

What Worries Scientists - pfarrell
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-150-of-the-worlds-smartest-scientists-are-worried-about

======
tokenadult
This is just blogspam for the original, more deep and interesting set of
Edge.org answers,

<http://www.edge.org/responses/q2013>

which I'm pretty sure was previously submitted here to HN. There is a lot of
food for thought in the full responses of the persons who respond to the Edge
questions each year.

For example, one of the responses is just plain puzzling in the blogspam tl;dr
version, but thought-provoking in the full version:

"Steven Strogatz

"Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University; Author, The Joy of x

"Too Much Coupling

"In every realm where we exist as a collective —in society, in the global
economy, on the Internet —we are blithely increasing the coupling between us,
with no idea what that might entail.

"'Coupling' refers to the ability of one part of a complex system to influence
another. If I put a hundred metronomes on the floor and set them ticking,
they'll each do their own thing, swinging at their own rhythm. In this
condition, they're not yet coupled. Because the floor is rigid, the metronomes
can't feel each other's vibrations, at least not enough to make a difference.
But now place them all on a movable platform like the seat of a child's swing.
The metronomes will start to feel each other's jiggling. The swing will start
to sway, imperceptibly at first, but enough to disturb each metronome and
alter its rhythm. Eventually the whole system will synchronize, with all the
metronomes ticking in unison. By allowing the metronomes to impose themselves
on each other through the vibrations they impart to the movable platform, we
have coupled the system and changed its dynamics radically.

"In all sorts of complex systems, this is the general trend: increasing the
coupling between the parts seems harmless enough at first. But then, abruptly,
when the coupling crosses a critical value, everything changes. The exact
nature of the altered state isn't easy to foretell. It depends on the system's
details. But it's always something qualitatively different from what came
before. Sometimes desirable, sometimes deadly.

"I worry that we're playing the coupling game with ourselves, collectively.
With our cell phones and GPS trackers and social media, with globalization,
with the coming Internet of things, we're becoming more tightly connected than
ever. Of course, maybe that's good. Greater coupling means faster and easier
communication and sharing. We can often do more together than apart.

"But the math suggests that increasing coupling is a siren's song. Too much
makes a complex system brittle. In economics and business, the wisdom of the
crowd works only if the individuals within it are independent, or nearly so.
Loosely coupled crowds are the only wise ones.

"The human brain is the most exquisitely coupled system we know of, but the
coupling between different brain areas has been honed by evolution to allow
for the subtleties of attention, memory, perception, and consciousness. Too
much coupling produces pathological synchrony: the rhythmic convulsions and
loss of consciousness associated with epileptic seizures.

"Propagating malware, worldwide pandemics, flash crashes—all symptoms of too
much coupling. Unfortunately it's hard to predict how much coupling is too
much. We only know that we want more, and that more is better… until it
isn't."

~~~
pfarrell
Thanks for posting that. I wasn't aware that it was pulled from a longer
source. I did check if this link had been submitted, but wasn't aware of the
original source.

I do think the "blogspam" offers concise summaries of the responses, which
adds value for me. The fact that I can use that to go deeper into mini essays
on edge will dominate my morning's reading.

------
irickt
The Edge answers, edited to tweets. Original source: <http://edge.org/annual-
question/q2013>

Edit: Not quite blogspam because it is a useful summary that is not available
on the original site. It would added more value with links to the answers.

------
thebear
What I find interesting is that almost all respondents name worries that are
in or related to their own profession or field of study. Note that the
original question was "What should _we_ be worried about?" So now I am worried
that nobody can see past the edges of their own little world anymore.

------
Fargren
76\. That we worry too much. –Joel Gold, psychiatrist

82\. That we worry too much. –Gary Klein, scientist at MacroCognition

89\. That we worry too much. –Donald D. Hoffman, cognitive scientist

92\. That we worry too much. –Brian Knutson, associate professor of psychology

95\. That we worry too much, but about fictional violence. –Jonathan
Gottschall, English professor

116\. That we worry too much. –Virginia Heffernan, Yahoo News correspondent

128\. That we worry too much. –James J. O’Donnell, classical scholar

129\. That we worry too much. –Robert Provine, neuroscientist

146\. That we worry too much, and “package our worries” in a deleterious
fashion. –Mary Catherine Bateson, professor emerita

~~~
smosher
You missed:

 _51\. That we will worry too much. –Joseph LeDoux, neuroscientist_

Not sure about the other cognitive-/neuro-scientists, but I know LeDoux spent
considerable time on the amygdala.

------
alexholehouse
This article is worth it just for Venter's response

------
ArikBe
_“We should worry that so much of our science and technology still uses just
five main models of probability—even though there are more probability models
than there are real numbers.” –Bart Kosko, information scientist_

Which five models is he referring to?

~~~
rrmm
normal, binomial, poisson, uniform, exponential

------
claudius
> 53\. Too much coupling. –Steven Strogatz, professor of applied mathematics,
> Cornell

 _Everybody_ hates coupling. Also, stupidity.

~~~
pfarrell
Ha! That one confused me. Did he mean too much coupling between our systems
(knowledge, financial, etc) effectively producing monoculture suceptible to
disease... Or just too much hanky-panky :).

~~~
claudius
Strogatz is mostly known for his research in dynamical systems, where coupling
leads to chaotic behaviour. (Strong) coupling also terribly annoys particle
physicists when they want to describe the strong nuclear force and generally
makes life bad.

He was certainly referring to the first kind, a huge increase in
interdependence leading to more chaotic/unpredictable and possibly more
vulnerable systems, be they financial, economical, ecological or just
semiconduct…orial?

------
waterlesscloud
Rodney Brooks has a nice twist- "That we won’t have enough robots to do all
the jobs we’ll need them to do in coming decades."

------
markbernard
"9. That the internet is ruining writing. – David Gelernter, Yale computer
scientist"

Not very smart.

