[追星剑特训] [追星剑补编] Chapter3.1 On Specialization [复制链接]

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发表于 2005-3-14 22:25:50 |显示全部楼层

[追星剑补编] Chapter3.1 On Specialization

原先早也就记下要更新和完善特训的系列文章，而特训Chapter2和Chapter3，充实程度和含金量都并不能令自己满意。就趁着突然来的灵感，写这篇文章，算作重新一次的开始吧。特训Chapter3.1提到的练习文章有issue1，issue9，issue88，这篇文章，如果说作为一篇对issue9的 response太idiosyncratic的话，至少能够就着题目的背景，做个参考吧。

想写点东西，很多时候的确是厚积薄发。前些日子看到过有关杨振宁李政道的帖子（当然这次文章里就没提杨了），而更是上个礼拜六看到Hot版有关张五常的文章。至于说到biomass则是寒假看wiley第三版organic synthesis得到的启发，今年申natural product如果最后没走成，再申请的时候就很打算换这个方向了，而Angew（请教了数遍正在学德语的同学也没搞清楚到底如何发音）的话，也是近期才意识到应该多读期刊来学习充实自己。而读了一段时间，就发觉越早开始看journal其实越有好处，在这里也算留下一点题外的感悟。其实养成一个习惯，只要坚持一段时间的。

这篇文章里，如果说例子的话，都是原先看到的，想到的，然后一起信手拈来，一个名人名言都没有。本来也就没必要。也许下次再写文章，就专门再说说名人名言的问题。而前两天，记得有人问写结尾的方法，不知道这里，能否提供一点小小的参考？

从昨天上午idea产生断断续续写到今天晚上落笔中间亦webster google iciba无数。shrug...
请各位不吝赐教。 :)
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issue9. "Academic disciplines have become so specialized in recent years that scholars' ideas reach only a narrow audience. Until scholars can reach a wider audience, their ideas will have little use."

Some Thoughts over Specialization

Only if “to make understood” is the prerequisite of “to reach” does specialization in academic disciplines makes their audience a clique of science whiz. And the ideas are indeed of little use if they depend on the number of people who get to know. Question: nobody ever cast doubts over the assumptions presented above?

Just take a look around. Not everybody knows that nanometer is a unit of length, not to mention this technology. To a Chinese granny’s perception, millennium bug should be a kind of worm and nanometer is something like rice. However, one thing is clear: the public knows very precisely that nano-stuff is something better advanced. Overnight and then the world is overwhelmed by ads for nano-clothes, nano-fridges, nano-washing machines, nano-this and nano-that. People do not necessarily understand this technology, but stuffed by such bombardments: they definitely know it.

The specialization in academic disciplines is axiomatic. After having browsed several volumes of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, I found that while communications on total synthesis are sometimes satisfactorily understandable, those on combinatorial chemistry or organometallics should be simply disregarded. This is the performance of an undergraduate with two years experience in synthesis: I just never figured out what do combinatorial chemists do with the mixture they produce. Clearly, for any academic discipline, the more it specializes, the fewer people understand. But again: do audience have to understand? I know that Lee Tsung-dao won the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics for having proposed parity nonconservation without having to know what parity is. Who can say that I am not one of the audiences? The public does not have to realize that taxol is a kind of alcohol. Everybody knows that it is anti-tumor and therefore so popular --- it’s enough!

Certainly, thinking of the fierce competition between nations nowadays, reports from intelligence agencies must be the least propagated. Confidential as they are, nevertheless, ideas from experts in international relationships are undoubtedly of much more influence than that of taxol or nanotube. An analysis made known to few high officials is sufficient to start a military competition; it just results from a preliminary use of the ideas. And looking back into the 1980s, few people realized it when Economic Liberalism insinuated into China and got recognized by the leader at that time. Twenty years thereafter, it brought about unprecedented growth, subversion of many silly constraints, upheaval in social as well as economic relations, together with further polarization, consistent inflation, and unemployment rate at a hazardous level. In short: great change.

We know many things that we don’t understand, and we are usually unaware of the great influence set by the rest. Just like the research in renewable feedstock for both energy supply and chemical industry: few scientists recognize this notion at this moment, not to mention those who have embarked on. But just wait and see, after 40 years, when petroleum is finally depleted, when this field becomes much more sophisticated and definitely further specialized, the gossip around every corner of the world should be nothing but this Nobel Prize winner, who replaces petroleum to supply households around the globe gas derived from biomass to cook dinner.

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[追星剑特训] [追星剑补编] Chapter3.1 On Specialization [复制链接]

[追星剑补编] Chapter3.1 On Specialization

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