This is exactly the topic I've been pondering recently. I encountered the same kind of problem just within CS during an interview.
Personally, I went back further in the domain to avoid admitting I never had more than zero interest in what RFC writers chose to call something. Really, I view domains as bastions of useless information aside from the harvestable concepts for problems in other domains.
But I am beginning to suspect the industry has 'matured' into the same crap as the auto industry.
I'm curious if others have comments on remaining a generalist in this environment?
Sure, things were easy when no one knew what an atom was, let alone electrons, orbitals and energy states.
As for whether there are polymaths anymore...
Most research engineers and applied scientists working on large complex builds are polymaths in the classical sense: they know their chemistry, physics, mathematics, thermodynamics, materials science and also programming, controls systems, communications and 3D modelling.
In a non-classical sense...
You can now be a generalist in a single field. There's enough knowledge in a single field like semiconductor manufacturing that you can choose a different specialisation each week and never run out in your lifetime.
I'm not quite sure they're gone. He doesn't quite fit the definiton of a polymath, but Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to mind as someone who has been successful in many disparate areas. And Elon Musk has a BS in physics, co-founded PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, all of which are quite different from each other.
Some kinds of research necessitate knowledge in a lot of different fields. My work is in molecular dynamics simulations, which requires a mix of chemical engineering, chemistry, physics, materials science, mathematics, and computer science. The school I attend even offers a minor titled "Interdisciplinary Graduate Minor in Computational Science".
I think part of the problem is that people don't want someone who is kind of good at everything; they'd rather have someone who is an expert at one thing. My undergraduate advisor told me to not put my undergrad athletic achievements on my grad school application; he said it would be seen as a detriment (I ignored him). But I've often found some of the best people in their fields are also the best at many other endeavors, because it is their work ethic and perseverance that pushes them beyond whatever their natural genetic limit is, and these traits are common to whatever it is they attempt to master.
There does seem to exist a particular breed of "intellectual" who not only confuses the two, but seemingly believes that conceptual understanding is merely an unpleasant side effect one must endure in order to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to grow one's vocabulary (and grow it beyond recognition, and, more importantly, beyond scrutiny from mere-mortals).
Jargon creep is inevitable when we go expert-crazy, which, it seems to me, is more about marking territory and protecting one's clique than any legitimate concern for the advancement of knowledge.
> "It's simply no longer possible to be an expert in more than one field."
This is a lazy straw-man argument (1).
Of course, experts are necessary, and we'd only go so far before we start running in circles if not for dedicated individuals... But how does this negate the value of polymaths?
This is like saying that wheels on an airplane are completely useless, because wings have been meticulously crafted for the sole purpose of flying. -- The two serve different purposes. The plane can't fly without the one, but it won't get off the ground without the other.
A polymath will never acquire the depth of understanding of an expert, but neither can the expert have access to the more varied sources of inspiration / patterns of thought that a polymath acquires through breadth of experience. It seems obvious to me that the two personality types complement each other (like "the two cultures" -- problem solvers and theory builders).
If anything, given the insurmountable amount of knowledge we've gathered on any given topic, now more than ever we need to actively research more effective means of cross-pollinating, or run the risk of academic myopia.
--
(1) or maybe not a straw-man... a red herring? We might need to bring in an expert in argumentation theory -- preferably one with extensive research in the field of informal fallacies -- as I am clearly not qualified to comment one way or the other.
Not surprisingly, people often confuse well spoken individuals with intelligent individuals. We've probably all met the incredibly polished and well spoken person who was otherwise dumb as a sack of hammers, but it took a long time to figure it out because of their well developed communication abilities sending a confusing signal.
It short circuits our intelligence detectors. It reminds me of Williams Syndrome which, despite sufferers having an average IQ of about 70, confound people who know them because of their high social engagement and constant friendly chatting.
I've found it's often helpful when meeting new people to sit back and observe the quality of the thinking behind their words rather than just the words themselves. The results are often surprising.
I've been on the other site of the fence too. It's depressing how easy it is to make people think you know a lot more than you actually do by having above average skills at expressing your thoughts. Hope I didn't just do that again... :)
Not surprisingly, people often confuse well spoken individuals with intelligent individuals. We've probably all met the incredibly polished and well spoken person who was otherwise dumb as a sack of hammers
...this seems like a needlessly low attack on the man. Why do you perceive him to be as dumb as a bag of hammers?
