like Rich or Yasko welcome the darkness when so many others shun it.

http://io9.com/5983112/how-the-streetlight-effect-keeps-scientists-in-the-dark

 

[Red04]

Few other examples illustrate scientific ignorance more. Methylation is definitely looking into the darkest regions of science but the limitations of human ignorance blind us to this overwhelming field of study. It makes you wonder how many new channels will be discovered within the next century and why people like Rich or Yasko welcome the darkness when so many others shun it.

http://io9.com/5983112/how-the-streetlight-effect-keeps-scientists-in-the-dark

I recently changed jobs. As I was looking for potentially a new career, I did a lot of personality tests and research as part of my "soul searching". I think your post deals a lot with basic personalities types. Me and my boss share almost identical personalities. Except he doesn't really care to fundamentally understand things. He just wants to apply them.

Me on the other hand. I don't really care about applying them, I just want to understand them.

He spent two weeks building a spreadsheet to integrate all of our accounting to track utilization and increase our profit. He brought it to me and we went through it and tweaked it and made a 2.0 version. I was laying in bed that night and I started thinking that tracking utilization really won't directly increase our profit. I brought this to his attention and he said "well, we used it at my last company and it worked". However, they had a slightly different business model where utilization has a direct connection to profit. Our company doesn't.

He didn't want to hear it as I explained this to him, and the next day he realized it was actually true and called me in his office and was laughing at how he spent all that time for nothing and if it wasn't for me he would have spent the rest of the year making everyone use the spreadhseet. Now we are tracking a few other items that directly affect profit in our business model. I would never build a spreadsheet or apply it or have the energy to roll it out to our entire group and he doesn't have the personality that drives him to thoroughly understand it. In this case, it took both of us.

I think people with a desire to understand systems and analyze things, often don't make it into the medical community. They become engineers or software programmers or probably even attourneys. All the doctors we saw when my wife was sick, maybe one of them seemed to have the desire to understand her illness. Most of them were about the process and the testing that is in place. Perfectionist of application. Paitent X needs drug Y. Where we need all personality types to get ahead, I think getting through med school is a process that requires too much energy for "free thinkers".

Most doctors are driven and see the process of pre-med and grad school and med school as a challenge and embrace it and tackle it head on. Most free thinkers probably run from that.....All that structure would zap all your energy and prevent you from doing what you like to do, analyzing and thinking. People like Rich and Freddd and Yasko, typically get culled out.

 

[Shoesies]

Red04 Perfect, logical and rational explanation. It actually helps me understand why I am so frustrated with doctors. LMBO, I managed large multi-practice medical offices before I became ill. To say I constantly found myself bumping the brick wall is understating it.

 

[drex13]

Unfortunately, I think free thinking is being discouraged on a large scale by our educational systems and by large corporations. Large companies don't want or like free thinkers. They want drones and robots who do what they are told, and how they are told to do it. I see so many articles discouraging soon to be college students from pursuing things that interest them, and instead telling future students they should major in computere science or business, because history, english, or even architecture don't get you hired (according to so-called HR experts). I'm sorry, but if I am doing the hiring or recruiting, I don't care what someone's college major was or their GPA or maybe if they even have a degree. I want someone who is smart, curious, hard working, and willing to learn more. And can creatively problem solve. I have degrees in Business and in Information Science. BORING!!!...I should have stuck with my gut, way back when and studied things that interested me more. Sorry, I strayed from the topic a bit, but it's a pet peeve I have.

 

[greenshots]

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. It does make more sense when you consider those who enjoy structure vs. those who enjoy creating and analyzing. Some of the smartest people I know can teach themselves quantum physics in a week, just because it helps them in their intellectual journey for learning something else. And they don't have degrees in anything. Whereas some of the most miserable professionals I know, who have lengthy titles and degrees, are completely miserable butting heads in organizations that don't allow free thought for problem solving. I remember when my doc told me about her break from managed care. She said every single one of her colleagues were willing to accept the "perception" of quality medical care even though they all knew it was a lie. Sorta like the Emperor's new suit, only there wasn't a kid to point out the obvious. Either that, or no one cared.

How to solve this in medicine? Where so many lives depend on it...........