Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: js1138
I haven't seen the need for it.

The advantage of a science is that it sufficiently dilineates a portion of the world we live in and analyzes those features that systematically cohere in it.

This makes it a safe zone: you can do ethics without becoming a mathematician, you can be a successful lawyer without ever touching a musical instrument. This also turns into a huge problem in academia, nobody realy has the need for a colleague outside of their own discipline. :(

781 posted on 01/15/2005 4:38:42 PM PST by cornelis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 778 | View Replies ]


To: cornelis

I don't have time to discuss that broad topic right now, but I agree it is a mistake to exaggerate or overextend the competence of any discipline.

When I argue for evolution on these threads it is purely concerning worldly knowledge in a particular area. I do not think evolution tells us anything about how we should behave.

It might, however, make useful predictions about how people are likely to behave.


784 posted on 01/15/2005 4:49:31 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 781 | View Replies ]

To: cornelis; Alamo-Girl; js1138; marron; PatrickHenry; Doctor Stochastic; tortoise; Physicist; ...
This also turns into a huge problem in academia, nobody really has the need for a colleague outside of their own discipline.

Oh my, this is such a huge problem these days, when we think we can "slice and dice" the episteme six ways to Sunday at will. Descartes largely gets the blame for this. But I don't think there was any way he could have seen this sort of thing "coming"; and I think he would have been appalled, mortified, if he had seen it.

These days disciplines spawn subdisciplines, which in turn spawn their own subdisciplines, seemingly ad infinitum. What is presently, acutely needed in our own time is not more and more specialist knowledge, but the integration of extant human knowledge from all sources to date. IMHO FWIW.

Then we could confidently (more or less) move on to the next level of human knowledge and discovery....

787 posted on 01/15/2005 5:13:30 PM PST by betty boop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 781 | View Replies ]

To: cornelis
This also turns into a huge problem in academia, nobody realy has the need for a colleague outside of their own discipline.

This is certainly false in the sciences and mathematics. I cannot speak for other fields. It is more nearly true that "one has a need for a colleague in one's own field."

794 posted on 01/15/2005 9:56:24 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 781 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson