Excellent article, though I think it understates how often technology precedes scientific understanding rather than following from it.
Steam engines preceded thermodynamics by decades. The Wright brothers succeeded through empirical testing while contemporary aerodynamic theory misled them. Transistors emerged from Bell Labs tinkering before detailed theoretical understanding. LLMs work remarkably well despite our still-limited grasp of why.
The irony is that your "outsiders"—the draper observing bacteria, the clockmaker solving longitude—weren't generating theoretical paradigm shifts. They were building things and making observations. That hands-on work *is* knowledge creation that often forces theory to catch up.
This strengthens rather than undermines your argument: we need outsiders not just for new theories, but to tinker and discover what actually works.
Thanks. I don't disagree with you; I think there is no real line between tools, discoveries and ideas, to paraphrase the fine Sydney Brenner. When I refer to paradigm shifts in the piece they are intended to imply a vision of 'models' that also encompasses technology and tools; perhaps this could have been clearer. - Alvin
A superb article.
Excellent article, though I think it understates how often technology precedes scientific understanding rather than following from it.
Steam engines preceded thermodynamics by decades. The Wright brothers succeeded through empirical testing while contemporary aerodynamic theory misled them. Transistors emerged from Bell Labs tinkering before detailed theoretical understanding. LLMs work remarkably well despite our still-limited grasp of why.
The irony is that your "outsiders"—the draper observing bacteria, the clockmaker solving longitude—weren't generating theoretical paradigm shifts. They were building things and making observations. That hands-on work *is* knowledge creation that often forces theory to catch up.
This strengthens rather than undermines your argument: we need outsiders not just for new theories, but to tinker and discover what actually works.
Thanks. I don't disagree with you; I think there is no real line between tools, discoveries and ideas, to paraphrase the fine Sydney Brenner. When I refer to paradigm shifts in the piece they are intended to imply a vision of 'models' that also encompasses technology and tools; perhaps this could have been clearer. - Alvin
Thank you for writing this piece, I enjoyed it a lot.