A respected actor, comedian and presenter he has also authored a number of novels and several non-fiction works and graduated from one of the most respected educational institutions in the entire world.
How does your link make Fry out to be as dumb as a bag of hammers? You may dislike him personally (shrug) but that does not make the man stupid.
I would also agree that the Register are being needlessly cruel by inviting readers to comb though his statements and then popularise his mistakes. I very much doubt any person on earth could withstand that kind of scrutiny, not even politicians who have armies of people to protect them from making quantative and qualitative mistakes.
Fry speaks as eccentric British comedians from the upper middle class speak. I guess non-natives just don't get it.
That is a poor example for you to choose. Stephen Fry is completely and utterly right.
The Supreme Court also think so [1] as does the Rational Wiki [2] and Salman Rushdie [3]. Fry has expressed a sentiment that a great deal of thinkers and speakers have expressed. Others that have echoed his statement include Phillip Pullman, Penn and Teller, Christopher Hitchens, Lord Mawhinney and other legislators.
Celebrity endorsements run a distant second to the Supreme Court though.
I am unsure how that qualifies Fry as dumb as a bag of hammers? Do you think that people do have a right to be offended? How would such a right be defended?
This strikes me as the startup to end all startups: make the acquisition of new knowledge less dependent on the acquisition of old knowledge. I haven't the foggiest clue how you'd accomplish that, but the person who did would build the next Google.
You just made me willing to resurrect a months old pet project that is exactly about this :) I previously labelled it as "too geeky to be commercially viable" but maybe with a different interface it might turn into some kind of usable service with and adds based or subscription based profit model and shit-load of personal data useful for deep psychological profiling by third parties (caugh...).
But I don't have high hopes of creating the next Google... the idea itself cools as it may be it's unpatentable and has most likely been independently invented elsewhere. The technology already exists and once the idea gets out, the likes of Google would definitely have a huge competetitive advantage by implementing it on top and integrating it with their existing infrastructure... so I still can't imagine any way a small startup can make profit out of this.
Anyway, I won't say more but I'll start slowly resurrecting it, and if I don't get any useful business ideas in the meantime, I'll get it to the point where it's a nice cool opensource-project that people can start to play with it to know at least that the idea hasn't just withered and died in my head...
Knowledge is not broken up into clearly defined sections: "music", "history", "mathematics", "astronomy", and so on. Every field seeps into the others, and advancements don't just happen in one single field. Take a random book about history, for example: in it you'll find history of course, but also most likely economics, geography, literature; maybe even some biology, zoology, etc.
I think knowledge works on a compound interest model: the more you learn today, the more you'll be able to learn tomorrow- regardless of the field. Of course, it's much harder to switch from English literature to mathematics than from mathematics to physics. But in a general manner, creativity is creativity and problem solving is problem solving no matter the work that you do.
I know PhDs in mathematics who are also expert violinists, computer scientists who could live from their painting if they wanted, and so on. Again, the boundaries are artificial. The only limiting factors, as noted in the article, are curiosity, patience, and perseverance.
One thing to take into account is that not everyone is putting all their achievements out for the world to see. I know a wonderful pianist who only plays for family and friends; most of his coworkers would probably be surprised to learn that not only is he an excellent programmer, but also an excellent musician. Similarly, people paint, read, play music, etc. outside of their day job, without making it a point of labeling themselves as "polymaths". I would call most of the mentor figures that I've had in my short career polymaths (expert skills in more than 3 "fields", as evidenced by published books, papers, expertise recognized by peers in that field, etc.), but that's not the word they'd use to describe themselves.
I'm 24, and not only am I a much better computer scientist (my main discipline) now that I was when I was 17 or 12 (when I started programming), I am also much better at many other things: writing, drawing, playing music, knowledge of history, literature, etc. Contrary to the accepted common wisdom, I don't expect that to stop at all with age- many people (eg. my PhD advisor, my first boss, etc.) are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and still produce work with ever increasing depth and breadth. I aspire to be like them. There's definitely something to be said for the importance of mentors and models in our daily life- something that I really liked about the academic model.
