The importance of stupidity in scientific research

I would like to counter the opinions that claim that the author should use the term "ignorance" rather than "stupidity". IMHO, the inadequacy that one feels during research does not arise from not knowing the answer, it is a result of not being able to figure out how to approach the problem and reaching an answer. More than this, most of the time you do not know what the appropriate question is.<p>This is not ignorance, sometimes you simply cannot weave the threads of knowledge you have to reach a pattern. Of course if you have more threads, your job becomes easier; and at some low level of knowledge you will have nothing interesting to ask, but this is not the major difficulty in completing a Ph.D. thesis, at least in my experience (which is in physics/astronomy).<p>This is what the author is talking about, it is not "knowledge" that is lacking, at least not knowledge in the sense that something you can learn from a book. It is the quality that is mentioned in an essay by pg: <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/wisdom.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/wisdom.html</a><p>I would not call this problem ignorance. Even though stupidity is kinda harsh, it captures the feeling well.

In my limited experience with academia, I would argue this article is more about recognizing one's ignorance in front of a problem, which is indeed one of the most important attributes of a good scientist : "i dont know how to solve this problem, yet".<p>This is in fact quite the opposite of a stupid position - which would handle the issue of being faced with a challenging problem with either militant ignorance "i don't know and I don't care" or uninformed arrogance "This? of course I know : &#60;insert wrong answer here&#62;"

note that the author is male; the person who dropped out is female. for some reason, women, on average, seem to take "being stupid" to heart, while men can ignore it. i have no idea why this happens, but i've seen it again and again.<p>[no criticism of either sex intended. i simply read the article, then thought "i wonder if the author was male and the other person female?", went back, checked...]

When you operate in uncharted waters, independent thinking makes for a good compass. As someone who studied comp sci in undergrad, I felt I didn't develop these skills as much as folks in the humanities.

I think I understand the author's point and repeated use of the term "stupidity" keeps the article on a theme and sounds somewhat nove.<p>However, I think his point would be a lot clearer if he would stop using "stupidity" when he means "ignorance".