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Lee 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.”

— Lee Cronin

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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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