Maybe it is becoming harder to stay focused on work than it was 100 years ago (also 100 years ago a lot of intellectuals came from wealth or were supported by it, and had less busy days than we do). Nowadays, we have YouTube and Netflix and reddit and hacker news and all that other crap that pushes us to just sit on the couch and do nothing if we don't monitor ourselves. Not that they're bad in themselves (as can attest my HN karma), we just need to be aware of the time we spend on it. A half hour of mindless browsing here and there is fine; an entire evening is bad. I keep a list of activities I consider "constructive" (eg. read a book, program, draw, watch a documentary, play chess, exercise, etc.) and throughout my free time I try to make sure the vast majority of my activities belong on the list. I just spent a few hours working on algorithm problems, and now I am spending a bit of time on HN before dinner- not too bad. There used to be a time where I would spend an entire Saturday playing video games or hanging out on internet forums, which is was a complete net loss intellectually speaking. Again, compound interest.
One thing that my mom would repeat to me all the time as a kid is that the brain is like a muscle: if you don't exercise it, it gets weaker. And it's not about doing a big exercise once a year- it's about daily perseverance. Fortunately, it's never too late to get started.
This strikes me as a problem of acquiring recognition by peers in academia, not of making actually useful contributions/products in an inter-disciplinary field. Someone mentioned Musk, but I think there's a sharply increasingly amount of lesser known Edisonian tinkerers and engineers turning out useful ideas and products for customers, they just aren't going to win the Nobel prize.
I agree with Djerassi that the term "polymath" is confusing and detrimental. I think it's so because it describes what kind of knowledge one has, not what function that knowledge provides.
'Deep integrators' I think would be a better term, as opposed to the 'shallow integrators' that we call 'integrators' today and that know a little about a lot and excel about making lots of conspicuous connections. As opposed to a 'shallow integrator', a 'deep integrator' knows a lot about a lot and excels about having meaningful contributions in a lot of areas and making connections that are deep but mostly inconspicuous (for example, we'll never know what part of the skills acquired while learning chemistry and of the connections made between chemistry and writing made him a better writer, but I am sure this part of "inconspicuous deep connections" exists).
I don't think that this is true. Most things seem easier than they were once they were done. It has a little bit to do with how in NP-complete problems finding a solution is really hard, but once you have the solution, testing that it is right is really easy and that the solution looks very straight-forward.
You can't be a polymath by choice. Its merely a label other people apply.
Start with the big set of everyone. Then select the subset of people with hobbies (terminally boring people live to work... perhaps exclude the seriously ill) Some fraction of those are interesting (watching TV doesn't count, boring). Some fraction of those interesting hobbies are something they're good at (my flute playing makes dogs howl in pain, frankly I don't care I'm having fun even if no one listening is having fun). Some fraction of those hobbies that are interesting where they have skill have some public component, like the article examples of writing books and holding lecture series. Edited to add another level, people that have very public interesting hobbies that are highly talented, they might get public attention, which is rarer than you'd think.
Then, that tiny little subset, some of them, get labeled as polymaths.
19 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 57.0 ms ] threadPersonally, I went back further in the domain to avoid admitting I never had more than zero interest in what RFC writers chose to call something. Really, I view domains as bastions of useless information aside from the harvestable concepts for problems in other domains.
But I am beginning to suspect the industry has 'matured' into the same crap as the auto industry.
I'm curious if others have comments on remaining a generalist in this environment?
As for whether there are polymaths anymore...
Most research engineers and applied scientists working on large complex builds are polymaths in the classical sense: they know their chemistry, physics, mathematics, thermodynamics, materials science and also programming, controls systems, communications and 3D modelling.
In a non-classical sense...
You can now be a generalist in a single field. There's enough knowledge in a single field like semiconductor manufacturing that you can choose a different specialisation each week and never run out in your lifetime.
Some kinds of research necessitate knowledge in a lot of different fields. My work is in molecular dynamics simulations, which requires a mix of chemical engineering, chemistry, physics, materials science, mathematics, and computer science. The school I attend even offers a minor titled "Interdisciplinary Graduate Minor in Computational Science".
