Heesen, Remco (2018) The Credit Incentive to Be a Maverick. [Preprint]

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Abstract

There is a commonly made distinction between two types of scientists: risk-taking, trailblazing mavericks and detail-oriented followers. A number of recent papers have discussed the question what a desirable mixture of mavericks and followers looks like. Answering this question is most useful if a scientific community can be steered toward such a desirable mixture. One attractive route is through credit incentives: manipulating rewards so that reward-seeking scientists are likely to form the desired mixture of their own accord. Here I argue that (even in theory) this idea is less straightforward than it may seem. Interpreting mavericks as scientists who prioritize rewards over speed and risk, I show in a deliberatively simple model that there is a fixed mixture which is not particularly likely to be desirable and which credit incentives cannot alter. I consider a way around this result, but this has some major drawbacks. I conclude that credit incentives are not as promising a way to create a desirable mixture of mavericks and followers as one might have thought.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Heesen, Remco remco.heesen@uwa.edu.au 0000-0003-3823-944X
Keywords:	Philosophy of science; Mavericks; Social epistemology; Formal epistemology; Credit economy
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Science Education General Issues > Science and Policy
Depositing User:	Remco Heesen
Date Deposited:	26 Sep 2018 15:35
Last Modified:	26 Sep 2018 15:35
Item ID:	15059
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Science Education General Issues > Science and Policy
Date:	12 June 2018
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15059

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• The Credit Incentive to Be a Maverick. (deposited 26 Sep 2018 15:35) [Currently Displayed]
  • The Credit Incentive to Be a Maverick. (deposited 24 Jan 2020 01:24)

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