This is a fascinating question that does a great job of bringing realism and idealism head to head. If we're realistic, obviously a lot of people have great potential, but only a very few will both have enough potential and enough drive to realistically hit it big; but can we tell who they are? Idealistically, it's not entirely fair to give a select few all the support; but is it fair to deprive all of humanity of the advances an elite few could make, just to make the elite few's contemporaneous peers feel equally attended to?
Personally, I think when you stack the probabilities of potential * interest * means * drive * luck, progress _is_ led by an elite few. The elite few are sometimes bolstered by a massive support system, but part of being the elite, successful few is being able to garner that support, whether through personality, luck, etc.
For levity, I'll also add that one thing I love about history in general is finding a tidbit like this:
> It is fitting that a pair of Coles gets a reply by a pair of MacRoberts (1986) who argue that bibliographies are incomplete.
To me it's not clear what realism and idealism is in your framework; my idea of each I think might be different from yours.
Katalin Karikó was denied tenure at Penn.
Douglas Prasher ended up becoming a courtesy shuttle driver for a Toyota dealership.
These are a couple of the many of examples that only get attention for how blatantly absurd they are. For each one of these types of stories there are undoubtedly many others you never hear about.
The entire reason why these conversations are happening, about how to fund research and support research, is because of how absurd these types of outcomes are.
This is the first time I hear about Katalin Karikó and Douglas Prasher and their stories. Thank you for mentioning them.
I'm shocked (in a way)...but on the other side I'm not very surprised. :(
Occasionally I would hear or read threads and news talking about the problems in science (research, funding, education) like the one we're commenting on. Still these stories are on another level (or maybe it's just a feeling I have, because there are faces, official news clips, statements etc. so we can relate to those people on a personal level).
And when I just think that there are, who knows how many, people like these...
| Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action / Oh see the men of action falling back - leonard cohen
To champion the idealists for a moment, what's the practical implication of realism in this case? Elitism in retrospect is one thing, but trying to bring it forward or explicitly advancing it seems like it would result poorly. By what criteria would an Albert Einstein, the patent clerk, ever have been selected? Your best bet at an Einstein is to let everyone in and see who discovers relativity.
It seems to me that the only way to enrich the elite is to empower the masses, so to speak. In any case, I think it's more important to focus on what circumstances allow a person's potential to emerge. Potential is a highly available resource.
Like the author note, the problem isn't that most will fail. It's that most will never try, tenure or no. The free mindedness required to even attempt greatness is often frivolous. Frivolousness is more of an egalitarian than an elitist hallmark.
*Note: I'm not referring to politics or economics in any way. Just playing along with the language of the article.
The brilliance and drive he displayed, as a child, would be a good place to start. But, I'm a believer that knowledge is limited by dedication and intelligence is limited by nature. This belief came after I suffered from a 6 hour TIA, that passed through my cerebrum, causing me to lose some of my intelligence. This was a wakeup call that made me realize that the ease that I had before wasn't my own accomplishment, or somehow related to my efforts.
Temporarily or permanently? I'm curious, because I've likely had one too (much shorter though). I definitely noticed my inability to think properly. Medium-term memory (not sure what it's called, but remembering anything past a dozen seconds) was also limited or non-existent.
Yes, me too within the first months. It improved steadily over about a year, but didn't change too much after that. The best analogy is that I would previously think in long paragraphs, and after I would think in sentences. I had to write notes as I was thinking otherwise I would lose my train of thought pretty easily.
But, I had pretty great success with hyperbaric oxygen therapy [1] in combination with oxiracetam [2][3]. I would highly recommend looking into it, and it might be covered by your insurance. I was really struggling with work, and it definitely helped that, my lack of motivation, my muted personality, and some anger issues. My wife says she noticed a big difference and claims I'm now back to normal. I would say that I now can think in short paragraphs, which is sure a lot better than before! My brain is my job, so the cost was easily justified. It really was a big change in a short amount of time.
The weirdest and shittiest lingering problem is that I have apparently mostly lost the sensation of needing to breathe. Before the oxygen therapy I could just hold my breath and literally not notice. It took me passing out a few times to realize that I was forgetting to breath during conversation. This made exercise difficult. After the oxygen therapy, a slight urge to breathe has come back. I can exercise, and I'm not afraid to swim now, but if I'm deep in thought, I'll forget to breathe and end up feeling pretty terrible. I plan on buying a continuous, wearable, oxygen monitor...
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31057392/
Note that the oxiracetam was my thing, not prescribed by the doctor (he did approve of it though, as long as I was taking some choline supplement). I now take ~1g/day with 200mg centrophenoxine (choline), and fish oil on weekdays. This seems to really help.
[3] Can't find the exact NIH reference for this one that I really liked, but I'll reply when I find it. But, the concept is (my understanding) that capillaries grow where oxygen is needed. A TIA will tremendously clog capillaries. The neurons that were deprived from the clogged capillaries don't receive enough oxygen to metabolism enough to promote new capillary growth. So they stay "dormant". Promoting capillary growth and waking up these dormant ones is how someone with a stroke really benefits. This was all echoed by the doctor that reviewed my situation before the therapy could start.
