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THE_SWAN_SLEEPS

                                             Feb 14, 2008
                                             May  9, 2008
Taleb makes the point that many scientific
discoveries are essentially inadvertent        BLACK_SWAN
(p. 166, 167)-- and I'm glad to see he
references the Koestler book "The
Sleepwalkers", which I like quite a bit.

I do think he exaggerates the role of
randomness in research, but it appears it
would be impossible to prove this to him:

He refuses to believe any reports of
linear discoveries ("we set out to                            FALSE_KARL
find this and we did"), presuming
that this is just a story made up          How can he just make claims
afterwards to make it sound like the       like this without feeling
researchers knew what they were doing.     embarrassed?  He's always
                                           always going on about
  It's a nutty assertion,                  empiricism and falsifiability
  showing a lack of knowledge              and "confirmation bias"...
  of the way modern research
  is conducted:                                     Though at least he
                                                    didn't say that in
  (1) you're almost never                           print: that's from an
  *allowed* to just mess around,                    EconTalk interview
  you've got to explain where                       available on the web:
  you're going when you apply
  for funding                                          [ref]

  (2) scientists *love* to tell
  stories about serendipitous
  discoveries-- where would the
  incentive be to fake a sense
  of directedness?  They care if
  you have the right answer, how
  you got there is far less
  important.



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