Hi Jeffrey,
I really appreciate your posts. It looks like I was a little too harsh on Professor Dyson's speech. I wasn't denouncing his achievements (though I think "Dyson Sphere" is not only impractical but also as Dyson himself put it: competing for the attentions to solving the real energy problem in the world), but I am quite sure he intended to make the graduates feel less proud of their degrees. The PhD system is not in any way perfect, we all have seen so many failures. I don't have a problem if he says all these in a lecture, I might think his ideas are indeed quite interesting too if he says them in another occasion, given that they're debatable.
His parable is not attractive to me because it's based on the assumption that women need to get education so they can get a good husband then live happily ever after. If everybody has the "bio-technology kits", do you expect there will still be "black stick"? Dyson thinks there will be enormous variety, Jean Baudrillard thinks that's the end of diversity (more beautiful, healthier, and intelligent species, no room for any heretics). Geophysics split from physics was because we know terribly little about our own planet. When we make models, we try to define major elements, we might be wrong about how important some elements are at first, e.g., the effects of dust and clouds in the climate models, but at least the major tendency can be predicted (otherwise why bother?). Why does Nicholas Cage carry a bow in "The Weatherman"? It is very hard to precisely predict everyday weather as we all know but that doesn't mean we won't know the major tendencies.
It's perfectly fine to be curious about other disciplines' works, our designers do that all the time, but may I ask before he denounce other people's work, please present solid evidence. We're not living in the theoretical physics or mathematics world after all. Many have supreme intelligence in this world, only a few have wisdom.
Again, thanks for sharing this speech, quite provoking : )
Cheers!
Best, Tao
|