4 ms·

Minor exception: Language. Memorization is extremely important in developing language- you're sure as hell not going to derive Chinese from academic linguistics

• whatshisface 7y ago
  That's a major exception, actually, because it includes systematic naming in chemistry and so extends across more than one field. There are also all of the names and processes that you have to memorize to be a good biologist or microbiologist, and the large number of facts that organic chemists have to memorize. However, I hesitate to say that those things are pure memorization, because the connections between different facts that elevate them above memorization are usually only apparent to people who know a lot about the subject. For example, history to someone who knows very little is a bunch of dates and isolated factoids, but to someone who knows a lot about it, it's a continuing and cohesive narrative where everything reinforces and relates to everything else. Maybe the same is true if you know enough about biology, chemistry, or even language. I know there are a lot of connections between different languages, due to their shared evolution. Maybe, once you've learned dozens, all of the isolated coincidences start to fit together.