Some of the less-than-five-star reviewers seem to have not put a lot of thought into the implications of Jeff's book here. For instance ...
"I give it a rotten review because I couldn't help stopping as I read it, thinking that his anecdotes reminded me somewhat of some of my experiences in academia, but not all, ... Instead of examining what conditions make for successful experiences, he dismisses any positive experience as being had by those people that became adept at the art of brown-nosing."
That would apparently be a different book, and the fact that this book is not that book should not really be a strike against it. Please take a moment to carefully contemplate the implications of a scientific community which has apparently been trained to abandon what was once considered to be scientific norms ... From "Science Education and Scientific Attitudes" by Pravin Singh:
---
"The current set of scientific attitudes of objectivity, open-mindedness, unbiassedness, curiosity, suspended judgement, critical mindedness, and rationality has evolved from a systematic identification of scientific norms and values. The earliest papers of any importance in the field of scientific attitudes are those of R.K. Merton (1957). He conceptualized the norms or institutional imperatives on the basis of evidence taken mainly from statements by scientists about science and their scientific activity. He then identified four norms. These are universalism, communality, disinterestedness and organized skepticism.
Universalism requires that information presented to the scientific community be assessed independently of the character of the scientist who presents the information. The norm of communality requires that scientific knowledge be held in common, in other words, the researcher is expected to share his findings with other scientists freely and without favour. The norm of disinterestedness requires scientists to pursue scientific knowledge without considering their career or their reputation. Scientists are exhorted by the norm of organized skepticism never to take results on trust. They are expected to be consistently critical of knowledge.
To this list of institutional imperatives Barber (1962: 122-142) later added two more -- rationality and emotional neutrality. Rationality relates essentially to having faith in reason and depending on empirical tests rather than on tradition when substantiating hypotheses. Scientists are encouraged also to conform to the norm of emotional neutrality i.e. to avoid emotional involvement which may colour their judgement.
[...]
Is it not possible that these scientific attitudes have been popularised and then reified as a set of ideal attitudes but in reality is not often found in actual scientific practices? The following studies raise serious doubts about the scientists' adherence to institutional imperatives."
---
Given all of the rather inordinate focus today online on the "pseudoscientists" and "cranks", Jeff reminds us that the far harder problem to solve is the one which we can hardly see -- the dogma which is rooted deep in our most powerful scientific cultures. We are constantly reminded online of how horrible it is to have to listen to cranks disagree with conventional theory, but within the context of Jeff's work, it becomes apparent that our desire to be free of the cranks is horrifically throwing away the entire set of non-professional scientists -- which necessarily also includes the critical thinkers (!), the non-specialists and the free thinkers/explorers. Increasingly, these are some of the few people who continue to do science for the sake of science.
Jeff's comments about the strategic use of rote memorization can be corroborated by numerous other authors -- especially that of Joseph Novak, the originator of the concept map. Novak has written extensively in his books about the difference between rote memorization and "meaningful" learning. Some very clever people have actually taken these ideas to a point of profiting enormously from them -- such as Tim O'Reilly, the originator of the "Web 2.0" and "open source" concepts. It would seem that both David Ausubel and Alfred Korzybski (see Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics) both figured out (independently?) what a superordinate concept is. And Tim O'Reilly has used that knowledge to build a rather large & successful empire (for a more brief explanation, see the article "The Meme Hustler" about O'Reilly).
The Physics Education Research community is also wisening up to the failure of instruction which encourages students to rote-memorize materials. The inherent problem is that these knowledge structures remain disconnected from the larger knowledge base; connecting them is what Novak calls "meaningful" learning. Eric Mazur, for instance, has discovered that many of his most successful memorizers will completely fail the same test if it is given entirely in terms of concepts! The implications are enormous, for if they don't actually possess a deep comprehension of what they are memorizing, they will subsequently be incapable of (1) questioning that material if they find that observations are not matching theory; but also (2) comparing and contrasting those theories with competing ones. Many of us who closely follow the sciences from the outside -- especially the more speculative disciplines like astrophysics and cosmology -- see very, very strong evidence for both of these phenomena.
What Jeff does is show us that there is very likely a strong connection between our failure to create a unified theory in physics with the professionalization of the sciences. And, if we as a culture desire, we can use this as a very strong foundation to actually do something about it. Much of the problem has been in cultivating the system-level view for the causes underlying a lack of progress on many big questions in physics. We now have that starting point. It's now up to the younger generation to reconceive a *realistic* system which can both service the professional community AND solve some of these huge, perplexing problems. I have my own ideas on how to do it, but I hope others will try to figure out others.
Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Disciplined Minds: A Crit... has been added to your Cart
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Flip to back Flip to front
Follow the Author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Climate Pledge FriendlyProducts with trusted sustainability certification(s). Learn moreProduct Certification (1)
Reducing CO2 products reduce their carbon footprint year after year. Certified by the Carbon Trust.
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from other countries
dreamgast-little
une tres bonne approche
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on December 23, 2017
