I'm more concerned about the fact that specialization is in the wrong areas: my cousin wants to become a doctor, and his counselors and other sources seem to be reflecting a very recent trend where community service holds more weight than extra-curricular medicine-related activities. He's hedging his bets by working in a research lab as well as being community manager for an activist organization whose beliefs he profoundly disagrees with, but is widely supported by others in academia.
It's tragic to hear that medical study is probably not the best way to ensure that one becomes a medical doctor.
I think relatively few, but super highly qualified people should exert much effort thinking about the big problems. We probably need more, not less specialization among the nation's top students.
But being of renaissance capability and thinking about big problems are both high status (hello Rhodes Scholarship committee) so more people want to do those things than would be optimal.
That's my intuitive take on it.
By the way, I thought her examples sucked. Lots of relative dummies can meet her described intellectual capacity hurdles, which makes it seem like a pander to a broader audience to me. Prof. Hanson, I feel like I've noticed you be a sucker for this type of stuff in your blog before -complaints by academic about student deficiencies or misguided efforts, where the complaints seem off-base without empirical grounding.
Existing generalist policy-makers are already biased against new technologies (one argument goes); if their abilities are increased and they can see further and in more detail, wouldn't that increase their bias against technological development?
If you only see 1 year ahead, then a small net negative may not be worth banning; but if you see ahead a century, then the net negative starts to look very dangerous indeed...
Keep in mind here that this is the same Heather Wilson from the DOJ scandal a few years ago. Her personal definition of leadership is apparently that you don't just ask a U.S. Attorney to move a trial to help you get re-elected, you get him fired when he refuses. Forgive me if I refrain from accepting her moral credibility here.
There is the old chestnut about a specialist being someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. I have met these people. They are very difficult to have a conversation with outside of their narrow interests. And they cannot relate those narrow interests to much of anything.
Of course, I suppose I am biased, being an interdisciplinary scholar (I even titled my blog "Interdisciplinary World"). In my literary studies, I use evolutionary theory and Austrian economics (a pair of interests which resulted in two other blogs, "Evolution and Literature" and "Austrian Economics and Literature"). Yet, at the same time, I cannot imagine that one can understand some pretty important problems from only a narrow disciplinary focus. Such is necessary for the increase in knowledge one gains from spcialization, but at the same time, you have to have those who understand the whole picture. Unfortunately, when faced with someone who does understand the big picture and engages in interdicsiplinary integration, the response is typically, "I'm not sure what exactly it is that you do." Thus, the narrowness continues.
Intellectual imperialism is my favored modus operandi--by this I mean taking a paradigm, idea, or concept from one domain of human experience and seeing how far one can run with it in many other domains. Mainly, I enjoy the discovery of the paradigm and the joyful sensation of not just seeing a new world unmasked, but living in that world. It is exotic travel on the cheap.
Based on Robin's proclivity towards paradigm overreach (near vs. far color-coding anyone?) I suspect he would decry less specialization of knowledge than specialization of curiousity.
I love engaging with someone who has (1) deep domain knowledge AND (2) the comfort and interest to pull lessons from that domain into other areas.
Commenters above have done a great job of addressing the limitations of comparing present and past students' answers to these ancient questions.
If more drivers of tech progress become competent generalists, there's a greater chance that the drivers of tech will be able to see their potential impacts and make reasoned decisions about which directions to take things in. Since tech trajectories have huge impacts on global welfare, and potentially pose huge risks, it might be worth investing in "generalist scientists / tech investors / etc." who can see what they're doing, rather than in an "ant colony" model of science, in which development is driven almost entirely by specialists thinking within a narrow discipline.
(Nick Bostrom's article http://www.nickbostrom.com/... makes some good points here, if anyone hasn't read it.)
What about those who fervently oppose Obamacare for reasons that are factually incorrect? For example the non existent "death panels", or the grossly distorted cost figures the GOP cooked up? I appreciate that those people holding those beliefs fervently are not kids but adults (supposedly).
