In The Failures of Eld Science, Eliezer’s character points out that most scientists were never trained to recognize and navigate a genuine scientific controversy; instead, we hand our undergraduates the answers on a silver platter and have them do textbook problems. He proposes that if scientists had first had to think through and defeat phlogiston themselves, they would have been less stymied by the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Similarly, I think I’m better off for having encountered some of the grand old systems of philosophy in their earliest and most viral forms, without all the subsequent criticisms and rebuttals attached. Of course I ran the risk of getting entrapped permanently in Plato or Nietzsche, but I learned things about rationality and about myself this way, and I don’t think I would have learned those had I started by reading a modern digest of one or the other (with all the mistakes pointed out). (Of course, I have since read modern critiques and profited from them.)
On the other hand, some Great Books schools like to teach higher mathematics by having the students read Euclid, and I agree that’s insane and not worth all the extra effort.
Interesting about pushing students through Phlogiston. Without it being required of physics majors, I took “philosophy of science” as an undergrad philosophy minor and read, among others, Popper. It has stuck with me like one of those viruses, let me know if I have much to gain by finally dropping some of what I think I learned from him. I personally loved looking at all science afterwards and listening in all discussions and thinking: “is this a difference that makes a difference?” Is there testable difference here or can I just skip it?
In a graduate course on superconducting electronics I once taught a wildly simple theory of electron pairing treating the electron wave functions as 1-d sine waves in the metal. I told the students: “the theory I am teaching you is wrong, but it illustrates many of the true features of the superconducting wave function. If you don’t understand why it is wrong, you will be better off thinking this than not thinking this, while if you get to the point where you see why it is wrong, you will really understand superconductivity pretty well.”
It never occurred to me to try to insert Popper into any of the classes I was teaching. I was not a very imaginitive professor.
By the way, on your name orthonormal, on what basis did you choose it? :)
On the Euclid point, it depends on where you’re starting from and what you’re trying to do. I’ve seen people who thought they hated math, converted by going through some of Euclid. The geometrical method of exposition is beautiful in itself, and very different from the analytical approach most modern math follows. If you’re already a math enthusiast, it would not benefit you quite as much.
One counterpoint:
In The Failures of Eld Science, Eliezer’s character points out that most scientists were never trained to recognize and navigate a genuine scientific controversy; instead, we hand our undergraduates the answers on a silver platter and have them do textbook problems. He proposes that if scientists had first had to think through and defeat phlogiston themselves, they would have been less stymied by the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Similarly, I think I’m better off for having encountered some of the grand old systems of philosophy in their earliest and most viral forms, without all the subsequent criticisms and rebuttals attached. Of course I ran the risk of getting entrapped permanently in Plato or Nietzsche, but I learned things about rationality and about myself this way, and I don’t think I would have learned those had I started by reading a modern digest of one or the other (with all the mistakes pointed out). (Of course, I have since read modern critiques and profited from them.)
On the other hand, some Great Books schools like to teach higher mathematics by having the students read Euclid, and I agree that’s insane and not worth all the extra effort.
Interesting about pushing students through Phlogiston. Without it being required of physics majors, I took “philosophy of science” as an undergrad philosophy minor and read, among others, Popper. It has stuck with me like one of those viruses, let me know if I have much to gain by finally dropping some of what I think I learned from him. I personally loved looking at all science afterwards and listening in all discussions and thinking: “is this a difference that makes a difference?” Is there testable difference here or can I just skip it?
In a graduate course on superconducting electronics I once taught a wildly simple theory of electron pairing treating the electron wave functions as 1-d sine waves in the metal. I told the students: “the theory I am teaching you is wrong, but it illustrates many of the true features of the superconducting wave function. If you don’t understand why it is wrong, you will be better off thinking this than not thinking this, while if you get to the point where you see why it is wrong, you will really understand superconductivity pretty well.”
It never occurred to me to try to insert Popper into any of the classes I was teaching. I was not a very imaginitive professor.
By the way, on your name orthonormal, on what basis did you choose it? :)
On the Euclid point, it depends on where you’re starting from and what you’re trying to do. I’ve seen people who thought they hated math, converted by going through some of Euclid. The geometrical method of exposition is beautiful in itself, and very different from the analytical approach most modern math follows. If you’re already a math enthusiast, it would not benefit you quite as much.
But there are more readable modern textbooks which use the geometrical method of exposition; I just taught out of one last semester.
I envy your students.