Issue4

exilingpbUID: 2448142

人生第一篇issue...剧烂...

In the information age, can experts in one field achieve significant advancement without expertise from the diverse fields? Economists, anthropologists, even biologists may say no- two examples below may aptly support them--while surgeons, which focusing on a too minute point, might hold the counterview.

A specialist who studies on the whole society advance his detection inevitably depends on the seamless web of the physical and anthropogenic information from various fields. For instance, an anthropologist obtains the knowledge of a population by the expertise from biochemists, philosophers, linguists, archaeologists, and so forth. Biologists reveal the mystery of human bodies; philosophers tell us the nature of life; linguists interpret the connection among people; archaeologists detect the history of the civilization. All the results clue the anthropologists on the essence of the population.

A specialist in an increasingly narrow field also needs the expertise from outsiders--a more striking example involves in the field of biology. The human genome project has identified 3.2 billion human genes. The biologists, who identified them, would face a pile of useless "A, T, C, G"—the sequence of nucleotides--if the mathematicians had not set up the models, or the computer scientists had not designed the software. With the contribution of mathematicians and computer scientists, biologists could ultimately dig out the gene database for their respective research. This cooperation even promotes the establishment of the cross-disciplines--biostatistics and bioinformatics.

On the other hand, some fields are so professional, that other field's knowledge can seldom invade in. Such an expert as a surgeon, the fatal knowledge he used most is anatomical physiology, while the outsiders, like anthropologists, who also study on human beings, or biologists, who study on life, may not be able to afford him any aids. Considering the field of mathematics, a mathematician analyzing the statistic data all the time, might analyze statistic information for another field. However, since the outsiders might know nothing about the algorithm. With the result of analyzing, they might not offer any suggestion on the algorithms.

In sum, no field of today's intellectual inquiry isolates from the society. The interplay among all the fields often brings one area inspiration and breakthrough. I take the exception, however, that experts from some area might focus in the direction too professional, that outsiders can afford nothing to share.

[ 本帖最后由 exilingpb 于 2008-1-22 11:03 编辑 ]