You are here: Flying Aardvark's website -> Rants -> Rant #02
Here is a quote from one of my favourite books, Against Method by Paul Feyerabend. In the book Feyerabend takes a look at the history of science and argues against 'scientific' method. In this section, two of my passions, education and closing the gap between science and art are discussed...
Progressive educators have always tried to develop the individuality of their pupils and bring to fruition the particular, and sometimes quite unique, talents and beliefs of a child. Such an education has very often seemed like a futile exercise in day-dreaming. For is it not necessary to prepare the child for life as it actually is ? Does this not mean they must learn one particular set of views to the exclusion of everything else ? And, if a trace of their imagination is still to remain, will it not find its proper application in the arts or in a thin domain of dreams that has but little to do with the world we live in. Will this procedure not finally lead to a split between a hated reality and welcome fantasies, science and the arts, careful description and unrestrained self-expression ? The argument for proliferation shows that this need not happen. It is possible to retain what one might call the freedom of artistic creation and to use it to the full, not just as a road of escape but as a necessary means for discovering and perhaps even changing the features of the world we live in.
Here is a quote from Einstein along similar lines...
The external conditions which are set for the scientist by the facts of experience do not permit him to let himself be to much restricted, in the construction of his conceptual world, by the adherence to an epistemological system. He, therefore, must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist...
The slogan anything goes does not entail a lack of critical thinking. Feyerabend does not read every single paper that gets sent to him. Rather, he makes his selection in a highly individual and idiosyncratic way. Humanity and science will profit from everyone doing his own thing.
A physicist may prefer a sloppy ... paper full of mistakes to a crystal-clear exposition because it is a natural extension of his own, still rather disorganized, research and he might achieve success as well as clarity long before his rival who vowed never to read a single woolly line.