I think part of the problem is that people don't want someone who is kind of good at everything; they'd rather have someone who is an expert at one thing. My undergraduate advisor told me to not put my undergrad athletic achievements on my grad school application; he said it would be seen as a detriment (I ignored him). But I've often found some of the best people in their fields are also the best at many other endeavors, because it is their work ethic and perseverance that pushes them beyond whatever their natural genetic limit is, and these traits are common to whatever it is they attempt to master.
http://youtu.be/05WS0WN7zMQ
There does seem to exist a particular breed of "intellectual" who not only confuses the two, but seemingly believes that conceptual understanding is merely an unpleasant side effect one must endure in order to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to grow one's vocabulary (and grow it beyond recognition, and, more importantly, beyond scrutiny from mere-mortals).
Jargon creep is inevitable when we go expert-crazy, which, it seems to me, is more about marking territory and protecting one's clique than any legitimate concern for the advancement of knowledge.
> "It's simply no longer possible to be an expert in more than one field."
This is a lazy straw-man argument (1).
Of course, experts are necessary, and we'd only go so far before we start running in circles if not for dedicated individuals... But how does this negate the value of polymaths?
This is like saying that wheels on an airplane are completely useless, because wings have been meticulously crafted for the sole purpose of flying. -- The two serve different purposes. The plane can't fly without the one, but it won't get off the ground without the other.
A polymath will never acquire the depth of understanding of an expert, but neither can the expert have access to the more varied sources of inspiration / patterns of thought that a polymath acquires through breadth of experience. It seems obvious to me that the two personality types complement each other (like "the two cultures" -- problem solvers and theory builders).
If anything, given the insurmountable amount of knowledge we've gathered on any given topic, now more than ever we need to actively research more effective means of cross-pollinating, or run the risk of academic myopia.
--
(1) or maybe not a straw-man... a red herring? We might need to bring in an expert in argumentation theory -- preferably one with extensive research in the field of informal fallacies -- as I am clearly not qualified to comment one way or the other.
Not surprisingly, people often confuse well spoken individuals with intelligent individuals. We've probably all met the incredibly polished and well spoken person who was otherwise dumb as a sack of hammers, but it took a long time to figure it out because of their well developed communication abilities sending a confusing signal.
It short circuits our intelligence detectors. It reminds me of Williams Syndrome which, despite sufferers having an average IQ of about 70, confound people who know them because of their high social engagement and constant friendly chatting.
I've found it's often helpful when meeting new people to sit back and observe the quality of the thinking behind their words rather than just the words themselves. The results are often surprising.
The classic example being Stephen Fry.
A respected actor, comedian and presenter he has also authored a number of novels and several non-fiction works and graduated from one of the most respected educational institutions in the entire world.
Hardly dumb.
One of many: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/25/stephen_fry_not_upse...
http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language...
How does your link make Fry out to be as dumb as a bag of hammers? You may dislike him personally (shrug) but that does not make the man stupid.
I would also agree that the Register are being needlessly cruel by inviting readers to comb though his statements and then popularise his mistakes. I very much doubt any person on earth could withstand that kind of scrutiny, not even politicians who have armies of people to protect them from making quantative and qualitative mistakes.
Fry speaks as eccentric British comedians from the upper middle class speak. I guess non-natives just don't get it.
The Supreme Court also think so [1] as does the Rational Wiki [2] and Salman Rushdie [3]. Fry has expressed a sentiment that a great deal of thinkers and speakers have expressed. Others that have echoed his statement include Phillip Pullman, Penn and Teller, Christopher Hitchens, Lord Mawhinney and other legislators.
Celebrity endorsements run a distant second to the Supreme Court though.
I am unsure how that qualifies Fry as dumb as a bag of hammers? Do you think that people do have a right to be offended? How would such a right be defended?
[1]http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf [2]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Right_not_to_... [3]http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/739464-nobody-has-the-right-...
But I don't have high hopes of creating the next Google... the idea itself cools as it may be it's unpatentable and has most likely been independently invented elsewhere. The technology already exists and once the idea gets out, the likes of Google would definitely have a huge competetitive advantage by implementing it on top and integrating it with their existing infrastructure... so I still can't imagine any way a small startup can make profit out of this.
Anyway, I won't say more but I'll start slowly resurrecting it, and if I don't get any useful business ideas in the meantime, I'll get it to the point where it's a nice cool opensource-project that people can start to play with it to know at least that the idea hasn't just withered and died in my head...
