“The Epistemic Benefit of Transient Diversity”, 2009-10-22 ():
There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists.
This paper illustrates the need for this division of labor through a historical example [peptic ulcers], and a formal model [networks of multi-armed bandits, where information spread leads to over-exploitation] is presented to better analyze situations of this type.
Analysis of this model reveals that a division of labor can be maintained in 2 different ways: by limiting information or by endowing the scientists with extreme beliefs. If both features are present however, cognitive diversity is maintained indefinitely, and as a result agents fail to converge to the truth.
Beyond the mechanisms for creating diversity suggested here, this shows that the real epistemic goal is not diversity but transient diversity.