The moment I read about it, I ordered the book, but received at least three emails from Amazon.co.uk apologizing for not being able to find me a copy of Lee Smolin’s The trouble with physics. A very considerate review of the book can be found at Background Independence, Christine Dantas’ old blog. Btw. I’m happy Christine has set up a new blog called Theorema Egregium. Here’s the section in her review that convinced me to have a look at the book myself.

I do not wish to make public some of my old, deep own feelings about what I think science is and how it should be conducted. There are of course certain points that I often do make public, but there are some others that tormented me for quite a long time now, and are so personal and even of emotive nature that I would rather keep them to myself. But this is the fact per se that should be mentioned here, since this is the contribution that I feel I can give on examining his book: I found out that he was addressing some of my personal views and doubts, of course from his own perspective and wisdom, but it was like talking to an old friend who followed my own career in science and understood what troubled me most for all those years. So this book is for you if you want to be challenged over your own vision of science and how you fit in it.

Finally, after all these months, just before going on vacation I discovered a copy in one of my favourite bookshops in Antwerp and took it along. I dont know Christine’s favourite chapters of the book but I feel somehow I’ll be not too far off mark in believing that chapter 16 “How Do You Fight Sociology?” will be among them. This chapter (just 27 pages) should be read and reread by all scientists. In it, Lee Smolin describes community behaviour of certain scientific groups (he has the stringtheory-community in mind but I’m sure anyone will recognise some of its behavior in groups closer to ones own research-interests. I certainly did…). Here we go (citing from page 284)

1. Tremendous self-confidence , leading to a sense of entitlement and of belonging to an elite of experts.
2. An unusually monolithic community , with a strong sense of consensus, whether driven by evidence or not, and an unusual uniformity of views on open questions. These views seem related to the existence of a hierarchical structure in which ideas of a few leaders dictate the viewpoint, strategy, and direction of the field,
3. In some cases, a sense of identification with the group , akin to identification with a religious faith or political platform.
4. A strong sense of the boundary between the group and other experts .
5. A disregard for and disinterest in the ideas, opinions, and work of experts who are not part of the group, and a preference for talking only with other members of the commnity.
6. A tendency to interpret evidence optimistically , to believe exaggerated or incorrect statements of results, and to disregard the possibility that the theory might be wrong. This is coupled with a tendency to believe results are true because they are widely believed’ even if one has not checked (or even seen) the proof oneself.
7. A lack of appreciation for the extent to which a research program ought to involve risk.

Although spotting such behaviour can be depressing and/or frustrating, Smolin’s analysis is that such groups are doomed to perish sooner or later for it is exactly the kind of behaviour sociologists and psychologists recognize as groupthink, following the Yale psychologist Irving Janis, “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action”. Groupthink is responsable for failures of decision making by groups of experts such as the “failure of NASA to prevent the Challenger disaster, the failure of the West to anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union, the failure of the American automobile companies to feresee the demand for smaller cars, and most recently - and perhaps most calamitously - the Bush administration’s rush to war on the basis of a false belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” (Smolin, page 286). An aspect of these groupthinking science-groups that worries me most of all is their making of exagerated claims to potential applications, not supported (yet) by solid proof. Short-time effect may be to attract more people to the subject and to keep doubting followers on board, but in the long term (at least if the claimed results remain out of reach) this will destroy the subject itself (and, sadly enough, also closeby subjects making no outrageous claims…). My advice to people making such claims is : do a Perelman! Rather than doing a PR-job, devote yourself for as long as it takes to prove your hopes, somewhere in splendid isolation and come back victoriously. I have a spare set of keys if you are in search for the perfect location…

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groups, wordpress

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Posted in general, rants
Written on Tue, 17 April 2007 at 2:37 pm
Tags: groups, wordpress
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