It feels like vintage Scott to me. He is loudly and explicitly calling bullshit on a clearly false proposition.
Is it "clearly false" though?
I'm reminded of a speech our Company VP made at our year-end/new-years all hands to the effect of "science" is 90% bullshit because scientists can just make shit up and no one but another scientist (who's probably their friend, colleague, and/or engaged in the same sort of chicanery) will ever be in a position to call them on it. Engineering is where the real challenge and intellectual rigor lies because any lay-man can tell look and tell you if the bridge stands, or the airplane flies.
If Claudine Gay was targeted, what does that change? If Scott genuinely feels that tribal Affiliation and political expediency should trump intellectual rigor, let us see him make that argument.
Scott isn't arguing against rigor. He's arguing that it's a problem when rigor is applied if and only if the subject is on the outs. I am confident that he would have no objection had Dr. Gay been banished to the eighth circle before she got famous.
The "clearly false" bit is journalists insisting that it's about ethics in games journalism they are only interested in rigor, certainly not politics, and don't dare suggest otherwise:
[Journalists] do not sit around thinking about how they’re going to “get” people they write about, and when subjects think they do, it’s more a reflection of the subject’s self-perception (or self-importance) and, sometimes, a sprinkling of unadulterated narcissism.
What value that rigor has is in that it applies equally and brooks no excuses, IE in that it is rigorous. Arguing that rigor shouldn't apply under certain circumstances or to only certain parties IS arguing against rigor.
Yes, a basic level of academic scrutiny ought to have been applied twenty years ago. Since it wasn’t, choosing the right moment to apply it is not rigorous, but opportunistic. Maybe it’s still the right choice—“that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”—but anyone choosing this moment shouldn’t get to act innocent. The “clearly false proposition” is that this is rigorous, apolitical, common decency.
Compare the last time a statute of limitations was in the news. Would you believe someone who insisted that New York’s sexual assault law wasn’t politicized? That changing the rules wasn’t trying to “get” particular targets?
He's arguing that it's a problem when rigor is applied if and only if the subject is on the outs.
The problem with this is that, as Gay proves, there's no single "on the outs." There are many different groups constantly looking for targets. I think this is good, and a world where they did not look for targets would be worse. His critique is only relevant in fields where there is only one group in power, and then the issue is not that that group is looking for targets, it's that that group has all the power.
Scott isn't arguing against rigor. He's arguing that it's a problem when rigor is applied if and only if the subject is on the outs. I am confident that he would have no objection had Dr. Gay been banished to the eighth circle before she got famous.
The dynamic is real, but Gay is a horrible example, part of the issue with her is that she should have never been hired in the first place. If someone is practicing medicine without a license, but nobody notices until he shoots his mouth off and causes a controversy, are we then supposed to allow him to continue to practice in the name of "not applying rigor only when the subject is on the outs"?
If that VP has never sat down at a CDR and thought "these engineers are talking out of their asses," then wow, he's got some talented employees.
The defense industry is littered with projects that went over-budget in order to under-deliver. Software engineering wrote the book on feature creep. Tech startups scramble to get a functional demo together so they can pull enough cash to fund the other 80% of development. And no one involved in any of these wants to admit it!
It's just that in the world of real money and real deadlines, there is a continuum of "calling them on it." At the extreme end are the lawsuits and the bankruptcies. But at the other, there's a series of reminders that sunk costs aren't always a fallacy.
Any layman can tell you that the airplane flies. What he can't tell you is if it is worth $109M or only $100M. If it complies with every term of a thousand-page contract. If an extension to update one or two of those terms will actually achieve anything. If, in ten years, USMC techs will be cursing his name for signing off on the sick VTOL thruster.
Engineering involves challenge and rigor because the problems are fundamentally not easy. Knowing exactly how they'll turn out hard isn't easy, either. It's a collaborative process of dozens or hundreds of people collecting estimates, reports, designs, results, and bills into a coherent product. All of that can apply to science, too. When everything goes right, it does. On the other...well, sometimes someone just earns a layoff.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
netstack 9mo ago·Edited 9mo ago
The point is not that engineers don't occasionally over-promise and under-deliver. The point is that unlike people who work in science or academia, they actually have to deliver.
ETA: in short, what @SnapDragon said, the critical difference between a scientist, an academic, and an engineer is that unlike the other two, the engineer actually has to actually produce something of value if he/she wants to keep their job.
