Did the comment subject ("Similar family name") seriously not clue you in to the fact that the OP was remarking solely on the similarity of the family names?
Self-study is insufficient for all but the most superficial fields. For fields that require in-depth understanding and critical thinking (such as the humanities, most natural sciences, etc.), there is no substitute for formal education led by an expert in the topic taken alongside one's peers. Without expert guidance, one is unlikely to get a sense of the full breadth of the topic, and may get an inflated sense of the importance of one particular interpretation or segment of the field.
An excellent example (yes, I know it's fiction, but it illustrates the problem quite nicely) can be found in the film Good Will Hunting. Will meets a graduate student in a bar, and one-ups him based on his knowledge of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. This is exactly what I'm talking about--Will is intimately familiar with Howard Zinn's interpretation of American history, because that just happens to be the book he read. The problem is, while Zinn's interpretations do make legitimate contributions to our understanding of how American history unfolded, they are far from authoritative or complete, and indeed there are legitimate criticisms from within Academia of Zinn's interpretation. All of these shortcomings would have been addressed by a competent college/university history professor, whose familiarity with the subject would have enabled him/her to put Zinn's interpretations in their appropriate context--but Will lacked all this.
And without peers with which to discuss the matter being studied, one cannot benefit from the insights others may have concerning the material. It is awfully arrogant for one to assume that he or she will be able to connect all the dots on his or her own; others will see things that might have been missed.
Slashdot Mirror
Good for you. Perhaps Mr. Tattam had different motivations, though.
Did the comment subject ("Similar family name") seriously not clue you in to the fact that the OP was remarking solely on the similarity of the family names?
Self-study is insufficient for all but the most superficial fields. For fields that require in-depth understanding and critical thinking (such as the humanities, most natural sciences, etc.), there is no substitute for formal education led by an expert in the topic taken alongside one's peers. Without expert guidance, one is unlikely to get a sense of the full breadth of the topic, and may get an inflated sense of the importance of one particular interpretation or segment of the field. An excellent example (yes, I know it's fiction, but it illustrates the problem quite nicely) can be found in the film Good Will Hunting. Will meets a graduate student in a bar, and one-ups him based on his knowledge of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. This is exactly what I'm talking about--Will is intimately familiar with Howard Zinn's interpretation of American history, because that just happens to be the book he read. The problem is, while Zinn's interpretations do make legitimate contributions to our understanding of how American history unfolded, they are far from authoritative or complete, and indeed there are legitimate criticisms from within Academia of Zinn's interpretation. All of these shortcomings would have been addressed by a competent college/university history professor, whose familiarity with the subject would have enabled him/her to put Zinn's interpretations in their appropriate context--but Will lacked all this. And without peers with which to discuss the matter being studied, one cannot benefit from the insights others may have concerning the material. It is awfully arrogant for one to assume that he or she will be able to connect all the dots on his or her own; others will see things that might have been missed.