If there is increasing specialization, it's likely due to a shift in demand. The way I see it, at least as a student, is that few students are concerned about becoming educated. Most are focused on getting a job. Jobs require specialization, students want jobs, so universities give students degrees that demonstrate specialization. thus, the shift shouldn't be that surprising.
It sounds to me that students still have strong opinions on these questions, but these opinions haven't gone through many computational cycles in their brains. The "girl who supports obamacare" probably supports it as strongly or more so than someone who has given a great deal of thought to the issue.
Sounds like we should be asking to what degree their confidence and "willingness to act" on or impose their opinions on others has or has not changed during that same time.
If their beliefs on these topics aren't as well thought out but they also aren't as fervently imposed on the rest of us, then maybe this is a good trend.
"So my status would rise if such skills were more highly valued and celebrated."
In far mode, maybe. The near-mode (or nearer-mode) prediction is that if generalists matriculated in greater numbers, the supply of generalists services rises, with consequences tedious to mention.
Silas is right. Some questions don't have answers that can be given in a superficial sound bite. That students can't give glib answers to complex questions seems like a good thing to me.
A person trying to become educated should know their limits (kudos to Clint Eastwood). If you don't know the answer, acknowledging you don't know is better than to make up BS. It is a lot better than making up “facts” to fit the answer that you want to hear (SOP for many politicians).
One of my pet hypotheses is that in recent years the internet has been lowering the status of erudition and broad non-specialist knowledge, for two reasons. First, erudite and broadly read people were useful as, so to speak, "search engines" for connecting elusive clues in research, a role that has been made obsolete by Google. Second, in the past erudition signaled a certain level of conscientiousness and scholarly aptitude, because it could be acquired only by lots of reading of thick books. Nowadays however it's more apt to signal that one has the habit of procrastination by reading Wikipedia.
I'm more concerned about the fact that specialization is in the wrong areas: my cousin wants to become a doctor, and his counselors and other sources seem to be reflecting a very recent trend where community service holds more weight than extra-curricular medicine-related activities. He's hedging his bets by working in a research lab as well as being community manager for an activist organization whose beliefs he profoundly disagrees with, but is widely supported by others in academia.
It's tragic to hear that medical study is probably not the best way to ensure that one becomes a medical doctor.
I think relatively few, but super highly qualified people should exert much effort thinking about the big problems. We probably need more, not less specialization among the nation's top students.
But being of renaissance capability and thinking about big problems are both high status (hello Rhodes Scholarship committee) so more people want to do those things than would be optimal.
That's my intuitive take on it.
By the way, I thought her examples sucked. Lots of relative dummies can meet her described intellectual capacity hurdles, which makes it seem like a pander to a broader audience to me. Prof. Hanson, I feel like I've noticed you be a sucker for this type of stuff in your blog before -complaints by academic about student deficiencies or misguided efforts, where the complaints seem off-base without empirical grounding.
read applicants
Ain't got an answer to the question. However, it appears Mrs. Wilson shares the same limitations as the Rhode Scholar applicantes.
Existing generalist policy-makers are already biased against new technologies (one argument goes); if their abilities are increased and they can see further and in more detail, wouldn't that increase their bias against technological development?
If you only see 1 year ahead, then a small net negative may not be worth banning; but if you see ahead a century, then the net negative starts to look very dangerous indeed...
Keep in mind here that this is the same Heather Wilson from the DOJ scandal a few years ago. Her personal definition of leadership is apparently that you don't just ask a U.S. Attorney to move a trial to help you get re-elected, you get him fired when he refuses. Forgive me if I refrain from accepting her moral credibility here.
If higher-ed is becoming more near-mode oriented this should feel problematic to those in academia who view their role in far-mode.
There is the old chestnut about a specialist being someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. I have met these people. They are very difficult to have a conversation with outside of their narrow interests. And they cannot relate those narrow interests to much of anything.
