
The importance of stupidity in scientific research - BioGeek
http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/11/1771
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stcredzero
Years ago in Florida, I was with my sister, watching manatees in a huge glass
walled aquarium. The manatees were effortlessly floating from near the bottom
of the tank to the top. I asked, "How do they do that? Do they have ballast
systems like fish? How would a mammal evolve that?"

My sister turned to me and says, "You ask the stupidest questions!"

I was devastated. Only recently have I realized the truth. My sister's just
not that bright. (To be fair, she's humanities/arts. Her strengths are in
other areas.)

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biohacker42
Have you by any chance watched any "Dexter's Lab"?

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stcredzero
My sister's a choreographer, actually.

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netcan
How tall are you?

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stcredzero
I'm fairly short. But my sister's not taller than me. However, I am the leader
of a dance band named "Evil Genius."

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lallysingh
Amen.

As a CS guy suddenly having to do statistics (which my crypto prof called
"Sadistics") 10 years after my last calc class, I completely agree that you
often feel stupid.

OTOH, once you've felt stupid & worked through it in a few areas, the rest of
science suddenly feels more accessible to you. You know that you can pick up a
textbook on the topic and muddle through until you know what you need.

My dad had to learn a good amount about electronics to build his physics
experiments. To this day he's better at it than I am.

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jballanc
I have a sign above my desk: "If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call
it Research" \--Einstein

As a Ph.D. student, what was more daunting than the realization of just how
much I didn't know, was the day I realized that I had more questions than I
could find answers to in one lifetime...makes you feel rather...mortal.

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dhimes
Bachelor's Degree: you think you know everything

Master's Degree: you realize you don't know anything

Doctorate: you realize nobody knows anything

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jeeringmole
BS = B_llSh_t

MS = More of the Same

PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper

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jeeringmole
Douglas Adams wrote "A scientist must be absolutely like a child. If he sees a
thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was
going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first.
Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting." (in So Long, and Thanks
for All the Fish)

I was in school when I first read that line. I showed it to a fairly well-
known scientist who immediately put a copy on his office door. The smartest
people I have met are also the quickest to admit they don't know.

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gcheong
Sounds like a perfect example of the "fixed" vs. the "growth" mindsets that
Carlyn Dweck describes in her book "MindSet".

<http://mindsetonline.com/>

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anirudh
The article is pretty accurate, though I do not agree with the use of the term
“stupidity”. Following is how I view the evolution of a student:

1\. BS: This is the time when students read pre-digested information. 2\. MS:
They continue to read pre-digested information. In addition, they also start
reading information directly from the source (papers). Also, get a brief taste
of what it means to contribute to the field of knowledge 3\. PhD: Students
should read solely from the source (only papers). Further, it is payback time.
After having benefitted from all the knowledge that others created, they are
now required to produce knowledge.

The reason it takes research 5-7 years has nothing to do with how long it
takes to answer the thesis statement. Instead it has to do with how long it
takes for a student to become “mature in research”. In other words for them to
understand that their job is: • Identify problems, solutions to which are
relevant and challenging (the solutions can serve a purpose or can simply
possess aesthetic appeal). • Create solutions and document them for everyone
else to benefit from (papers and more papers) • Mentor young students to
embrace research • Teach digested information with a hint of the appeal of
science and research

Confronting a significant problem (not an incremental addition) is daunting, I
would not say it makes a student look stupid. I would say it shows the
opportunity and need that a field exhibits.

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adharmad
Reminds me of the quote by Francis Bacon which goes something like: Science is
about being a blind man with a stick, and he who most persistently pokes
blindly ahead of him, contributes the most to our understanding of the
Universe, though only if he is willing to accept what the poking tells him
that he does not want to be true.

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tspiteri
I think the article is about ignorance, not stupidity. Ignorance is a lack of
knowldedge, so it is important for research; research leads to new knowledge.
Stupidity is a lack of mental ability, which will not help in research.

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amichail
Feeling stupid is not a good sign. Why not switch to an area where you feel
rather confident?

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tokenadult
To the contrary, a lot of quite successful research mathematicians claim that
you feel stupid a lot if you are working on genuinely important problems. Paul
Zeitz one year at MathPath put the word "STUPID" up on a blackboard in huge
letters when orienting the middle-school age students attending that program
to what the difference is between math contest problems (which most
participants in that program are quite good at, by the selection criteria of
the program) and professional mathematics research problems.

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Rod
Quoting mathematician Sylvain Cappell (NYU - Courant Inst.):

 _"When you start on a new problem, you always feel stupid. You might spend a
whole day on a single paper, an hour on a single line. And you still don’t
understand it. When you get to a certain position in life, you don’t want to
feel stupid anymore. In mathematics, that’s when you’re dead."_

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adamc
Thanks, best article I've read in a month.

