29 MAY 2014 by ideonexus
The Cultural Importance of Fundamental Research
The value of fundamental research does not lie only in the ideas it produces. There is more to it. It affects the whole intellectual life of a nation by determining its way of thinking and the standards by which actions and intellectual production are judged. If science is highly regarded and if the importance of being concemed with the most up-to-date problems of fundamental research is recognized, then a spiritual climate is created which influences the other activities. An atmosphere of cr... 1 
notes
notesWhy pure science? in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1965 21 4-8 Victor Frederick Weisskopf 1908
28 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Using Lay Audiences to Force Explanation
In many fields—not just philosophy—there are controversies that seem never-ending and partly artifactual: people are talking past one another and not making the necessary effort to communicate effectively. Tempers flare, and disrespect and derision start creeping in. People on the sidelines take sides, even when they don’t fully understand the issues.
It can get ugly, and it can have a very straightforward cause. When experts talk to experts, whether they are in the same discipline or ...
1 Often when experts debate, they fall into the trap of assuming one another's expertise and fail to explain basic concepts, with the result that they beging talking past one anothers. An inventive solution to this is to have a group of non-experts be the audience and have the debaters address them instead.
