Carl T. BergstromJun 27, 2023

My colleague Kevin Gross and I have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

Just for fun, rather than a simple text explainer, a thread with some slides for a talk I'm giving at https://www.icssi.org/ tomorrow.

Here's the paper itself: Rationalizing risk aversion in science. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.13816

International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation

International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation
Show threadCarl T. BergstromJun 27, 2023
The basic issue at hand is high-risk, high-return science. There is widespread sentiment, and even some scattered empirical evidence, that scientific research within academia is too cautious and that higher-risk, higher-return research would yield more progress more quickly.
Show threadJanne Moren

@ct_bergstrom
In my (limited) experience part of the problem is that if you *do* propose a high-risk project, the reviewers come back with "Interesting, but unlikely to work". and scores it lower than safer projects, so it doesn't get funding.

And since a proposal submission is expensive - in time, in opportunity cost (can often submit only one proposal) - you need to optimize for the best likelihood of getting funded. Submitting a low-chance proposal hurts you all by itself.

Jun 27, 2023 at 4:21amWeb