new years resolutions

[Gonçalo Rodrigues]

On Sun, 05 Jan 2003 20:23:38 +0100, Laura Creighton <lac at strakt.com>
wrote:

>> On Sat, 2003-01-04 at 11:05, Laura Creighton wrote:
>> 

[text snipped]

>> 
>> Now, if I may ask a personal question, what you didn't like in science/academ
>> ia ?
>
>This is just off the top of my head....
>
>1. preoccupation with cleverness as opposed to wisdom
>2. giving the job of 'preparing people for industry' to people who have
>   mostly never been there.
>3. believing that teaching is something that comes naturally.  No effort
>   is made to train professors on how to teach well.  This is a trainable
>   skill.
>4. in some places -- forcing people to teach so that you cannot simply do
>   research all the time if you hate teaching.  in other places, getting
>   rid of or valuing less the great teachers, because their research isn't
>   so hot.  Many places do both, of course.
>5. Greedily embracing the notion that 'a university education is for
>   everyone' because it means more funding, reguardless of what it means
>   for would-be academics who now usually have to wait until they get
>   to grad school -- or now in some fields a postdoc before they can do 
>   anything truly original.  That is too long a wait.

See my reply below, but in many fields the specialization is so much
that there is no way for someone before a postdoc to do original work
(although I would put the entry barrier at the phd level).

>6. Classroom teaching as opposed to Master/Apprentice type relationships.

I agree with you but I do not see an easy way out. Here, in Portugal
there is a current process of massification of university acess. It has
good aspects but it also has a lot of downsides, your point being one of
them.

>7. Preoccupation with novelty, and originality, as opposed to soundness.
>8. The complete disreguard of 'good workmanship' as the counterpart to
>   'sound design'.  These days people are likely to learn that the work
>   is good because it was 'designed well', as opposed to the fact that
>   one of many good designs was selected -- the result was good because
>   _the workmanship was good_.  (Good workmanship cannot save a really
>   rotten design, unfortunately.)
>9. A life focused on Grading people.  Making grades, not knowledge or
>   wisdom the important centre of the universe.
>10. (in some places) The notion that only the top 10% matter -- the
>    rest can all go hang.
>11. The belief that business is somehow demeaning.
>12. The belief that business is somehow superior. 
>13. Too many fools.
>14. Too swollen egos.
>15. The furthering of the belief that Art is merely entertainment.

Is this really true? I am so disgusted by it that I find it hard to
believe.

>16. The furthering of the belief that it is a good idea to appear
>    better than you really are.
>17. Too many people who feel they have the right to be contemptuous of others.
>18. Too much paperwork.
>19. Too much specialisation within a given field.

Once again there is no way out of this. I can only speak for the two
areas that I know somewhat: theoretical physics and mathematics. But in
both, you see since the XIXth century these two opposing forces: growing
specialization and those all-too-rare but sublime attempts to subsume
vast growing bodies of knowledge in one unique coherent idea. 

Specialization will always outrun the simplifying-and-subsuming force,
because for the last one there is a need of a special kind of talent,
that talent so blazing and forceful that is most of the times rightly
acknowledged as true genius.

>20. Not enough play.
>21. Really boring textbooks written by people who cannot write.

Hmm. And how about really boring textbooks to
people-who-cannot-read-and-wouldn't-know-good-writing-from-bad-writing-even-if-it-bit-them-in-the-arse?
<wink>

>22. An over-reliance on analytical as opposed to geometric methods.

Weird. Both in mathematics and in theoretical physics there is a large
effort of "geometrizing" - unless you mean something different by
geometry.

>23. Avoidance of risk.
>24. Avoidance of beauty.
>25. Focusing on that which can be measured (in itself a good thing, and
>    the secret of Western success) but not to the extent where that
>    which cannot be measured is deemed unimportant, or even non-existant.
>26. Students who sit like turnips in your lectures.
>
>I'll stop now.  I am sure you will get plenty more answers from other
>people.
>
>Laura

I have always had my ideal notion of University somewaht akin to those
monasteries in the desert, where no women were allowed and the monks
practised deep ascesis, wearing only rough clothes and no underwear.
Monasteries that were the storehouses of knowledge; Centers of
excelence, and even elitist but where anyone who was humble enough could
enter, and in silence and quietness seek enlightenment.

But it is already too late to mourn. For reasons both good and bad such
an ideal is unattainable.

With my best regards,
G. Rodrigues