Thankfully everyone’s ok.

Here’s a thought.

I’d always assumed that invention of the printing press increased the ability of people to pamphleteer, to disseminate new ideas, and to bypass, and sometimes to topple, existing power structures.

And I’d always assumed that the Scientific Revolution was helped enormously by this new invention. People were suddenly able to share the results of their sometimes homebrewn experiments and a wave of new discovery was unleashed.

I’d always assumed that the scientific method was another one of these positive discoveries. But perhaps things aren’t quite so rosy-tinted. Presumably scientific method, peer review, empirical testing et al. could have become prized because they were the best way people found to cope with the boom in quack theories and amateur views.

It’s important stuff.

So you can’t be an expert and have a balanced view. From Three-Toed Sloth:

“experts need to acquire and store tens of thousands of cases within their domains in order to recognize patterns, generate and test hypotheses, and contribute to the collective knowledge within their fields. In other words, becoming an expert requires a significant number of years of viewing the world through the lens of one specific domain. It is the specificity that gives the expert the power to recognize patterns, perform tasks, and solve problems.

Paradoxically, it is this same specificity that is restrictive, narrowly focusing the expert’s attention on one domain to the exclusion of others. It should come as little surprise, then, that an expert would have difficulty identifying and weighing variables in an interdisciplinary task …”

This gets kind of interesting if you think about experts in say, Web 2.0/social computing. And you get another paradox, because presumably Web 2.0 expertise includes, along with the O’Reilly Mile, a strong appreciation of the fragility and inherent bias of expertise?

Well, it’s been a long while, and it feels a little odd posting again. Lots has happened - career change into teaching being the main one - but have still been keeping up with various feeds.

Had a bit of a fatigue, a little like Ed’s with his “collaboro-competing Web 2.0″ consultants. And felt I was tub-thumping more than thinking, much to my annoyance.

Anyroad. Onwards and sideways.

Turns out my nephew Oliver (5 years old) loves computers, the internet, anything gadgety. And he calls all of this not “IT”, but “E”.

Which makes it a little awkward when he booms out “Mum, when are we going to get more E?”

February 23rd 2007 | Comments(3) | Asides on monkeymagic