Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedLee Cronin: evaluation
9 Dec 2023 Lex Fridman Podcast #404 – Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe
“What a terrible journal.” And it really, and I watched, said to people, “Look, this is a brand new idea that’s not only potentially going to change the way we look at biology, it’s going to change the way we look at the universe.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Lee Cronin
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 9 Dec 2023
- Publisher
- Lex Fridman Podcast
Transcript context
…That’s their statement. Well, I mean, they said lots of confusing statements. Basically, I realized the evolutionary biology community that were vocal, and some of them were really rude, really spiteful, and needlessly so, right? Because look, I didn’t, people misunderstand publication as well. Some of the peoples have said, “How dare this be published in Nature. What a terrible journal.” And it really, and I watched, said to people, “Look, this is a brand new idea that’s not only potentially going to change the way we look at biology, it’s going to change the way we look at the universe. ” And everyone’s saying, “How dare, how dare you be so grandiose?” I’m like, “No, no, no. This is not hype. We’re not saying we’ve invented some, I don’t know, we’ve discovered a alien in a closet somewhere, just for hype. We genuinely mean this to genuinely have the impact or asked the question. And the way people jumped on that was a really bad precedent for young people who want to actually do something new. Because this makes a bold claim, and the chances are that it’s not correct. But what I wanted to do is a couple of things. Is I wanted to make a bold claim that was precise and testable and correctable. Not another wooly information-in-biology argument, information-churring machine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A concrete series of statements that can be falsified and explored, and either the theory could be destroyed or built upon. Well, what about the criticism of you’re just putting a bunch of sexy names on something that’s already obvious?…
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