irreproducibility in itself was not the problem—rather, it was its extent
Sociologists of science have consistently identified “public recognition” as scientists’ primary motivating factor. … The nature of scientific motivation is also evident in scientific reward systems.
In the culture of modern science, it is better to be wrong than to be second.
To make the desire for recognition compatible aligned with prioritizing good science, we need quality metrics that are independent of sociological norms. Above all, objective quality should be based on the concept of independent replication: A finding would not be accepted as true unless it is independently verified.
An estimated 720 million shells were fired during the Great War, with approximately 12 million failing to detonate. At places like Verdun, the artillery barrages were so overwhelming, 150 shells hit every square meter of the battlefield.
Though the Zone Rouge started at some 460 square miles in size, cleanup efforts reduced it to around 65 square miles. With such massive amounts of explosives left in the ground, the French government estimates the current rate of removal will clear the battlefields between 300 and 900 years from now.
We’d all agree that to teach a subject, you must know the subject. So you’d think that experts would be the best teachers, but they’re not…
In order to teach efficiently, experts try to cut right to the chase. They teach the Abstract Model. Why? Because, they’re trying to save you all the hassle of learning it, “The Hard Way”.
The problem is, as seen by our made up model, without Concrete experiences and many of them, it’s very difficult to understand the model.
How the US came to have three major strategic nuclear platforms, and why it started calling them a “triad.”
The redundancy was a hedge: the goal was to pick the top two of the programs and cancel the rest. Instead, Sputnik happened. In the resulting political environment, Eisenhower felt he had to put into production and deployment all six of them — even though some were demonstrably not as technically sound as others (Thor and Polaris, in their first incarnations, were fraught with major technical problems). This feeling that he was pushed by the times (and by Congress, and the services, and so on) towards an increasingly foolish level of weapons production is part of what is reflected in Eisenhower’s famous 1961 warning about the powerful force of the “military-industrial complex.”
What I find interesting about the “triad” concept — and what it leaves out — is that it is ostensibly focused on technologies and strategies, but it seems non-coincidentally to be primarily concerning itself with infrastructure. The triad technologies each require heavy investments in bases, in personnel, in jobs. They aren’t weapons so much as they they are organizations that maintain weapons. Which is probably why you have to defend them: they are expensive.
US nuclear bomber deployments, 1945-1958. Shadings indicate blocs circa 1958. It shows what “containment” as a policy comes to mean and demonstrates the geopolitics of Cold War era bomber bases.
According to one estimate, the various long-term cultural foot-dragging about ballistic missiles in the United States delayed the country from acquiring the technology for six years. Which puts Sputnik into perspective.