> By what criteria would an Albert Einstein, the patent clerk, ever have been selected?
By the criteria that were in effect at the time, which weren't that different from the ones in effect now. Einstein was working as a patent clerk when he published his 1905 papers, but patent clerk was just a day job, and everybody who mattered in physics knew that. He already had a degree and was working on his Ph.D. (which he was awarded soon after). He took the patent clerk job because he couldn't get a teaching post after getting his first degree, because none of his professors would give him a good recommendation; but he still had plenty of contacts in physics. His 1905 papers were published in Annalen der Physik, the most prestigious physics journal in the world at that time, and that wouldn't have happened if he'd been just some random patent clerk.
> Frivolousness is more of an egalitarian than an elitist hallmark.
While this is true, I think it's also true that the ability to be frivolous even about big questions like the fundamental laws of physics is rare. It's egalitarian because frivolity is fundamentally opposed to any kind of elitism, not because frivolity about fundamental questions is common.
Agreed. In practice though, it might not make a difference. When it comes to funding, appointments to positions and such... we are elbow deep into constructing a culture. Elitist cultures, most histories show, are easy to create. So are hegemonic mindsets, and the two often go together. heterodoxy is rare and hard.. hence harder to maintain in a culture and individually.
The premise of treating everyone equally under the law (or otherwise) despite knowing for certain that not everyone is equal is that it helps prove beyond reason of doubt who the elite truly is. That is, the top contributers are in part there because of socioeconomic factors, exeptional parental support or a culture of sorts (Think Chess versus Go) But trying to at least give everyone resources to compete helps us find the exeptional few.
I'm not sure what you mean by "premise", but I really hope that the justification for "treating everyone equally under the law (or otherwise)" is not because doing so "helps prove beyond a reason of doubt who the elite truly are". For that would imply that if a better way is found of "proving" who the elite truly are, we could abandon the idea of equal treatment. Or that we could abandon equal treatment if we agreed that "proving who the elite are" is actually unimportant. In fact, I'm personally skeptical of the value of "proving beyond reason of doubt who the elite truly are", but also highly committed to the principal of equal treatment, so I think the two are unrelated.
As I understood it: since we don't know who the exceptional few are, we want to give a fair bit of support at the start to everyone, this will allow the hidden talents to show up.
"For that would imply that if a better way is found of "proving" who the elite truly are, we could abandon the idea of equal treatment."
In a way this already happens, equal treatment is out the window as soon as a doctor makes an assesment based on race or gender or country of origin. the basis of new drug trials is to make a representative 'equal' group of people. however in its wake if certain drugs are found to interfere with pregnancy then a doctor will not treat patients equally. In law beside the requirement to have a law degree, certain companies want lawyers from prestiegious schools or with exeptional grades. there is no equal chance to get hired here. Though what is a danger for these companies is that the grades and graduation process must not favour any particular candidate on anything other what the company wants to select for (Merit). if their grades are not aquired trough a fair process then companies will lose more and more of their guaranteed value.
Equality seems to serve as a way to find the exeptional few and prove by the many thousands in the same bracket that their skill is based on merit.
I think that the few who have both the ability and the drive to move science forward can be filtered by these two traits, and sort of already are. Their ability allows them to enter academia after working hard on their degree. Their drive keeps them in, severely underpaid compared to industrial careers.
There is a fable about a king and the royal astronomer. The king finds out that the astronomer is paid half as much as the palace's gatekeeper, and wants to increase the astronomer's pay to be comfortably above the gatekeeper's, to help further the science. The astronomer begs him to not do it, else those who now aspire to serve as a palace gatekeeper would try to secure the more lucrative position of the royal astronomer, to the detriment of the actual astronomical studies.
Unfortunately, currently academia equally selects by the ability to write grant applications full time and, at least in some areas, by the ability to produce showy results. Also, the choice is usually between rather short contracts and very hard-to-obtain tenure; the job security is pretty shaky unless you manage to become a full professor. This is sad and frustrating to those who strives to do science. I've seen a few of my acquaintances leave academy for industry, some with relief, some grudgingly.
In my grad school cohort, many of those who left academic research were just as smart and successful as those who stayed.
On top of that, “rising” often takes time which our current system doesn’t always allow for: there are lots of opportunities gated by time-since-degree and age.
Personally, I think when you stack the probabilities of potential * interest * means * drive * luck, progress _is_ led by an elite few. The elite few are sometimes bolstered by a massive support system, but part of being the elite, successful few is being able to garner that support, whether through personality, luck, etc.
For levity, I'll also add that one thing I love about history in general is finding a tidbit like this:
> It is fitting that a pair of Coles gets a reply by a pair of MacRoberts (1986) who argue that bibliographies are incomplete.