Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Why no new Einstein? New philosophy thread.

Isn't this kind of thinking as narrow as those who thought the world flat and we had a breakthrough? There seems to be so much that someone could figure out and would be an 'a ha!' moment.

Didn't someone post a link to some 12 year old genius who had some ideas on the big bang theory? Remember how Feynman showed what happened to the Challenger with the rings in ice water? Like no one thought of that before?

Maybe someone's kid from this forum will someday make us rethink the current limitations of our theories.

Ren

I don't have much to add here but wanted to mention that if you enjoy this thread you might like Thomas Kuhn's book Structure of Scientific Revolutions, gets into the nitty gritty of on-the-backs-of-giants versus big jumps. Or just google Thomas Kuhn.

Polly

Polly, I second the recommendation.

Val, the flaw in your original post is that many many academics in the US were not educated in the US with the obsession with multiple choice testing.

True, but they join a system that selects for people who publish constantly and get grants by keeping their work within established models (my original post also spoke of this issue). The ones who are slow and deep either don't get hired or don't get tenure. The European universities are beginning to follow suit, too, unfortunately. It's late now and I'm too tired to look this up, but I know that the UK at least is having the same metrics-driven problems that we are (don't know the degree). My friends in Ireland have also complained about a more industrial culture at at least one major university there.

Breakthroughs---especially big ones---are rare events. All I'm saying is that I think our educational and academic research systems in the US are making it even harder for them to happen.

Note to other posters: yes, the Kuhn book is great! A lot of my thinking is influenced by his ideas.

Well. Hmm, a quick google turned up this page that shows Einstein, by his own admition, was "forced to cram all this stuff into one's mind for examinations whether one liked it or not." (p3) He argued against this method saying, "even the most voracious beast if forced to eat with a whip incessantly will lose his apatite." Apparently that was his education regardless. �

So that's cool. �Einstein himself agreed with you that the reason we aren't making any new Einstein's today is because "modern methods of instruction (could) entirely strangle the holy curiosity of enquiry."

According to the .gov site, this is how he did it�
"Einstein realized that the world described by Isaac Newton, in which one could add and subtract velocities, and that described by James Clerk Maxwell, in which the speed of light is constant, could not both be right. He decided to solve the problem�and special relativity was the result."
Neato factoid.

So today's �methods of education are no more likely to negate the miracle that kept Einstein-like creative genius from being squashed than when it reAlly happened with the first Einstein. �But I would say we could change the education because it's more humane and we're more evolved. �

If this anecdote from the article is true this is what I would change (if it wasn't true for him it sounds familiar):
"one day his teacher summoned him and told him it would be desirable for him to leave the school. �Astonished at the turn of events young Einstein asked what offense he was guilty of. �The teacher replied "your presence in the class destroys the respect of the students."

In the spirit of that statement I would want to see places of learning stop discrimination against people that value learning. �Just because it's humane. �How hard is that? �And it's not an excuse if the kid is blatantly smarter than the teachers. �
http://employees.csbsju.edu/cgearhart/Courses/Honors210/Einstein/Ein_Symp92.pdf

http://free.ed.gov/resource.cfm?resource_id=2079
K. Now I'm googling kuhn.

Eta, I think MosT teachers want to teach and a student who wants to learn will. Just saying there shouldnt be a question, ironically, since it is a designated place of learning, about a student who wants to learn.

Isaac Newton, speaking of breakers-through... "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." -
For a truly AMAZING guy, quite a stroke of humility.


Hey, why no mention of Hawking? Are his ideas about blackholes just too derivative of Einstein?

Kuhn wrote extensively about breakthroughs in knowledge. The existing "paradigm" is "what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share." and to break it requires a different view which begins by criticizing the things the current paradigm ignores. You cannot be mainstream and have a breakthrough.

There are a number of anomalies in the current paradigm that do not require "big science" to see. One is the Pioneer Anomaly and another is the Faint Sun Paradox. There are many others along these lines which are not explainable.

Then there is the problem of rent seekers taking over science. Global Warming is just one famous example.

I disagree about breakthroughs not happening recently. The most recent paradigm shift occurred in the 70s when Plate Tectonics was finally put on a firm footing

A lot of work went into validating the theory once people began to throw out much of the invalid work of the previous century. This breakthrough led to another on Ice Ages.

And then there is the microprocessor revolution which has not end in sight has driven down the cost of knowledge.

And lets not forget the discovery of DNA and the elimination of disease and death that will occur.