The standard pseudo-Kuhnian claim that science needs people to die out in order for new ideas to be accepted isn’t actually supported when one looks at many examples of new theories coming into play. For example, Einstein’s work was accepted by many older physicts who had all their lives worked with Newtonian mechanics. Furthermore, part of the reason some of the older ones don’t adopt new ideas is that they are simply set in their ways and have trouble learning new ideas and methods. If we do a good enough job with preventing the negative aspects of aging, that won’t be an issue since brains will still be flexible.
It is not in the least bit clear to me that the meaning of “old” can be assumed to stay constant as lifespan increases. It might turn out, for example, that scientists who live five hundred years on average don’t become old in the sense you mean until their fourth century or so.
Of course, nothing like that will be true for statistical lifespan increases primarily driven by lowering child mortality, so I’m not sure what data we could gather prior to actually having life-extension capabilities.
People do seem to become more entrenched in their opinions with age, but I’ve often reflected on the fact that given their ages and the dates of discovery of much of the material they taught, many of my college professors must have revised their course curriculums dramatically over the years to reflect changes in scientific knowledge.
Maybe we can administratively limit the number of years people spend doing science, in the same way as the presidents are limited to at most two successive terms in office.
We pretty much do already. How much science does the typical University scientist do as their career progresses? As in so many fields, people get promoted out of their field of competence and into management.
It will be interesting to see what happens to science when old, respected and wrong scientists don’t just die out.
On the other hand, average lifespan and science have both advanced tremendously in the twentieth century. So we may need actual data.
The standard pseudo-Kuhnian claim that science needs people to die out in order for new ideas to be accepted isn’t actually supported when one looks at many examples of new theories coming into play. For example, Einstein’s work was accepted by many older physicts who had all their lives worked with Newtonian mechanics. Furthermore, part of the reason some of the older ones don’t adopt new ideas is that they are simply set in their ways and have trouble learning new ideas and methods. If we do a good enough job with preventing the negative aspects of aging, that won’t be an issue since brains will still be flexible.
It is not in the least bit clear to me that the meaning of “old” can be assumed to stay constant as lifespan increases. It might turn out, for example, that scientists who live five hundred years on average don’t become old in the sense you mean until their fourth century or so.
Of course, nothing like that will be true for statistical lifespan increases primarily driven by lowering child mortality, so I’m not sure what data we could gather prior to actually having life-extension capabilities.
People do seem to become more entrenched in their opinions with age, but I’ve often reflected on the fact that given their ages and the dates of discovery of much of the material they taught, many of my college professors must have revised their course curriculums dramatically over the years to reflect changes in scientific knowledge.
Maybe we can administratively limit the number of years people spend doing science, in the same way as the presidents are limited to at most two successive terms in office.
We pretty much do already. How much science does the typical University scientist do as their career progresses? As in so many fields, people get promoted out of their field of competence and into management.
I was thinking about political leaders.
Yes (just picture the Immortal Mugabe or the Immortal Kim Jong-il), but I think it applies rather further.