Home > Topic > specialize
1 " Each religion makes scores of purportedly factual assertions about everything from the creation of the universe to the afterlife. But on what grounds can believers presume to know that these assertions are true? The reasons they give are various, but the ultimate justification for most religious people’s beliefs is a simple one: we believe what we believe because our holy scriptures say so. But how, then, do we know that our holy scriptures are factually accurate? Because the scriptures themselves say so. Theologians specialize in weaving elaborate webs of verbiage to avoid saying anything quite so bluntly, but this gem of circular reasoning really is the epistemological bottom line on which all 'faith' is grounded. In the words of Pope John Paul II: 'By the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals.' It goes without saying that this begs the question of whether the texts at issue really were authored or inspired by God, and on what grounds one knows this. 'Faith' is not in fact a rejection of reason, but simply a lazy acceptance of bad reasons. 'Faith' is the pseudo-justification that some people trot out when they want to make claims without the necessary evidence.But of course we never apply these lax standards of evidence to the claims made in the other fellow’s holy scriptures: when it comes to religions other than one’s own, religious people are as rational as everyone else. Only our own religion, whatever it may be, seems to merit some special dispensation from the general standards of evidence.And here, it seems to me, is the crux of the conflict between religion and science. Not the religious rejection of specific scientific theories (be it heliocentrism in the 17th century or evolutionary biology today); over time most religions do find some way to make peace with well-established science. Rather, the scientific worldview and the religious worldview come into conflict over a far more fundamental question: namely, what constitutes evidence.Science relies on publicly reproducible sense experience (that is, experiments and observations) combined with rational reflection on those empirical observations. Religious people acknowledge the validity of that method, but then claim to be in the possession of additional methods for obtaining reliable knowledge of factual matters — methods that go beyond the mere assessment of empirical evidence — such as intuition, revelation, or the reliance on sacred texts. But the trouble is this: What good reason do we have to believe that such methods work, in the sense of steering us systematically (even if not invariably) towards true beliefs rather than towards false ones? At least in the domains where we have been able to test these methods — astronomy, geology and history, for instance — they have not proven terribly reliable. Why should we expect them to work any better when we apply them to problems that are even more difficult, such as the fundamental nature of the universe?Last but not least, these non-empirical methods suffer from an insuperable logical problem: What should we do when different people’s intuitions or revelations conflict? How can we know which of the many purportedly sacred texts — whose assertions frequently contradict one another — are in fact sacred? "
― Alan Sokal
2 " I spent most of my life trying to specialize myself. I went to theater school, film school, music school, mime school ... Finally, I was able to gather enough knowledge to build the confidence to create my own work, that goes utterly against the sense of specialization. "
―
3 " History, Geology, Psychology, Philosophy, Chemistry, Physics, Theology, Mathematics, Technology, Sociology, Biology, and the list goes on and on. If all this body of knowledge exist for human consumption, why would I specialize in only one field? "
4 " You're baking?" " Yes." " It's almost midnight." " I specialize in late-night kitchen disasters. "
5 " In these days, when there is a tendency to specialize so closely, it is well for us to be reminded that the possibilities of being at once broad and deep did not pass with Leonardo da Vinci or even Benjamin Franklin. "
6 " Much has been written on the excellence of bats' navigation equipment. It is all false. Tropical bats spend their entire time flying into obstacles with a horrible thudding noise. They specialize in slamming into walls and falling, fluttering onto your face. As my own 'piece of equipment essential for the field' I would strongly recommend a tennis racket; it is devastatingly effective in clearing a room of bats. "
― Nigel Barley , The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut
7 " The decline of geography in academia is easy to understand: we live in an age of ever-increasing specialization, and geography is a generalist's discipline. Imagine the poor geographer trying to explain to someone at a campus cocktail party (or even to an unsympathetic adminitrator) exactly what it is he or she studies. " Geography is Greek for 'writing about the earth.' We study the Earth." " Right, like geologists." " Well, yes, but we're interested in the whole world, not just the rocky bits. Geographers also study oceans, lakes, the water cycle..." " So, it's like oceanography or hydrology." " And the atmosphere." " Meteorology, climatology..." " It's broader than just physical geography. We're also interested in how humans relate to their planet." " How is that different from ecology or environmental science?" " Well, it encompasses them. Aspects of them. But we also study the social and economic and cultural and geopolitical sides of--" " Sociology, economics, cultural studies, poli sci." " Some geographers specialize in different world regions." " Ah, right, we have Asian and African and Latin American studies programs here. But I didn't know they were part of the geography department." " They're not." (Long pause.)" So, uh, what is it that do study then? "
8 " The most important thing is to be excellent, interesting, authentic, or useful. To be the thing, not the thing that sells the thing. That's fantastic news for creative people, who specialize in the stuff. Thanks to toomuchness, creativity, once exclusively the province of poets, has suddenly become a business imperative. "
― , The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come
9 " Exercise stimulates growth plates, by putting pressure on bone cells, forcing them to specialize and create new cells. Too much pressure, however, damages the growth plates, which are soft and fragile...The rule of thumb is that lifting one's own body weight (in push-ups,pull-ups, etc) is fine at any age, and kids over fifteen can lift weights. "
― , The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High
10 " Culture consists of connections, not of separations: to specialize is to isolate. "
― Carlos Fuentes , Myself with Others: Selected Essays
11 " To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit "
12 " I am a runner. Not an actual runner, like with shoes and sweat. Instead, I specialize in leaving uncomfortable situations with alarming speed. Some people need closure, I need space. "
13 " The purpose of diversification is so that when one investment goes down or is not doing well, you are insulated from the result because of the others you have in place. In a job or career, most of us are trying to specialize so much so that we've ended up with all of our eggs in the same basket. That's not managing risk at all. That's putting yourself at risk." - Chris Lutz "
14 " The biggest mistake a person can make is to lie to an engineer about a subject that they specialize in. "
― Steven Magee
15 " Some actors specialize in shooting weapons and punching people. Some have the market on playing buffoons cornered, others specialize in roles that require heavy makeup or outrageous wardrobe. Some trade exclusively in a post-ironic blase attitude. "
16 " I think that a lot of people in all walks of life have the impression, of course, that, 'I specialize in something. I can't - I don't have the time to read other things. I'll just go to pure entertainment when I'm relaxing, and then I'll come back to my pure specialty.' That produces - that attitude produces idiot savants, unfortunately. "
17 " What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. "
― Theodore Roethke
18 " My favorite was always whichever sport was in season. I think these days it's almost saddening to see kids who are 10 or 11 and are forced to choose one sport and specialize in that sport and play that sport year-round. By playing different sports... you become a better all-around athlete. "
19 " To generalize on women is dangerous. To specialize on them is infinitely worse. "
20 " Economists specialize in pointing out unpleasant trade-offs - a skill that is on full display in the health care debate. We want patients to receive the best care available. We also want consumers to pay less. And we don't want to bankrupt the government or private insurers. Something must give. "