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> By reading indiscriminately, I learned to discriminate—and learned also to comprehend: for it’s only with the acquisition of large data sets that we also deve

by veddox 6y ago

> By reading indiscriminately, I learned to discriminate—and learned also to comprehend: for it’s only with the acquisition of large data sets that we also develop schemas supple enough to interpret new material. That's a good sentence. I've observed the same about the biology curriculum we went through at university. The first few semesters were just huge amounts of information we had to absorb, because it wasn't until we had an extensive foundation of the basics that we could actually start to think about and interpret and criticise new research. And I guess it's the same with any other area of human knowledge: you have to reach a certain knowledge threshold before you can really understand the systems behind the subject.

hvs 6y ago
This seems accurate to me. I was never particularly good at math and I was talking to a friend of mine with a PhD in number theory when I mentioned that I thought it would help to show new students to math more of what math research was really like to get them interested. He shot me down with, "No, you really need to understand all of those basics before math research will make any sense."
gumby 6y ago
I used to provide a similar example to my kid, when he complained about how boring math was: that he was spending years "learning the alphabet" and only on the other side would it become interesting. He stuck to it and ended up majoring in math. (Fortunately there were various math puzzles and fun examples we could talk about along the way too)
chandra381 6y ago
This was a great comment You've pointed out that you have to absorb information to be able to get to a point where you can engage with a topic - but also, there's value in having beginners discuss and analyse stuff, because they're not set onto the paths that other experts have and would be more able to connect disciplines or arrive at an insight that others might not be able to think of.

by veddox 6y ago

hvs 6y ago

This seems accurate to me. I was never particularly good at math and I was talking to a friend of mine with a PhD in number theory when I mentioned that I thought it would help to show new students to math more of what math research was really like to get them interested. He shot me down with, "No, you really need to understand all of those basics before math research will make any sense."

gumby 6y ago

I used to provide a similar example to my kid, when he complained about how boring math was: that he was spending years "learning the alphabet" and only on the other side would it become interesting. He stuck to it and ended up majoring in math. (Fortunately there were various math puzzles and fun examples we could talk about along the way too)

chandra381 6y ago

This was a great comment You've pointed out that you have to absorb information to be able to get to a point where you can engage with a topic - but also, there's value in having beginners discuss and analyse stuff, because they're not set onto the paths that other experts have and would be more able to connect disciplines or arrive at an insight that others might not be able to think of.