Specialization

[modern algebra]

I've been thinking about this for a little while so I thought it's be nice to have some discussion, see what other people who happen not to be me think. So, I've been thinking that as disciplines advance, they require the people studying those disciplines to become more and more specialized. This makes sense. Even in already specialized disciplines, sub-specialties arise; for instance, in English Lit, there's Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration and 18th century, Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, Postcolonial, and Literary Theory & Criticism. This all makes perfect sense, as disciplines grow, they naturally require a greater focus on them to continue advancing.

The problem that I've encountered with this is simply that, as disciplines become more and more specialized, they naturally exclude, to the extent that there is no posible way for a layperson to completely understand the advancements coming out of those specialties. The problem with this is that those specialists have the power to make decisions that change society. As academic disciplines become more and more specialized, this essentially means that society is changing for reasons that the vast majority of the populace, with only a general education, cannot possibly understand. We see this already with evolution, certainly. Anytime you encounter a debate about evolution on the internet, there will be maybe three or four people participating in the debate on either side who actually know or understand what evolution entails, or the Big Bang Theory (stupidest name for a theory ever) for that matter. Certainly most of the creationists do not understand, but even those arguing for evolution often display a lack of knowledge about evolution, and their arguments can often be boiled down to "it's science, lol. Believe it!" It has been this way a long time for religious theologies; without some major study of theogy, religious decisions are barely understandable.

So, I suppose what I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that as the world becomes more and more specialized, human beings lose a majority of their agency in social changes that, for the most part, they have to take on faith. Biologists say this is likely, therefore it is. This certainly occurs with nutrition already - most people know whether a food is good or bad for you, but a lot of them, including myself,  certainly don't know why that food is good or bad for you. To some extent, society is taking on the worst parts of religion, in that people are caught up in social change that is for the most part misunderstood or not understood at all, and agency is being limited in that we have to accept most things in our lives on faith alone.

I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking this, but I wanted to see what you guys thought about this. I don't really know what I'm expecting. Just discussion, I guess.

[Holkeye]

Specialization is sort of a trend in my eyes. If not a trend to itself, it is at least reliant on other trends to exist. For example, if a biologist decides that one tiny aspect of biology is important, he will begin to study that aspect in detail. Soon, his findings will become known by other members of the biology community, and those people will pick up and expand on them. Thus, a specialization is formed. It really has 90% to do with "what's current" and about 10% to do with what's important.

Another case of trends in specialization that I can relate to your post is when you were talking about health-foods. Over the past decade, nearly every consumable food product has been at one time beneficial, and at another time detrimental. Take the egg, for example: It was once thought that eggs were bad for you because they contain a high level of cholesterol. Then, it was discovered that the cholesterol in eggs is in fact good for us. The reason, in the case of food, that standards change on a regular basis is because we were meant to eat meat and plants. It was only after we began to synthesize our own food that a question of health came into our eating habits.

Finally, I agree with what you're saying about the specialist's ability to influence thinking because of a laser-point knowledge of a subject. One thing that I've heard many times though, is that a truly intelligent person can explain their findings to a wide body of people. If you discover something, and you can't make people understand, then your findings are pointless. When you're speaking on theories, such as your examples of evolution and singularities, then you start to get into grounds where people's personal beliefs come into play. In other words, Without solid proof, what's true for one isn't what's true for another.

Bonus Fact: The term "Big Bang" was actually coined by a detractor of the theory, which is why it is flippant.

[modern algebra]

I agree with everything you said pretty much, but to some extent I don't know if it's reasonable to expect any person, truly intelligent or not, to be able to explain their findings. If a discovery in Physics is an advanced application of quantam mechanics, then how can it be understood without first understanding quantam mechanics to some significant degree. And how many people understand quantam mechanics? And with the progression of society, it is precisely the development of increased specialization that I think has made it unnecessary for a discovery to be understood by the majority of people before it can take effect. So, the findings, I would say, are not useless if it cannot be understood by everyone.

But maybe this is the way it has always been - most people have never really had any agency with regard to social change, and specializations are merely the present way in which this is occuring.

[Holkeye]

I agree with you, but I think you misunderstood what I was saying about explanations. I didn't mean that someone could go up to a random person on the street and tell them about molecular physics or something along those lines, rather that if any number of people were willing to learn the information, it would be easily explainable.

[Chase_Leader]

Interesting, to many extents if we know it to be true because someone sounds convincing or even has "proof" we then put it in the backs of our heads and just trust that it is true.

I guess wouldn't it all come down to apathy?
Because if everyone is ok with believing that something is true and no problems arise from it, no one cares to know why or if that is really true.

I am a Christian and I believe that I will go to Heaven if I follow in Gods way and believe that Jesus died on the cross to take away the sin of the world.

No, I can't prove to anyone that this is true, I believe and know in my heart that it is beyond all human understanding...on the other hand no-one can prove it right...but then again no-one can prove it wrong...

Thats a bigger example, maybe a smaller one that many wouldn't care to question is that, if you run every day you will feel better...what they don't know is that if you run incorrectly or run every single day you can cause severe problems in the long run.
People have grown so accustomed to the fact that some people run and they are healthy and they simply go off of that regardless of other steps they need to take to be healthy.

I hope I have this right and am not misunderstanding anyone here...
So I guess what I am trying to say is that the idea for this topic/thread for the most part is true...but there are exceptions to the rule...

[vgvgf]

Well, specialization has allowed the humanity to continue growing up in terms of technology and knowing. When there was less knowledge in the world, a man could learn all disciplines or almost all, like Da Vinci for example. However, now there is far more knowledge than before and because we still live for 70/80/90/100 years we haven't the needed time for learning all the knowledge humanity has developed. It is impossible to know it all, however if people would live more time, specialization would be less significant than now.

Also, in all ages, there was only a reduced number of people whose knowledge was really high. And still today, there are a lot of people who haven't studied any specialization in university and other places.

If people try to learn it all, they will end learning a bit of each discipline and also a bit of nothing. Today it is better to specializating the knowledge and knowing deeply something, otherwise this area of knowledge wouldn't be able to continue advancing.

[Chase_Leader]

Some say knowledge is for the foolish, people get so consumed in knowing everything that they either have a mental breakdown or fail in trying to know everything...because IMO only God knows everything.

There has been no one in the entire history of Earth that has known everything nor will anyone ever be able to know everything...thats just all there is to it...so no worries.

As long as someone has a lot of common sense they should easily be able to know what is fact and what is fiction and if they don't know then they are at least smart enough or dedicated enough to take the time to learn about it and actually break it down to the point where it does make logical and realistic sense.

For all we know everything we know could be wrong...its about understanding all the small easier to understand things that make up something more complex and putting it together like a puzzle until it is proven to be fact...if someone believes that the sun causes cancer and doesn't know why it causes cancer then they are just going around believing that it does and hoping that who ever said it does was right.