The Modern Day Renaissance Man

Kilrah_il writes "The Not Exactly Rocket Science blog has an interesting piece about Erez Lieberman Aiden, a scientist that is frequently hopping from one field to another, including 'molecular biology, linguistics, physics, engineering and mathematics.' This is in contrast to the prevailing trend of specializing in a specific field. 'I think a huge amount of invention is recognizing that A and B go together really well, putting them together and getting something better. The limiting step is knowing that A and B exist. And that's the big disadvantage that one has as a specialist – you gradually lose sight of the things that are around. I feel I just get to see more,' Aiden said. The post shows how failure to map antibodies led to an important discovery of the 3D folding of DNA and how the study of irregular verbs created a new scientific field."

Comments

Re:why most of us can't be a renaissance man

[royallthefourth]

You don't need to be paid to work in a topic to read a couple books on the subject. All those books college students read (and better ones than that) are available to be purchased and read by anyone, so if there's a subject you know little about, go for it! I majored in computer science, but since school I've managed to get a basic handle on continental philosophy, classical economics, medieval history, literary criticism, and psychoanalysis in just a few thousand pages. There's always more to know, and I'm looking forward to reading about edible plants in my region, organic farming techniques, and the status of women in former Soviet republics.

Get some books!