Of course, I suppose I am biased, being an interdisciplinary scholar (I even titled my blog "Interdisciplinary World"). In my literary studies, I use evolutionary theory and Austrian economics (a pair of interests which resulted in two other blogs, "Evolution and Literature" and "Austrian Economics and Literature"). Yet, at the same time, I cannot imagine that one can understand some pretty important problems from only a narrow disciplinary focus. Such is necessary for the increase in knowledge one gains from spcialization, but at the same time, you have to have those who understand the whole picture. Unfortunately, when faced with someone who does understand the big picture and engages in interdicsiplinary integration, the response is typically, "I'm not sure what exactly it is that you do." Thus, the narrowness continues.
Intellectual imperialism is my favored modus operandi--by this I mean taking a paradigm, idea, or concept from one domain of human experience and seeing how far one can run with it in many other domains. Mainly, I enjoy the discovery of the paradigm and the joyful sensation of not just seeing a new world unmasked, but living in that world. It is exotic travel on the cheap.
Based on Robin's proclivity towards paradigm overreach (near vs. far color-coding anyone?) I suspect he would decry less specialization of knowledge than specialization of curiousity.
I love engaging with someone who has (1) deep domain knowledge AND (2) the comfort and interest to pull lessons from that domain into other areas.
Commenters above have done a great job of addressing the limitations of comparing present and past students' answers to these ancient questions.
If more drivers of tech progress become competent generalists, there's a greater chance that the drivers of tech will be able to see their potential impacts and make reasoned decisions about which directions to take things in. Since tech trajectories have huge impacts on global welfare, and potentially pose huge risks, it might be worth investing in "generalist scientists / tech investors / etc." who can see what they're doing, rather than in an "ant colony" model of science, in which development is driven almost entirely by specialists thinking within a narrow discipline.
(Nick Bostrom's article http://www.nickbostrom.com/... makes some good points here, if anyone hasn't read it.)
What about those who fervently oppose Obamacare for reasons that are factually incorrect? For example the non existent "death panels", or the grossly distorted cost figures the GOP cooked up? I appreciate that those people holding those beliefs fervently are not kids but adults (supposedly).
If there is increasing specialization, it's likely due to a shift in demand. The way I see it, at least as a student, is that few students are concerned about becoming educated. Most are focused on getting a job. Jobs require specialization, students want jobs, so universities give students degrees that demonstrate specialization. thus, the shift shouldn't be that surprising.
It sounds to me that students still have strong opinions on these questions, but these opinions haven't gone through many computational cycles in their brains. The "girl who supports obamacare" probably supports it as strongly or more so than someone who has given a great deal of thought to the issue.
Sounds like we should be asking to what degree their confidence and "willingness to act" on or impose their opinions on others has or has not changed during that same time.
If their beliefs on these topics aren't as well thought out but they also aren't as fervently imposed on the rest of us, then maybe this is a good trend.
"So my status would rise if such skills were more highly valued and celebrated."
In far mode, maybe. The near-mode (or nearer-mode) prediction is that if generalists matriculated in greater numbers, the supply of generalists services rises, with consequences tedious to mention.
Silas is right. Some questions don't have answers that can be given in a superficial sound bite. That students can't give glib answers to complex questions seems like a good thing to me.
A person trying to become educated should know their limits (kudos to Clint Eastwood). If you don't know the answer, acknowledging you don't know is better than to make up BS. It is a lot better than making up “facts” to fit the answer that you want to hear (SOP for many politicians).
One of my pet hypotheses is that in recent years the internet has been lowering the status of erudition and broad non-specialist knowledge, for two reasons. First, erudite and broadly read people were useful as, so to speak, "search engines" for connecting elusive clues in research, a role that has been made obsolete by Google. Second, in the past erudition signaled a certain level of conscientiousness and scholarly aptitude, because it could be acquired only by lots of reading of thick books. Nowadays however it's more apt to signal that one has the habit of procrastination by reading Wikipedia.