And that's the point. That's the one, last, important step that (much of) science is lacking. Have you built something that works AT ALL? It's not that engineering doesn't suck. It's that modern "science" is even worse, because so much of its product (random unreplicated research papers, written on esoteric subjects, skimmed by friendly peer reviewers and read by nobody else) never needs to pass that final filter.
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Notes -
Is it "clearly false" though?
I'm reminded of a speech our Company VP made at our year-end/new-years all hands to the effect of "science" is 90% bullshit because scientists can just make shit up and no one but another scientist (who's probably their friend, colleague, and/or engaged in the same sort of chicanery) will ever be in a position to call them on it. Engineering is where the real challenge and intellectual rigor lies because any lay-man can tell look and tell you if the bridge stands, or the airplane flies.
If Claudine Gay was targeted, what does that change? If Scott genuinely feels that tribal Affiliation and political expediency should trump intellectual rigor, let us see him make that argument.
Oh, on a separate note.
Scott isn't arguing against rigor. He's arguing that it's a problem when rigor is applied if and only if the subject is on the outs. I am confident that he would have no objection had Dr. Gay been banished to the eighth circle before she got famous.
The "clearly false" bit is journalists insisting that
it's about ethics in games journalismthey are only interested in rigor, certainly not politics, and don't dare suggest otherwise:Corporate_needs_you_to_find_the_differences.png
What value that rigor has is in that it applies equally and brooks no excuses, IE in that it is rigorous. Arguing that rigor shouldn't apply under certain circumstances or to only certain parties IS arguing against rigor.
That cuts both ways.
Yes, a basic level of academic scrutiny ought to have been applied twenty years ago. Since it wasn’t, choosing the right moment to apply it is not rigorous, but opportunistic. Maybe it’s still the right choice—“that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”—but anyone choosing this moment shouldn’t get to act innocent. The “clearly false proposition” is that this is rigorous, apolitical, common decency.
Compare the last time a statute of limitations was in the news. Would you believe someone who insisted that New York’s sexual assault law wasn’t politicized? That changing the rules wasn’t trying to “get” particular targets?
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The problem with this is that, as Gay proves, there's no single "on the outs." There are many different groups constantly looking for targets. I think this is good, and a world where they did not look for targets would be worse. His critique is only relevant in fields where there is only one group in power, and then the issue is not that that group is looking for targets, it's that that group has all the power.
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The dynamic is real, but Gay is a horrible example, part of the issue with her is that she should have never been hired in the first place. If someone is practicing medicine without a license, but nobody notices until he shoots his mouth off and causes a controversy, are we then supposed to allow him to continue to practice in the name of "not applying rigor only when the subject is on the outs"?
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If that VP has never sat down at a CDR and thought "these engineers are talking out of their asses," then wow, he's got some talented employees.
The defense industry is littered with projects that went over-budget in order to under-deliver. Software engineering wrote the book on feature creep. Tech startups scramble to get a functional demo together so they can pull enough cash to fund the other 80% of development. And no one involved in any of these wants to admit it!
It's just that in the world of real money and real deadlines, there is a continuum of "calling them on it." At the extreme end are the lawsuits and the bankruptcies. But at the other, there's a series of reminders that sunk costs aren't always a fallacy.
Any layman can tell you that the airplane flies. What he can't tell you is if it is worth $109M or only $100M. If it complies with every term of a thousand-page contract. If an extension to update one or two of those terms will actually achieve anything. If, in ten years, USMC techs will be cursing his name for signing off on the sick VTOL thruster.
Engineering involves challenge and rigor because the problems are fundamentally not easy. Knowing exactly how they'll turn out hard isn't easy, either. It's a collaborative process of dozens or hundreds of people collecting estimates, reports, designs, results, and bills into a coherent product. All of that can apply to science, too. When everything goes right, it does. On the other...well, sometimes someone just earns a layoff.
The point is not that engineers don't occasionally over-promise and under-deliver. The point is that unlike people who work in science or academia, they actually have to deliver.
ETA: in short, what @SnapDragon said, the critical difference between a scientist, an academic, and an engineer is that unlike the other two, the engineer actually has to actually produce something of value if he/she wants to keep their job.
More options
Context Copy link
And that's the point. That's the one, last, important step that (much of) science is lacking. Have you built something that works AT ALL? It's not that engineering doesn't suck. It's that modern "science" is even worse, because so much of its product (random unreplicated research papers, written on esoteric subjects, skimmed by friendly peer reviewers and read by nobody else) never needs to pass that final filter.
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