[SEQ RERUN] To Spread Science, Keep It Secret

MinibearRex

Today's post, To Spread Science, Keep It Secret was originally published on 28 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

People don't study science, in part, because they perceive it to be public knowledge. In fact, it's not; you have to study a lot before you actually understand it. But because science is thought to be freely available, people ignore it in favor of cults that conceal their secrets, even if those secrets are wrong. In fact, it might be better if scientific knowledge was hidden from anyone who didn't undergo the initiation ritual, and study as an acolyte, and wear robes, and chant, and...

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Scarcity, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, To Spread Science, Keep It Secret was originally published on 28 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

People don't study science, in part, because they perceive it to be public knowledge. In fact, it's not; you have to study a lot before you actually understand it. But because science is thought to be freely available, people ignore it in favor of cults that conceal their secrets, even if those secrets are wrong. In fact, it might be better if scientific knowledge was hidden from anyone who didn't undergo the initiation ritual, and study as an acolyte, and wear robes, and chant, and...

Not one of my favorites. I'm tempted to stick this one in a mental category called "Eliezer's BDSM Posts"--you know, the ones where he says he likes to imagine living in a world where various things are deliberately made difficult/painful/scary and everyone goes around wearing black leather vests (ok, I made up the part about the vests). Also a lot of his fun theory posts would go in this category.

I asked my brain "would it be cool to be a technomage" and my brain said yes so sorry but after the aforementioned careful analysis I'm going to have to side with Eliezer on this one.

1Dmytry14y

Well yea, but i think he has a good point. The popularizations really got out of hand lately, dumbing things down to the point where stupid person would want to do science (and a smart won't as much as before; we try to pursue things that we have special talents at; make it look like everyone can do it, and you just decrease the incentive for those few who actually can)

2wedrifid14y

I'd prefer the BDSM stuff than this. His conspiracy ideals are dubious. "Keep it secret" just will not work this way.