Actually having some knowledge in materials sciences and a Professional Metallurgical Engineer (PE) in Calif. I had to read the paper on the invention of iron rolling by "76 black metallurgists". Apparently the grooved roller design used for crushing and mixing sugar cane was applied before the patent.
The problem to be solved was how to use scrap iron materia with surface contamination (rust etc.) without fully melting the iron like we do today in an electric furnace. If you heat iron to close to the melting point it can be hammered together causing two pieced to become welded into one. The Japanese discovered that using this heating, hammering and then folding process again and again the impurities can be mixed and control carbon concentrations resulting in very strong steel. This was accomplished about 700 (CE) not 1700's. Long before this we had Wootz steel from India at a 1000 BCE that was later used to make Damascus steel.
The actual important invention was the grooved sugar cane roller which would help mix impurities throughout iron matrix and free the sugar solution from the complex matrex. She didn't demonstrate whether 76 black blacksmiths did the invention or were just following directions of the "white enslaver, John Reeder". The observation that the ability of an individual to work with iron is not determined by so-called race demonstrates a fantastic grasp of the obvious.
The use of iron bars as an exchange medium and source of value reminded me of poor people in Brazil in the early 60's using reinforcing steel as a source of value and defense against a runaway inflation of the currency.
1 I wrote a few engineering journal papers but depending on the research, I usually found it difficult to include everything I thought was needed within the ten to twenty page limit that was typical.
2 This morning I was listening to an old interview of Marc Andersen about bitcoin. The host asked a question about an alternative use of blockchain. Marc suggested it would take about six hours to answer the question. Maybe this was just because the host knew virtually nothing about blockchain, not unlike almost everyone else, but the point is most new things are built on a lot of people existing knowledge. It often takes a lot of study just to be competent enough on the existing in order to even understand what is being added.
Part of the problem is the low level, "What is interesting?" X causes Y when Y is something either good or bad and X had not previously been though of as relegated to Y really IS interesting. But given enough X's and little enough data, some X is bound to be found.
The greater problem is researching a field with conflicting pre-established hypotheses. Brown considered that the major question (or at least the question that an editor thinks is major) is whether climate change has large costs or not and that could have (whether it did or not in this case is a different question) affected his research.
The cloud of recent citations is likely a function of "positioning the paper within the debate" and strategic citations. The former is a requirement of many journals and referees for the author to basically tell them everything they need to know about who is saying what, the latter about citing people you hope will then be chosen as referees for your paper. Both serve the ultimate purpose of farming citations for existing work that otherwise no one would care about, citations that boost the careers of existing researchers regardless of how relevant they are to the current work.
One of the most common referee comments when I was writing was "Why didn't you cite X?" Upon digging out X, it was almost always some obscure publication and very rarely had any direct relevance to what I was talking about, and usually zero relevance at all other than being vaguely in the same field. As near as I can figure, that suggests that one of the coauthors of X was the referee in question, and would like a few more citations of their work. Either that, or the referee just had no idea what was going on, but had read that paper once while waiting in an airport and it represents the majority of what they know about the field, regardless of its relevance.
I am possibly a little biased by cynicism, but the abysmally low quality of referee comments on papers should make anyone question the value of academic work.
That's a good question on the "reading fee". In economics at least the reputable to half decent journals do not require that, only the really low tier "pay us and we will publish whatever" journals require money. At least, a few years back that was the case, things might have changed since I stopped caring in 2020 or so.
I do know that a lot of academics stopped bothering with the publishing process in favor of just putting out working papers. The last step of referee extortion, waiting forever to get responses and do everything, all that nonsense required to publish in a journal, that does remarkably little to improve the paper. As a result, most people are just as happy with citing working papers, and so most people who are more interested in ideas than career advancement just stop there. Especially if your findings are displeasing to the left, because that makes publication practically impossible anyway.
So basically if you are playing the career game, you try to publish in big journals, kissing all the ass and lying as needed to get in. If you care about ideas and yours don't align with the accepted orthodoxy you tend to stop at working papers and the networks of people doing work there.
"I’ve become increasingly worried that science’s replication crises might pale in comparison to what happens all the time in history..."
-Anton Howes
"You know, I read these history books... And whaddaya know? The good guys win! Every single time!"
-Norm MacDonald
About big ideas . . .
Maybe the biggest is . . .
Is infinite regress possible?
Aristotle no. Must be a prime mover.
Aquinas agreed. God exists.
