Here are some candidates from Claude and Gemini (Claude Opus seemed considerably better than Gemini Pro for this task). Unfortunately they are quite unreliable: I’ve already removed many examples from this list which I already knew to have multiple independent discoverers (like e.g. CRISPR and general relativity). If you’re familiar with the history of any of these enough to say that they clearly were/weren’t very counterfactual, please leave a comment.
Noether’s Theorem
Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance
Godel’s First Incompleteness Theorem (Claude mentions Von Neumann as an independent discoverer for the Second Incompleteness Theorem)
Feynman’s path integral formulation of quantum mechanics
Onnes’ discovery of superconductivity
Pauling’s discovery of the alpha helix structure in proteins
McClintock’s work on transposons
Observation of the cosmic microwave background
Lorentz’s work on deterministic chaos
Prusiner’s discovery of prions
Yamanaka factors for inducing pluripotency
Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm (I have no idea what this is)
Mendel’s Laws seem counterfactual by about ˜30 years, based on partial re-discovery taking that much time. His experiments are technically something which someone could have done basically any time in last few thousand years, having basic maths
I would guess that Lorentz’s work on deterministic chaos does not get many counterfactual discovery points. He noticed the chaos in his research because of his interactions with a computer doing simulations. This happened in 1961. Now, the question is, how many people were doing numerical calculations on computer in 1961? It could plausibly have been ten times as many by 1970. A hundred times as many by 1980? Those numbers are obviously made up but the direction they gesture in is my point. Chaos was a field that was made ripe for discovery by the computer. That doesn’t take anything away from Lorentz’s hard work and intelligence, but it does mean that if he had not taken the leap we can be fairly confident someone else would have. Put another way: If Lorentz is assumed to have had a high counterfactual impact, then it becomes a strange coincidence that chaos was discovered early in the history of computers.
Feymann’s path integral formulation can’t be that counterfactually large. It’s mathematically equivalent to Schwingers formulation and done several years earlier by Tomonaga.
I don’t buy mathematical equivalence as an argument against, in this case, since the whole point of the path integral formulation is that it’s mathematically equivalent but far simpler conceptually and computationally.
Idk the Nobel prize committee thought it wasn’t significant enough to give out a separate prize 🤷
I am not familiar enough with the particulars to have an informed opinion. My best guess is that in general statements to the effect of “yes X also made scientific contribution A but Y phrased it better’ overestimate the actual scientific counterfactual impact of Y. It generically weighs how well outsiders can understand the work too much vis a vis specialists/insiders who have enough hands-on experience that the value-add of a simpler/neater formalism is not that high (or even a distraction).
The reason Dick Feynmann is so much more well-known than Schwinger and Tomonaga surely must not be entirely unrelated with the magnetic charisma of Dick Feynmann.
I’ve heard an argument that Mendel was actually counter-productive to the development of genetics. That if you go and actually study peas like he did, you’ll find they don’t make perfect Punnett squares, and from the deviations you can derive recombination effects. The claim is he fudged his data a little in order to make it nicer, then this held back others from figuring out the topological structure of genotypes.
I’ve heard, in this context, the partial counterargument that he was using traits which are a little fuzzy around the edges (where is the boundary between round and wrinkled?) and that he didn’t have to intentionally fudge his data in order to get results that were too good, just be not completely objective in how he was determining them.
Of course, this sort of thing is why we have double-blind tests in modern times.
Here are some candidates from Claude and Gemini (Claude Opus seemed considerably better than Gemini Pro for this task). Unfortunately they are quite unreliable: I’ve already removed many examples from this list which I already knew to have multiple independent discoverers (like e.g. CRISPR and general relativity). If you’re familiar with the history of any of these enough to say that they clearly were/weren’t very counterfactual, please leave a comment.
Noether’s Theorem
Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance
Godel’s First Incompleteness Theorem (Claude mentions Von Neumann as an independent discoverer for the Second Incompleteness Theorem)
Feynman’s path integral formulation of quantum mechanics
Onnes’ discovery of superconductivity
Pauling’s discovery of the alpha helix structure in proteins
McClintock’s work on transposons
Observation of the cosmic microwave background
Lorentz’s work on deterministic chaos
Prusiner’s discovery of prions
Yamanaka factors for inducing pluripotency
Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm (I have no idea what this is)
Mendel’s Laws seem counterfactual by about ˜30 years, based on partial re-discovery taking that much time. His experiments are technically something which someone could have done basically any time in last few thousand years, having basic maths
I buy this argument.
I would guess that Lorentz’s work on deterministic chaos does not get many counterfactual discovery points. He noticed the chaos in his research because of his interactions with a computer doing simulations. This happened in 1961. Now, the question is, how many people were doing numerical calculations on computer in 1961? It could plausibly have been ten times as many by 1970. A hundred times as many by 1980? Those numbers are obviously made up but the direction they gesture in is my point. Chaos was a field that was made ripe for discovery by the computer. That doesn’t take anything away from Lorentz’s hard work and intelligence, but it does mean that if he had not taken the leap we can be fairly confident someone else would have. Put another way: If Lorentz is assumed to have had a high counterfactual impact, then it becomes a strange coincidence that chaos was discovered early in the history of computers.
I buy this argument.
Feymann’s path integral formulation can’t be that counterfactually large. It’s mathematically equivalent to Schwingers formulation and done several years earlier by Tomonaga.
I don’t buy mathematical equivalence as an argument against, in this case, since the whole point of the path integral formulation is that it’s mathematically equivalent but far simpler conceptually and computationally.
Idk the Nobel prize committee thought it wasn’t significant enough to give out a separate prize 🤷
I am not familiar enough with the particulars to have an informed opinion. My best guess is that in general statements to the effect of “yes X also made scientific contribution A but Y phrased it better’ overestimate the actual scientific counterfactual impact of Y. It generically weighs how well outsiders can understand the work too much vis a vis specialists/insiders who have enough hands-on experience that the value-add of a simpler/neater formalism is not that high (or even a distraction).
The reason Dick Feynmann is so much more well-known than Schwinger and Tomonaga surely must not be entirely unrelated with the magnetic charisma of Dick Feynmann.
I’ve heard an argument that Mendel was actually counter-productive to the development of genetics. That if you go and actually study peas like he did, you’ll find they don’t make perfect Punnett squares, and from the deviations you can derive recombination effects. The claim is he fudged his data a little in order to make it nicer, then this held back others from figuring out the topological structure of genotypes.
I’ve heard, in this context, the partial counterargument that he was using traits which are a little fuzzy around the edges (where is the boundary between round and wrinkled?) and that he didn’t have to intentionally fudge his data in order to get results that were too good, just be not completely objective in how he was determining them.
Of course, this sort of thing is why we have double-blind tests in modern times.