文章探讨了科学领域中虽强调创新，但诸多机制却倾向于渐进式而非革命性进步的现象。以多位科学家的经历为例，说明新的科学观点常遭排斥，直至多年后才被认可。同时指出在对齐研究中，人们多倾向安全的研究领域，而真正关键的创新往往来自敢于突破常规的人。

🧐许多科学机构虽强调创新，但实际机制如同行评审、资金决策、学术等级等，明确激励的是渐进式而非革命性的进步，如托马斯·库恩指出的范式转换现象。

😔多位科学家的新发现或理论起初遭排斥，如Ignaz Semmelweis提出医生应在病人间洗手，Barbara McClintock发现基因可在染色体间跳跃等，多年后才被认可。

💡在对齐研究中，人们因职业资本等因素，多倾向“安全”的研究领域，但真正关键的创新将来自敢于突破常规、质疑既定前提并追求初听荒谬想法的人。

Published on November 1, 2024 11:06 PM GMT

Major scientific institutions talk a big game about innovation, but the reality is that many of the mechanisms designed to ensure quality—peer review, funding decisions, the academic hierarchy—explicitly incentivize incremental rather than revolutionary progress.^[1] 

Thomas Kuhn's now-famous notion of paradigm shifts was pointing at precisely this phenomenon. When scientists work within what Kuhn called "normal science," they're essentially solving low- to medium-stakes puzzles within their field's accepted framework. While it's fairly easy to evaluate the relative quality of work that occurs within any given paradigm, Kuhn argued it's nearly impossible for scientists to reason about the relative power of different paradigms for a given field—especially when they have already drank the paradigmatic kool-aid.

Max Planck captured this idea succinctly in his biting statement that "science advances one funeral at a time."^[2]

There are no shortage of examples of this occurring throughout the history of science:

Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that doctors wash their hands between patients. The medical establishment ridiculed and ostracized him until his career was destroyed. Today hand washing is basic medical practice.Barbara McClintock discovered genes could jump between chromosomes in maize in 1948. Geneticists dismissed her work for decades as it didn't fit their tidy theory of inheritance. She won the 1983 Nobel Prize for the same research they rejected.Barry Marshall grew confident that ulcers came from bacteria, not stress. When no one would listen, he drank H. pylori in 1984 to prove it. Won the 2005 Nobel Prize for work doctors had called absurd.Katalin Karikó lost her position and funding at UPenn in 1995 for pursuing mRNA research. She kept working on the "fringe" technology despite the setbacks. That same technology became the basis for the COVID-19 vaccines.Alfred Wegener proposed continents move across the Earth. Geologists mocked him until his death in 1930. Plate tectonics became accepted theory in the 1950s when the evidence became overwhelming.Lynn Margulis argued mitochondria evolved from ancient bacteria. Multiple journals rejected her paper before its 1967 publication. Her "crazy" theory is now the cornerstone of cell biology.Dan Shechtman discovered quasicrystals in 1982 and was told by double Nobel laureate Linus Pauling "there are no quasi-crystals, only quasi-scientists." They kicked him out of his research group. In 2011, he got his own Nobel Prize in Chemistry.Ludwig Boltzmann argued matter was made of atoms when most physicists believed in continuous matter. The ridicule contributed to his suicide in 1906. His atomic theory became physics canon within years.

The takeaway here is quite relevant (and not all that unfamiliar) for alignment research. The still-young field attracts brilliant people who want to help solve the problem—and, by virtue of their technical chops, also care about their career capital. In attempting to check both of these boxes, many naturally gravitate toward "safer," already-somewhat-established research areas. However, when we polled these very researchers, most acknowledged they don't think these sorts of approaches will actually solve the core underlying problems in time. This seems quite familiar to the old story of incentives driving forward incremental work when what is desperately needed are breakthroughs.

The alignment innovations that will be most-critical-in-hindsight will have come from people who were willing to step outside the bounds, question the premises everyone took for granted, and pursue ideas that initially sounded ridiculous. 

Got a crazy hunch that doesn't fit nicely into the current alignment landscape? Come talk to us at EAG Boston—or apply to work on your idea with us here.

1. ^{^}

   This is not to say that incremental progress is unimportant or that revolutionary progress is all that matters—only that mainstream science is mostly in the business of operating under established paradigms rather than creating new ones.

2. ^{^}

   While this is the better-remembered variant, Planck's actual statement was "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." But this would have made for too long a title.

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