TWP IV: Seers versus Craftperps
Act IV, Scene 1. On the Heath
[Lights come up dimly. Two men, dressed as witches, stand around a large iron pot on a fire. Wind howls. A red-haired man, THE DIRECTOR, stirs the pot, while the larger man, THE PLAYWRIGHT, looks on.]
DIRECTOR: Double, double...
PLAYWRIGHT: I'm thinking of a ballet, with a phalanx of dancers in grey military uniforms, dancing in strict unison - groupthink.
DIRECTOR: Toil and trouble...
PLAYWRIGHT: Seers would be highly individualized principal dancers, with brightly colored and distinctive costumes. They would have highly varied dance steps as they are pursued about the stage by the groupthink phalanx.
DIRECTOR: Cauldron boil and cauldron f****** bubble...
[fade to dark]
Lee Smolin makes a pitch for democracy and diversity in theoretical physics in the fourth part of his book, and I'm sorry to say that I found it a bit irritating. I definitely agree that lockstep thinking, with everybody working on the same approaches to the same problems is not a good idea. I also suspect that he is right in saying that the US system of postdocs and the whole funding concept create scientific conservatism and allocate too much power to the old guys.
It's his picture of "Seers" and "Craftspeople" that really gets under my skin, though. According to him, most physicists are technicians, or "craftspeople", only in physics because they could do the math and get away from the bullying jocks. An elite few, though, are driven "Seers", determined to get to the bottom of things. The revolutions in physics come from these people, the Galileos, the Faradays, the Einsteins. The craftperps are left to do the tedious detail work of calculating spectra, specific heats, and terms in pertubation theory.
It is certainly true that the big breakthroughs came from just a relatively few people. I think it's a little facile to just attribute this to some special feature of their character, though. After all, how many times can you discover America? Kepler, Galileo and Faraday used methods that seeming have little resemblance to those of Einstein and Dirac, but they made equally important discoveries.
Seers are very rare in the world dominated by technicians, says Smolin. Well, maybe at Harvard they were. Out in the sticks at Great Desert State, though, Seers, or at any rate, would be Seers, were as common as horned toads. One of my grad school colleagues quit to take a job as a greenskeeper which left him free to think about quantum mechanics. Another became an engineer so he could build supercomputers to solve his generalized Dirac equation.
My guess is that almost every physicist has a bit of "Seer" in her, but the fact is that tractable fundamental problems that suit their talents - or anybody's talents, are just rare. "If quantum mechanics doesn't worry you, you're crazy," said Feynman. But most people who have spent their lives worrying about it haven't gotten anywhere. You climb the mountain before you by whatever means you have at hand. I'm not convinced that taking bigger chances necessarily equates to a higher likelyhood of success. Einstein was profound, Einstein was exceptionably able to free his mind from the prejudices of common sense, but he was also exceptionally lucky. He just happened to live at a time when a whole group of fundamental problems was ready to yield to a deep and original thinker.
In the end, though, I do think physics needs a better way select the next generation, and a better way to encourage diverse approaches. Maybe a few more rich guys can be found to support institutes that are willing to work on the edge. Maybe the government should try some experiments in the sociology of physics.
***************
For those who prefer more conventional reviews of Smolin's book I recommend: Sean Carroll's, Bee's at Backreaction, or Wolfgang's short one with links here.
[Lights come up dimly. Two men, dressed as witches, stand around a large iron pot on a fire. Wind howls. A red-haired man, THE DIRECTOR, stirs the pot, while the larger man, THE PLAYWRIGHT, looks on.]
DIRECTOR: Double, double...
PLAYWRIGHT: I'm thinking of a ballet, with a phalanx of dancers in grey military uniforms, dancing in strict unison - groupthink.
DIRECTOR: Toil and trouble...
PLAYWRIGHT: Seers would be highly individualized principal dancers, with brightly colored and distinctive costumes. They would have highly varied dance steps as they are pursued about the stage by the groupthink phalanx.
DIRECTOR: Cauldron boil and cauldron f****** bubble...
[fade to dark]
Lee Smolin makes a pitch for democracy and diversity in theoretical physics in the fourth part of his book, and I'm sorry to say that I found it a bit irritating. I definitely agree that lockstep thinking, with everybody working on the same approaches to the same problems is not a good idea. I also suspect that he is right in saying that the US system of postdocs and the whole funding concept create scientific conservatism and allocate too much power to the old guys.
It's his picture of "Seers" and "Craftspeople" that really gets under my skin, though. According to him, most physicists are technicians, or "craftspeople", only in physics because they could do the math and get away from the bullying jocks. An elite few, though, are driven "Seers", determined to get to the bottom of things. The revolutions in physics come from these people, the Galileos, the Faradays, the Einsteins. The craftperps are left to do the tedious detail work of calculating spectra, specific heats, and terms in pertubation theory.
It is certainly true that the big breakthroughs came from just a relatively few people. I think it's a little facile to just attribute this to some special feature of their character, though. After all, how many times can you discover America? Kepler, Galileo and Faraday used methods that seeming have little resemblance to those of Einstein and Dirac, but they made equally important discoveries.
Seers are very rare in the world dominated by technicians, says Smolin. Well, maybe at Harvard they were. Out in the sticks at Great Desert State, though, Seers, or at any rate, would be Seers, were as common as horned toads. One of my grad school colleagues quit to take a job as a greenskeeper which left him free to think about quantum mechanics. Another became an engineer so he could build supercomputers to solve his generalized Dirac equation.
My guess is that almost every physicist has a bit of "Seer" in her, but the fact is that tractable fundamental problems that suit their talents - or anybody's talents, are just rare. "If quantum mechanics doesn't worry you, you're crazy," said Feynman. But most people who have spent their lives worrying about it haven't gotten anywhere. You climb the mountain before you by whatever means you have at hand. I'm not convinced that taking bigger chances necessarily equates to a higher likelyhood of success. Einstein was profound, Einstein was exceptionably able to free his mind from the prejudices of common sense, but he was also exceptionally lucky. He just happened to live at a time when a whole group of fundamental problems was ready to yield to a deep and original thinker.
In the end, though, I do think physics needs a better way select the next generation, and a better way to encourage diverse approaches. Maybe a few more rich guys can be found to support institutes that are willing to work on the edge. Maybe the government should try some experiments in the sociology of physics.
***************
For those who prefer more conventional reviews of Smolin's book I recommend: Sean Carroll's, Bee's at Backreaction, or Wolfgang's short one with links here.
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