I agree with what has been said about the modesty norm of academia; I speculate that it arises because if you can avoid washing out of the first-year math courses, you’re already one or two standard deviations above average, and thus you are in a population in which achievements that stood out in a high school (even a good one) are just not that special. Bragging about your SAT scores, or even your grades, begins to feel a bit like bragging about your “Participant” ribbon from sports day. There’s also the point that the IQ distribution in a good physics department is not Gaussian; it is the top end of a Gaussian, sliced off. In other words, there’s a lower bound and an exponential frequency decay from there. Thus, most people in a physics department are on the lower end of their local peer group. I speculate that this discourages bragging because the mass of ordinary plus-two-SDs doesn’t want to be reminded that they’re not all that bright.
However, all that aside: Are academics the target of this blog, or of lukeprog’s posts? Propaganda, to be effective, should reach the masses, not the elite—although there’s something to be said for “Get the elite and the masses will follow”, to be sure. Although academics are no doubt over-represented among LessWrong readers and indeed among regular blog readers, still they are not the whole world. Can we show that a glowing listing of not-very-specific awesomenesses is counterproductive to the average LW reader, or the average prospective recruit who might be pointed to lukeprog’s post? If not, the criticism rather misses its mark. Academics can always be pointed to the Sequences instead; what we’re missing is a quick introduction for the plus-one-SD who is not going to read three years of blog output.
Well, no, I don’t think so. Most academics do not work on impossible problems, or think of this as a worthy goal. So it should be more like “Do cool stuff, but let it speak for itself”.
Moderately related: I was just today in a meeting to discuss a presentation that an undergraduate student in our group will be giving to show her work to the larger collaboration. On her first page she had
Subject
Her name
Grad student helping her
Dr supervisor no 1
Dr supervisor no 2
And to start off our critique, supervisor 1 mentioned that, in the subculture of particle physics, it is not the custom to list titles, at least for internal presentations. (If you’re talking to a general audience the rules change.) Everyone knows who you are and what you’ve done! Thus, he gave the specific example that, if you mention “Leon”, everyone knows you speak of Leon Lederman, the Nobel-Prize winner. But as for “Dr Lederman”, pff, what’s a doctorate? Any idiot can be a doctor and many idiots (by physics standards, that is) are; if you’re not a PhD it’s at least assumed that you’re a larval version of one. It’s just not a very unusual accomplishment in these circles. To have your first name instantly recognised is a much greater accolade. Doctors are thirteen to the dozen, but there is only one Leon.
Of course this is not really modesty, as such; it’s a particular form of status recognition. We don’t make much overt show of it, but everyone knows their position in the hierarchy!
I have seen this elsewhere in the academy as well.
At many elite universities, professors are never referred to as Dr-so-and-so. Everybody on the faculty has a doctorate. They are Professor-so-and-so. At some schools, I’m told they are referred to as Mr or Mrs-so-and-so. Similar effect: “we know who’s cool and high-status and don’t need to draw attention to it.”
Wow, I didn’t even consciously recognize this convention, although I would definitely never, for instance, add titles to the author list of a paper. So I seem to have somehow picked it up without explicitly deciding to.
I agree with what has been said about the modesty norm of academia; I speculate that it arises because if you can avoid washing out of the first-year math courses, you’re already one or two standard deviations above average, and thus you are in a population in which achievements that stood out in a high school (even a good one) are just not that special. Bragging about your SAT scores, or even your grades, begins to feel a bit like bragging about your “Participant” ribbon from sports day. There’s also the point that the IQ distribution in a good physics department is not Gaussian; it is the top end of a Gaussian, sliced off. In other words, there’s a lower bound and an exponential frequency decay from there. Thus, most people in a physics department are on the lower end of their local peer group. I speculate that this discourages bragging because the mass of ordinary plus-two-SDs doesn’t want to be reminded that they’re not all that bright.
However, all that aside: Are academics the target of this blog, or of lukeprog’s posts? Propaganda, to be effective, should reach the masses, not the elite—although there’s something to be said for “Get the elite and the masses will follow”, to be sure. Although academics are no doubt over-represented among LessWrong readers and indeed among regular blog readers, still they are not the whole world. Can we show that a glowing listing of not-very-specific awesomenesses is counterproductive to the average LW reader, or the average prospective recruit who might be pointed to lukeprog’s post? If not, the criticism rather misses its mark. Academics can always be pointed to the Sequences instead; what we’re missing is a quick introduction for the plus-one-SD who is not going to read three years of blog output.
So if I could restate the norms of academia vis a vi modesty: “Do the impossible. But don’t forget to shut up as well.”
Is that a fair characterization?
Well, no, I don’t think so. Most academics do not work on impossible problems, or think of this as a worthy goal. So it should be more like “Do cool stuff, but let it speak for itself”.
Moderately related: I was just today in a meeting to discuss a presentation that an undergraduate student in our group will be giving to show her work to the larger collaboration. On her first page she had
Subject
Her name
Grad student helping her
Dr supervisor no 1
Dr supervisor no 2
And to start off our critique, supervisor 1 mentioned that, in the subculture of particle physics, it is not the custom to list titles, at least for internal presentations. (If you’re talking to a general audience the rules change.) Everyone knows who you are and what you’ve done! Thus, he gave the specific example that, if you mention “Leon”, everyone knows you speak of Leon Lederman, the Nobel-Prize winner. But as for “Dr Lederman”, pff, what’s a doctorate? Any idiot can be a doctor and many idiots (by physics standards, that is) are; if you’re not a PhD it’s at least assumed that you’re a larval version of one. It’s just not a very unusual accomplishment in these circles. To have your first name instantly recognised is a much greater accolade. Doctors are thirteen to the dozen, but there is only one Leon.
Of course this is not really modesty, as such; it’s a particular form of status recognition. We don’t make much overt show of it, but everyone knows their position in the hierarchy!
I have seen this elsewhere in the academy as well.
At many elite universities, professors are never referred to as Dr-so-and-so. Everybody on the faculty has a doctorate. They are Professor-so-and-so. At some schools, I’m told they are referred to as Mr or Mrs-so-and-so. Similar effect: “we know who’s cool and high-status and don’t need to draw attention to it.”
Wow, I didn’t even consciously recognize this convention, although I would definitely never, for instance, add titles to the author list of a paper. So I seem to have somehow picked it up without explicitly deciding to.