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What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of

by sykh 8y ago

What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? Feynman's criticism shows an ignorance on his part.

sametmax 8y ago
It's not about knowing, it's about learning artificially. > What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? I would appreciate cops learning anything, but given they got a GPS and older colleagues knowing the streets name by habit, I'd prefer they spend time learning the law. The names will come naturally with practice. > Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? See that's the problem here. You assume you can't know the biology of felines without knowing all the names of all muscle by heart. It's like saying I can't understand a program if I don't know all the functions of it's API. And while after years of programming I know a lot of things without needing to look them up, I never learned nor will learn any listing by heart. It's a waste of my time. I need to understand algo, complexity, interractions. Names are just an interface, useful, but not required for modeling. Same things for you biologist. He must understand the interractions between the organs, the chemistry, the musculo-skeletic chain. Naming all the muscle is just a bonus, and now that we have books and computers, it's not a priority anymore. Does knowing stuff by heart makes you more efficient ? Does it make you a better pro ? Yes, but only if the more important stuff are understood. And if you are a student, mindlessly learning all names is completly a waste of time. Espacially since they are going to forget most of it after graduation, and learn it back again on the way.
- sykh 8y ago
  You can’t converse with an expert on felines without knowing the names. There are simply too many parts of the body. You have to name them in order to communicate. There’s a reason for the names. It’s nit like someone sadistically decided to give a name to each part. Go ahead have try having a conversation with someone who knows the names and functions of each muscle where you don’t. Looking up each term is not efficient. I’ll take a cop who knows the streets over one who has to look up on GPS. Cops chasing a suspect have report on their progress so that backup can reach them. What do you think they’ll do? Pause every 20 seconds and look up GPS coordinates? Feynman's critique was born of ignorance. He criticizes people for knowing the parts of the cat. In the lecture they criticize him for drawing the map of the cat. They know this already. Feynman does not. He is not at their level and instead of admitting this he makes an ignorant quip. Virtually all knowledge is an easy internet search these days. This has not diminished the need to know, have memorized, terminology. Let S be an infinite dimensional ring extension of R with R a commutative Noetherian ring with identity. Under what conditions is S flat as an R-module? If someone gives a talk on commutative ring theory and the above is the topic they best not waste everyone’s time by looking up the meaning of each word and writing it on the board. Such a person exposes that they aren’t learned enough in the field to be giving a talk.

by sykh 8y ago

sametmax 8y ago

It's not about knowing, it's about learning artificially. > What if you were a cop? Would you criticize a cop who has learned the streets? I would appreciate cops learning anything, but given they got a GPS and older colleagues knowing the streets name by habit, I'd prefer they spend time learning the law. The names will come naturally with practice. > Shouldn’t a biologist who is at a talk about felines understand the biology of felines without looking it up in a book? See that's the problem here. You assume you can't know the biology of felines without knowing all the names of all muscle by heart. It's like saying I can't understand a program if I don't know all the functions of it's API. And while after years of programming I know a lot of things without needing to look them up, I never learned nor will learn any listing by heart. It's a waste of my time. I need to understand algo, complexity, interractions. Names are just an interface, useful, but not required for modeling. Same things for you biologist. He must understand the interractions between the organs, the chemistry, the musculo-skeletic chain. Naming all the muscle is just a bonus, and now that we have books and computers, it's not a priority anymore. Does knowing stuff by heart makes you more efficient ? Does it make you a better pro ? Yes, but only if the more important stuff are understood. And if you are a student, mindlessly learning all names is completly a waste of time. Espacially since they are going to forget most of it after graduation, and learn it back again on the way.

sykh 8y ago
You can’t converse with an expert on felines without knowing the names. There are simply too many parts of the body. You have to name them in order to communicate. There’s a reason for the names. It’s nit like someone sadistically decided to give a name to each part. Go ahead have try having a conversation with someone who knows the names and functions of each muscle where you don’t. Looking up each term is not efficient. I’ll take a cop who knows the streets over one who has to look up on GPS. Cops chasing a suspect have report on their progress so that backup can reach them. What do you think they’ll do? Pause every 20 seconds and look up GPS coordinates? Feynman's critique was born of ignorance. He criticizes people for knowing the parts of the cat. In the lecture they criticize him for drawing the map of the cat. They know this already. Feynman does not. He is not at their level and instead of admitting this he makes an ignorant quip. Virtually all knowledge is an easy internet search these days. This has not diminished the need to know, have memorized, terminology. Let S be an infinite dimensional ring extension of R with R a commutative Noetherian ring with identity. Under what conditions is S flat as an R-module? If someone gives a talk on commutative ring theory and the above is the topic they best not waste everyone’s time by looking up the meaning of each word and writing it on the board. Such a person exposes that they aren’t learned enough in the field to be giving a talk.