Yes, because most of the ‘prior work’ that floats around on the Internet and in books is terrible, and it’s a lot more difficult to figure out which parts are good than to just do simple empiricism yourself.
“You claim using google is a medieval way of doing science.”
The important thing isn’t the act of using Google (a tool), but where you’re getting your information from. If you simply Google X and click on the first result, this is basically equivalent to just asking the person who wrote the web page what they think about X. The distinction is:
medievalism: go to someone who seems like they’re an expert, and ask them about X
rationalism: look at the data, see what the data says about X
This also applies if you’re reading books or whatever.
“Nowadays scientists make progress by building on the progress of others,”
You don’t provide evidence that this actually works well. In physics this seems to genuinely be the case, and in a few other sciences to varying degrees, but for the sorts of questions I’m considering here the “progress of others” is largely gibberish.
I’m not saying that doing science oneself in areas where problems are genuinely unsolved is un-useful, I’m saying the first instinct of the scientist would be to see what work others have done, and then, if that proves useless, do it oneself. Usually discovering what others have done is instructive because it allows you to see things they’ve missed.
I’m not particulary interested in the question of how one becomes wealthy, but I’d be surprised that there aren’t useful answers out there if one searches hard enough. Certainly clicking the first link on google is basically medieval, but using google as it is meant to be used, a tool which allows you to discover information as efficiently as possible, will usually be better than finding the answers oneself.
On an investigation into wealth, I might critisise your work [note, this is a guess because you do not (understandably) give your results and I have no interest in repeating them myself] by supposing that the top 400 may not be a terribly useful sample, being rather exceptional, and might not provide useful insights: I’d much rather look at the aggregate of the thousands of millionares, for example, and think about that.
I’m not necessarily dismissing this post, using your mind to solve these kind of problems is often very instructive, but I’m not sure its the best way to acheive results.
“DIY science seems to ignore prior work.”
Yes, because most of the ‘prior work’ that floats around on the Internet and in books is terrible, and it’s a lot more difficult to figure out which parts are good than to just do simple empiricism yourself.
“You claim using google is a medieval way of doing science.”
The important thing isn’t the act of using Google (a tool), but where you’re getting your information from. If you simply Google X and click on the first result, this is basically equivalent to just asking the person who wrote the web page what they think about X. The distinction is:
medievalism: go to someone who seems like they’re an expert, and ask them about X
rationalism: look at the data, see what the data says about X
This also applies if you’re reading books or whatever.
“Nowadays scientists make progress by building on the progress of others,”
You don’t provide evidence that this actually works well. In physics this seems to genuinely be the case, and in a few other sciences to varying degrees, but for the sorts of questions I’m considering here the “progress of others” is largely gibberish.
I’m not saying that doing science oneself in areas where problems are genuinely unsolved is un-useful, I’m saying the first instinct of the scientist would be to see what work others have done, and then, if that proves useless, do it oneself. Usually discovering what others have done is instructive because it allows you to see things they’ve missed.
I’m not particulary interested in the question of how one becomes wealthy, but I’d be surprised that there aren’t useful answers out there if one searches hard enough. Certainly clicking the first link on google is basically medieval, but using google as it is meant to be used, a tool which allows you to discover information as efficiently as possible, will usually be better than finding the answers oneself.
On an investigation into wealth, I might critisise your work [note, this is a guess because you do not (understandably) give your results and I have no interest in repeating them myself] by supposing that the top 400 may not be a terribly useful sample, being rather exceptional, and might not provide useful insights: I’d much rather look at the aggregate of the thousands of millionares, for example, and think about that.
I’m not necessarily dismissing this post, using your mind to solve these kind of problems is often very instructive, but I’m not sure its the best way to acheive results.