Theory
"...that's what you can do with theory, assume away all your problems, then you get back to the real world and things aren't quite as nice."
So says my Stat professor. And it's true, you take people out of the "real world" (and I will use that term for lack of a better one), focused solely on getting published and you get myriads of variations on a theme, each "original," but sometimes irrelevant to that big, bad world out there.
Ah, well that's an easy one then. Banish anything that might be construed as "theoretical" from anywhere, since it seems to serve no good purpose and can in fact get in the way of real, practical advances in technology.
Not so fast, superman.
Where did all the cool technology come from? Certainly not from people that had no understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of their field.
So academia could be improved. Yup. What couldn't?
Yea for practical. Yea for theoretical.
posted by Byran @ 12:22 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Yea for snow.
No, no. Not yea for snow. Yea for 75 degree weather in January. Yea!
That's interesting, Byran. It reminds me of a quote that I can't quite get ahold of, but it says something like, "Geniuses are people who see the same thing everyone else sees but in a different way." or something like that. (!!) :-)
One thing that has interested me in the past few years with the phenomenon of academia is the crazy drive for significance. Where's the search for truth for the simple joy of the search and discovery? No matter how you cut it, the significance motivation has brought some major "trash" into "booklearning." Academia is not an easy world, and people have to "prove" themselves in order to have any clout or status in their chosen field. Now, there is nothing wrong with granting respect and responsibiity to those who have the abilities for it. But too often it feels like alot of energy goes into securing a position instead of really seeking out the truth of a matter. It doesn't happen all the time, but it seems to happen alot. Probably just human. . .
Something that's been niggling in my brain is how do you balance the reality of God creating everyone to have significance vs. the "survival of the fittest" mentality. Dunno. . .
Merry
Good thoughts Merry. Academia is a crazy world, and so performance-driven. It would be a challenge to maintain humility and a proper perspective if a person was in an academic position. Publish or perish, that's what my prof says.
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