Mhmmm, I think we’re both in agreement that GEM is a good model neither for new mousetraps nor new scientific discoveries… The interesting question for me is: Does the model break down in the same way for both?
For mousetraps, it has the implicit problems with ignoring the effects of marketing on customer decision.
For academic theories, it has the implicit problem where the *consumers* (the scientific community, which is presented with multiple theories and forms a consensus around zero or more of them) is being misstated as the producer.
You can get paid for seeing an error in someone’s mousetrap design and making a design that lacks that error, even if the error is “bad marketing”. You can’t get paid for seeing an error in a mousetrap buyer, especially if that error is “ignores the exemplary marketing or otherwise makes decisions based on the wrong factors”.
Academia pays in prestige, but it doesn’t pay in prestige for “doesn’t join or change the consensus”; it pays a little bit to join the consensus and a fair bit more for publishing results that change the consensus, but joining it is much easier than changing it.
Is someone has a theory that’s badly marketed in academia, you can earn in prestige for appropriating the theory and pushing it with better marketing/framing.
Mhmmm, I think we’re both in agreement that GEM is a good model neither for new mousetraps nor new scientific discoveries… The interesting question for me is: Does the model break down in the same way for both?
No, and yes.
For mousetraps, it has the implicit problems with ignoring the effects of marketing on customer decision.
For academic theories, it has the implicit problem where the *consumers* (the scientific community, which is presented with multiple theories and forms a consensus around zero or more of them) is being misstated as the producer.
You can get paid for seeing an error in someone’s mousetrap design and making a design that lacks that error, even if the error is “bad marketing”. You can’t get paid for seeing an error in a mousetrap buyer, especially if that error is “ignores the exemplary marketing or otherwise makes decisions based on the wrong factors”.
Academia pays in prestige, but it doesn’t pay in prestige for “doesn’t join or change the consensus”; it pays a little bit to join the consensus and a fair bit more for publishing results that change the consensus, but joining it is much easier than changing it.
Is someone has a theory that’s badly marketed in academia, you can earn in prestige for appropriating the theory and pushing it with better marketing/framing.