issue4 【0710G-HIT坚持交作业小组第十二次作业】SavileRow

SavileRowUID：2284947

题目：ISSUE4 - "No field of study can advance significantly unless outsiders bring their knowledge and experience to that field of study."
字数：633        用时：00:55:00          日期：2007-8-11 10:52:34

提纲：
1 同意看法
2 原因之一：领域外的知识给科学家全局观
3 愿意之二：领域外的知识帮助科学家更好的了解本领域
4 非科学的哲学的作用
5 结尾

The speaker asserts that the study in one field could benefit from the expertise outside of the field. I totally agree with the speaker and my reasons are as following.

On one hand, knowledge and expertise outside the field will provide the scientists a bigger picture of what they are working on. Sometimes, scientists of one field concentrate in their own universe too much that their focus becomes homogeneous. This sole focus might have helped them at the very beginning of their study. After all, they need certain accumulation of knowledge to be the foundation for the further study. However, as long as the preliminary phase in which their research has gained a lot thanks to their intensive absorbing of knowledge in a particular subject has passed, they are boggled down because they have no idea what they should do next. Only when they evaluate their study in a different angle that they get to know which aspect should be improved, and thus they obtain a continual success. One example that aptly illustrates this point involves the field of material science. A student of material science might grow to be a researcher who is capable to release papers only by learning discipline-related knowledge. Later, when he is puzzled and annoyed by the fact that his study hardly progresses, he needs to know about engineering reality and mechanics. Engineering reality will urge him meditating that if his original ideas about a material were too ideal. At the same time, he had better study mechanics. Mechanics forces him to ponder that if the microscopic structure was rational enough in mechanics and how to modify it to make the material more durable. Dedicating time and energy to studying knowledge in other fields as engineering reality and mechanics mentioned in the example above helps a scientist to look at his study as an airscape in a larger view; consequently, he gets to know what is the best way to push his study to a higher level.

On the other hand, expertise and knowledge outside the field is conducive for understanding the scientists' own field. In today's world, every scientific research field is becoming increasingly complex and the trend of crossing disciplines is developing. And the complexity of scientific research definitely requires knowledge from other disciplines. Let us face the reality, being omniscient has nothing to do with showing off, but is indeed necessary. Take John Nash, the Nobel Economy Prize winner as an example. He is also a mathematics master when he is immersed in the study of economy. What can mathematics really do in the study of economy? As I see it, the statistics which economists' research depends on asks for the sensibility to numbers that could only be gained through mathematics training. Besides, the correlations between the statistics on reports and the function condition of economy are not obvious that an economist has to work on them on a logical aspect. And this logical ability is the result of mathematics practice. The expertise and knowledge which seemly is little connected to what a researcher is engaging in right now, actually serves as the key to the code of science because the capability of a scientists will potentially rise with that help.

What is more, it is philosophy, which is out of the range of science that makes our research meaningful. Without philosophy, we would be completely lost in the attempt to understand nature since we do not know what we shall do for ourselves with knowledge. We do not even know why we participate in this venture of decoding universe.

In sum, since the various disciplines of science are inextricably closely related and no research could survive in a vacuum, the expertise outside one field that renders comprehensive and deeper grasp of what scientists are doing, will be truly beneficial. Moreover, it is the non-science philosophy that advances science itself most.