Initial Reaction to NSB-11-22 Merit Review

I was not a fan of the new report...in fact, it struck me as unbelievable. 

"Transformative research" (TR) is indicated as the top priority, openly acknowledged as the highest value advancement in science, yet not a single expert in scientific revolutions appears to have been consulted, but lots of engineers, administrators, and specialists in well-established specialist disciplines like oceanography, weather, etc. 

Where is Nancy Nersessian's landmark theory that demonstrates in detail the processes by which scientific creativity occurs? What about Andersen, Barker, & Chen's elucidation of the distinguishing structures possessed by revolutionary paradigms? Instead, the equivalent of "old wives tales" are repeated, with revolutionary creativity treated as some sort of mystical event that might as well have come out of Hogwart's. 

There's not even one team member specializing in “Project Management”, the discipline concerned with successfully delivering unique results within time & financial constraints. All productive research efforts are projects which can benefit from PM, but high-risk efforts are in spectacular and obvious need of such expertise.  

I'm astounded that none of these knowledge areas have been included in the past seven years, going back to the 2005 workshops at the Santa Fe Institute. 

The StructuredDream blog is going to point out areas where this report could be improved with bafflingly overlooked material relative to TR.

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