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Beware the Casual Polymath

applieddivinitystudies.com

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Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#101

Post by phkahler »

dm319 wrote: post #95
flipactual wrote: post #2

This seems much less about being casual or being a polymath and more about those who overestimate the value of their own input I’m leaving this comment only because I most often do not overestimate the value of my input and therefor don’t leave comments, but this seems the perfect place to deviate

I work in an academic field and took a strong and useful interest in another field. I really don't think I overestimate my abilities, I say things like I a jack of all trades and 'x think I'm great at y and y think I'm great at x'. But still people think especially talented. I even see quiet disagreement from experts in x or y who are maybe not so keen to criticise me publicly. I feel the issue is that others over es…

>> I feel the issue is that others over estimate my abilities. Maybe a case of conflating value (which is real) with ability?

As much as people like to throw around the phrase "critical thinking", you're describing people being lazy and depending on their impression of you rather than evaluating the validity of what you have to say. It's a shortcut we all take because we dont have time (or ability) to be experts in everything so we listen to people we perceive to know what they're talking about.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#102

Post by C1sc0cat »

jhbadger wrote: post #81
alynn wrote: post #14

Unfortunately this article seems to be written in the same casual polymath style it claims to warn of, with people making broad generalizations without any deep knowledge of what they are talking about. I stopped reading at the point where JFK’s 1947 election was claimed to be purely due to wealth. Although JFK is today remembered much more for other historical events-- He was already a nationally known war hero befo…

But why was this article in the New Yorker in 1944? There were thousands of war stories as thrilling or more as the story of the PT 109. The second sentence gives a clue: "Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the ex-Ambassador’s son and lately a PT skipper in the Solomons...". His story was told because he was the son of Joseph Kennedy, who had been the US ambassador to the UK. And then as now, ambassadorships (at least to pl…

IMO Joe Kennedy was using his sons to rehabilitate his reputation for being a NAZI sympathiser, and I suspect it was Joseph Kennedy not John that was being groomed for a political career.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#104

Post by gilleain »

tzs wrote: post #80
gilleain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point about Leonardo da Vinci makes sense, but is definitely unfair. Of course, an art historian might assume Leonardo's mathematics was as great as his artistic ability. In practice, no one has the time or the ability to be equally great in all fields of knowledge. This paper : https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00004-007-005... talks about what mathematics he did > . The equation a^n + b^n = c^n doe…

> And the final demonstration of the so-called “Fermat’s third theorem”, which is that the general equation does not have a solution for n > 2 , was given by Andrew Weil in 1993 That should be Andrew Wiles [1]. There was a mathematician who did important work in number theory named Andre Weil [2]. I wonder if they got him mixed up with Wiles? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wiles [2] https://en.wikipedia.org…

Good spot, I should really have noticed that - seems that was not the greatest source!

Yeah, they probably did get Weil mixed up with Wiles. Another good example of the difficulty of trying to analyse a polymath's work.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#106

Post by el_oni »

MrDrDr wrote: post #96

This article seems to define a polymath as someone who is an expert in one domain and has opinions in other domains - those opinions being given greater value because of their other expertise. However - I'd argue that a polymath is someone with expertise in multiple domains. And the real value of the generalist is the ability to join the dots between specialties. We can argue if polymaths exist - or who might be one…

I come from a science background and have similar experience. It really reminds me of the adage "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

One thing I have found is that while not all generalist suggestions are good, they can at least provoke the specialists to think about the problem differently.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#107

Post by nske »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #43
onecommentman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which may mean you underestimate the value of your input and, in some sense, leech off the contributions of others...leaving a vacuum that gets filled by shills and hacks. Why would you do that? A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course. Maybe once a day, maybe once a week or once a mo…

> A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course. Unless you have high confidence in your ability to grasp the subject, this can be considerably daunting to someone who isn’t blessed with high confidence generally. And one can at least infer that gaining that confidence may involve signific…

When low in confidence, you could just use phrases like "my understanding is that [...]", or "from what I gather [...], is that not the case?" If you stand corrected you stand corrected and you're wiser, likely together with some other readers, everyone wins!

People rarely bash others that express themselves modestly and sincerely.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#108

Post by lordgrenville »

I found this article interesting, but surely there is some kind of deliberate provocation in an author posting in an anonymous blog with a weird name and no bio covering a grab-bag of subjects - warning against casual polymaths? I kept waiting for the "but".

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#109

Post by plaidfuji »

moron4hire wrote: post #83
zzzeek wrote: post #63

We are told to be wary of who is speaking, what their qualifications are, if they are only casually opining on something, they may be wrong, we may not know any better. We are told in the form of a long, wordy blogpost on a blog that is called "Applied Divinity Studies", there is no author named, there is no "about" for the page at all. Although at the bottom of the page is a link to another article that seems to be…

What's equally hilarious to me is that this self-descriptive article, is being argued over by folks on this website, which was started by a man who also engaged in this style of writing.

^This is the real takeaway. Why is this getting so much traction if it’s so bad/over-written/directionless/hypocritical/etc.? My theory is that many HN users quietly consider themselves to be polymaths, and so were baited into reading it to look for either (a) reasons they don’t fall under the author’s umbrella of “casual”, or (b) holes in the author’s argument.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#110

Post by aklemm »

The urge to be a polymath comes from a desire to understand the world, hardly a worthless aim.

If the polymath claims expertise, I suppose that’s one thing, but he needn’t have expertise to have useful insights for himself.

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