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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