Kant refused to decide. Destroyed reason
Deciding to avoid this fundamental, absolutely basic question, leaves subsequent questions without support.
The first thing that existed, whatever it was, had no start.
Conclusion of clear reason.
Material universe had a beginning.
Therefore . . .
Clay
Actually having some knowledge in materials sciences and a Professional Metallurgical Engineer (PE) in Calif. I had to read the paper on the invention of iron rolling by "76 black metallurgists". Apparently the grooved roller design used for crushing and mixing sugar cane was applied before the patent.
The problem to be solved was how to use scrap iron materia with surface contamination (rust etc.) without fully melting the iron like we do today in an electric furnace. If you heat iron to close to the melting point it can be hammered together causing two pieced to become welded into one. The Japanese discovered that using this heating, hammering and then folding process again and again the impurities can be mixed and control carbon concentrations resulting in very strong steel. This was accomplished about 700 (CE) not 1700's. Long before this we had Wootz steel from India at a 1000 BCE that was later used to make Damascus steel.
The actual important invention was the grooved sugar cane roller which would help mix impurities throughout iron matrix and free the sugar solution from the complex matrex. She didn't demonstrate whether 76 black blacksmiths did the invention or were just following directions of the "white enslaver, John Reeder". The observation that the ability of an individual to work with iron is not determined by so-called race demonstrates a fantastic grasp of the obvious.
The use of iron bars as an exchange medium and source of value reminded me of poor people in Brazil in the early 60's using reinforcing steel as a source of value and defense against a runaway inflation of the currency.
A couple thoughts:
1 I wrote a few engineering journal papers but depending on the research, I usually found it difficult to include everything I thought was needed within the ten to twenty page limit that was typical.
2 This morning I was listening to an old interview of Marc Andersen about bitcoin. The host asked a question about an alternative use of blockchain. Marc suggested it would take about six hours to answer the question. Maybe this was just because the host knew virtually nothing about blockchain, not unlike almost everyone else, but the point is most new things are built on a lot of people existing knowledge. It often takes a lot of study just to be competent enough on the existing in order to even understand what is being added.
An additional datum in the same area is
https://heatmap.news/climate/patrick-brown-nature-climate-scientist
Part of the problem is the low level, "What is interesting?" X causes Y when Y is something either good or bad and X had not previously been though of as relegated to Y really IS interesting. But given enough X's and little enough data, some X is bound to be found.
The greater problem is researching a field with conflicting pre-established hypotheses. Brown considered that the major question (or at least the question that an editor thinks is major) is whether climate change has large costs or not and that could have (whether it did or not in this case is a different question) affected his research.
The cloud of recent citations is likely a function of "positioning the paper within the debate" and strategic citations. The former is a requirement of many journals and referees for the author to basically tell them everything they need to know about who is saying what, the latter about citing people you hope will then be chosen as referees for your paper. Both serve the ultimate purpose of farming citations for existing work that otherwise no one would care about, citations that boost the careers of existing researchers regardless of how relevant they are to the current work.
One of the most common referee comments when I was writing was "Why didn't you cite X?" Upon digging out X, it was almost always some obscure publication and very rarely had any direct relevance to what I was talking about, and usually zero relevance at all other than being vaguely in the same field. As near as I can figure, that suggests that one of the coauthors of X was the referee in question, and would like a few more citations of their work. Either that, or the referee just had no idea what was going on, but had read that paper once while waiting in an airport and it represents the majority of what they know about the field, regardless of its relevance.
I am possibly a little biased by cynicism, but the abysmally low quality of referee comments on papers should make anyone question the value of academic work.
That's a good question on the "reading fee". In economics at least the reputable to half decent journals do not require that, only the really low tier "pay us and we will publish whatever" journals require money. At least, a few years back that was the case, things might have changed since I stopped caring in 2020 or so.
I do know that a lot of academics stopped bothering with the publishing process in favor of just putting out working papers. The last step of referee extortion, waiting forever to get responses and do everything, all that nonsense required to publish in a journal, that does remarkably little to improve the paper. As a result, most people are just as happy with citing working papers, and so most people who are more interested in ideas than career advancement just stop there. Especially if your findings are displeasing to the left, because that makes publication practically impossible anyway.
So basically if you are playing the career game, you try to publish in big journals, kissing all the ass and lying as needed to get in. If you care about ideas and yours don't align with the accepted orthodoxy you tend to stop at working papers and the networks of people doing work there.