Motivatiogenesis

March 22, 2019 7:31 AM

"Once the cycle starts and a group get a few such papers out, the auto-catalytic effect sets in: future work can justify itself by saying 'we use a standard model in the field'. All of this even though the 'standard model' never had a justification for it. Eventually the subfield can start generating and answering its own field-endogenous questions that are fundamentally unhinged from reality. ... Sometimes, new authors don’t even realize they’ve fallen into a trap. If they’ve been trained within the bubble, it might be impossible to find the appropriate distance for questioning. When reflection on my own work, I sometimes fear that parts of evolutionary game theory might end up like this. ... Motivatiogenesis can be especially easy to fall into with interdisiplinary work."
posted by clawsoon (4 comments total)

Robert Maxwell made a ton of money seeking these bubbles out and setting them up with their own journals.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:43 AM on March 22, 2019

I pretty much have a sideline in writing papers aimed at pointing out this kind of cognitive bubble in a field I've come to work in. In my case, it's applied research saying you'd need more time than you'd ever get in order to perceive the world... or, more pithily, "if vision worked that way, you'd be dead."
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:59 AM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]

Have you written anything readable for a layman on that topic, Making You Bored For Science?
posted by clawsoon at 8:22 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not really, unless you have a desire to dig through theory in human factors / driver behavior and vision science. I like to think that the paper I have out that does this is fairly readable, but it's an academic paper, so readable is something of a debatable point.

That said, if you want it, memail me and I'll send you a link.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 8:39 AM on March 22, 2019