Knowledge is not broken up into clearly defined sections: "music", "history", "mathematics", "astronomy", and so on. Every field seeps into the others, and advancements don't just happen in one single field. Take a random book about history, for example: in it you'll find history of course, but also most likely economics, geography, literature; maybe even some biology, zoology, etc.
I think knowledge works on a compound interest model: the more you learn today, the more you'll be able to learn tomorrow- regardless of the field. Of course, it's much harder to switch from English literature to mathematics than from mathematics to physics. But in a general manner, creativity is creativity and problem solving is problem solving no matter the work that you do.
I know PhDs in mathematics who are also expert violinists, computer scientists who could live from their painting if they wanted, and so on. Again, the boundaries are artificial. The only limiting factors, as noted in the article, are curiosity, patience, and perseverance.
One thing to take into account is that not everyone is putting all their achievements out for the world to see. I know a wonderful pianist who only plays for family and friends; most of his coworkers would probably be surprised to learn that not only is he an excellent programmer, but also an excellent musician. Similarly, people paint, read, play music, etc. outside of their day job, without making it a point of labeling themselves as "polymaths". I would call most of the mentor figures that I've had in my short career polymaths (expert skills in more than 3 "fields", as evidenced by published books, papers, expertise recognized by peers in that field, etc.), but that's not the word they'd use to describe themselves.
I'm 24, and not only am I a much better computer scientist (my main discipline) now that I was when I was 17 or 12 (when I started programming), I am also much better at many other things: writing, drawing, playing music, knowledge of history, literature, etc. Contrary to the accepted common wisdom, I don't expect that to stop at all with age- many people (eg. my PhD advisor, my first boss, etc.) are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and still produce work with ever increasing depth and breadth. I aspire to be like them. There's definitely something to be said for the importance of mentors and models in our daily life- something that I really liked about the academic model.
Maybe it is becoming harder to stay focused on work than it was 100 years ago (also 100 years ago a lot of intellectuals came from wealth or were supported by it, and had less busy days than we do). Nowadays, we have YouTube and Netflix and reddit and hacker news and all that other crap that pushes us to just sit on the couch and do nothing if we don't monitor ourselves. Not that they're bad in themselves (as can attest my HN karma), we just need to be aware of the time we spend on it. A half hour of mindless browsing here and there is fine; an entire evening is bad. I keep a list of activities I consider "constructive" (eg. read a book, program, draw, watch a documentary, play chess, exercise, etc.) and throughout my free time I try to make sure the vast majority of my activities belong on the list. I just spent a few hours working on algorithm problems, and now I am spending a bit of time on HN before dinner- not too bad. There used to be a time where I would spend an entire Saturday playing video games or hanging out on internet forums, which is was a complete net loss intellectually speaking. Again, compound interest.
One thing that my mom would repeat to me all the time as a kid is that the brain is like a muscle: if you don't exercise it, it gets weaker. And it's not about doing a big exercise once a year- it's about daily perseverance. Fortunately, it's never too late to get started.
'Deep integrators' I think would be a better term, as opposed to the 'shallow integrators' that we call 'integrators' today and that know a little about a lot and excel about making lots of conspicuous connections. As opposed to a 'shallow integrator', a 'deep integrator' knows a lot about a lot and excels about having meaningful contributions in a lot of areas and making connections that are deep but mostly inconspicuous (for example, we'll never know what part of the skills acquired while learning chemistry and of the connections made between chemistry and writing made him a better writer, but I am sure this part of "inconspicuous deep connections" exists).
I don't think that this is true. Most things seem easier than they were once they were done. It has a little bit to do with how in NP-complete problems finding a solution is really hard, but once you have the solution, testing that it is right is really easy and that the solution looks very straight-forward.
Another nice story showing this concept is the egg of columbus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
Start with the big set of everyone. Then select the subset of people with hobbies (terminally boring people live to work... perhaps exclude the seriously ill) Some fraction of those are interesting (watching TV doesn't count, boring). Some fraction of those interesting hobbies are something they're good at (my flute playing makes dogs howl in pain, frankly I don't care I'm having fun even if no one listening is having fun). Some fraction of those hobbies that are interesting where they have skill have some public component, like the article examples of writing books and holding lecture series. Edited to add another level, people that have very public interesting hobbies that are highly talented, they might get public attention, which is rarer than you'd think.
Then, that tiny little subset, some of them, get labeled as polymaths.