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There was a time in which the term scientist would essentially mean an experimenter, someone who was curious about how things worked and played with the variables and came up with theories on their own. This time was long ago when education was simply for those who had money for private tutors. These people had no real specialization, they simply studied what interested them most. The people who are still notable today, such as Newton and Galileo, were interdisciplinaries who had known all there was to know about chemistry, biology, math and physics at the time (or at least had a working understanding of general knowledge of the field).
Let's fast forward a bit to more modern times. Times where specialization led to more advancement inmany areas outside of science. Science became more intensive and had more tools to make individualistic discoveries, and that was good. Teams of scientist would be assembled to make a general-science hive mind to complete massive projects that encompass several fields. This is all well and great, and led to some knowledge sharing. This era I believe is coming to an end.
When the word "Physicist" comes to mind, you may think of your old physics concepts classes and sometimes the math-heavy relation to their field. In reality, physicist now must know high levels of chemistry just to be active in their own field. Some applied physicist (including engineers) must know biology to understand how their structures will stand testament to time via long-term stability.
In order for continued research to happen, a scientist must be funded. Funding comes from some kind of business who selects the most qualified individuals. This is no detriment of their own, but it forces scientist to become more knowledgeable in, well, everything. This is showing, at even my university level my Physics degree comes with a Chemistry and biology minor automatically. This is just to be at an equal level with everyone else in my field (theoretically).
We may see a new revolution in scientific culture because of this, as whenever the best minds are truly multifaceted comes the revolution of new culture. (See: every relative golden age of humanity) Scientists are being tested harder and harder, and only good will come of these trials with more and more innovation in technology and theoretical understanding of the universe.
These are some musing of mine, which ultimately have no meaning. I'm here to learn more about the earth I reside in while I remain.
 
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United States24641 Posts
For comparison though, my physics degree came with zero chemistry and zero biology.
Can you elaborate on why you believe 'this era is coming to an end'?
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Same. Only Physics here.
Why would companies not hire a physicist to do physics research?
Your second to last paragraph is fictional.
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On February 24 2012 04:33 micronesia wrote:
For comparison though, my physics degree came with zero chemistry and zero biology.
Can you elaborate on why you believe 'this era is coming to an end'?
It may be my own case study, as every university I visited and the one I'm attending all are liberal arts schools moving toward multi-disciplinary progressions.
I believe in the era of specialization coming to an end, in the way we know it now. As we know it now, most people specialize around the time they graduate highschool in the US. People are able to go into the military, join religious organizations, go to college and pursue a degree(s), go to trade school, whatever. In this specific case I want to key in on science based specialization.
From what I have seen with many of the overlaps in scientific areas, the majority of scientist at the masters/PhD level that I've been introduced to have dual-triple focuses. Bio-Physical-Engineer, CS-Mathematics-Quantum Physics, and Bio-Chem-Physicists (all of course having a specific spec with following knowledge that is required to followup).
In a specific case of my CS professor atm, is doing quantum EM theory to work on hardware pathing deficiencies (it was way over my head at the time). Many of my professors are looking into this type of multidiscipline work on their own with a few assistance. I kind of assume this is turning into the norm if my professors are doing this, and their experimental counterparts (I'd assume) are of similar qualification but decided to work in business rather than academia. I do want to note I was just "blogging" and this is by no means scientific. (I realize this more as I think about it...It's a case study if anything at this point)
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I'd also like to point out that specialization is happening at a much younger age now (15-16). I'm in grade 12 and in the beginning of each semester I found myself doing physics in chemistry, chemistry in biology and physics in calculus. Also a lot of programs I have applied to have very general first year programs where especially for engineering there is a strong focus on biology and chemistry.
It just shows that having a strong backbone in all 3 or 2 of the 3 areas is becoming a requirement whereas before it was just focusing on one area.
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I believe the opposite is true. The amount of knowledge required in specific fields only increases with time as we make more progress. To do incremental research in these sciences require PhDs in very specialized areas within each field.
Your liberal arts multi-disciplinary approach is only there to help people find what they want to specialize in. Today that's pretty much all undergrad is there for if you major in sciences. Having only an undergrad degree in most hard sciences is pretty useless and won't land you any good jobs.
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On February 24 2012 05:28 Leftwing wrote:
I'd also like to point out that specialization is happening at a much younger age now (15-16). I'm in grade 12 and in the beginning of each semester I found myself doing physics in chemistry, chemistry in biology and physics in calculus. Also a lot of programs I have applied to have very general first year programs where especially for engineering there is a strong focus on biology and chemistry.
It just shows that having a strong backbone in all 3 or 2 of the 3 areas is becoming a requirement whereas before it was just focusing on one area.
I don't think you can use any high school courses as proof for specialization. These are intro classes to many different subjects (think of AP courses in the US), they are actually the opposite of specializing. It's more of an effort to keep the students from struggling in the mandatory 101 courses when they start their college education.
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On February 24 2012 05:15 TG Manny wrote:
From what I have seen with many of the overlaps in scientific areas, the majority of scientist at the masters/PhD level that I've been introduced to have dual-triple focuses. Bio-Physical-Engineer, CS-Mathematics-Quantum Physics, and Bio-Chem-Physicists (all of course having a specific spec with following knowledge that is required to followup).
In a specific case of my CS professor atm, is doing quantum EM theory to work on hardware pathing deficiencies (it was way over my head at the time). Many of my professors are looking into this type of multidiscipline work on their own with a few assistance. I kind of assume this is turning into the norm if my professors are doing this, and their experimental counterparts (I'd assume) are of similar qualification but decided to work in business rather than academia. I do want to note I was just "blogging" and this is by no means scientific. (I realize this more as I think about it...It's a case study if anything at this point)
You're sort of missing the point. It's not that people in academia now need to work in multiple fields to be competitive, it's that people need to be able to use tools from other fields in their own, and the high level of specificity forces the baseline level of required background knowledge to also be higher.
Take those triple programs you listed above, for example. If you're getting your MS and say your field is bio-chem-physics, that does not mean you're doing the sort of work that a MS-level biologist, and chemist, and physicist would be doing, except all at once. It means that you're SO specialized that your area of expertise doesn't fit into a neatly defined category, so you're forced to call it a blend of whatever branch of science has relevant tools. My wife is working on her PhD in bio-geo-chemistry. Does that mean she's going to be some sort of fusion of a biologist and a geologist and a chemist? No, she's a wetland ecologist, studying nutrient cycling in bogs and marshes. To study such a thing, you need to know about the microbial communities in the soil, a working knowledge of current genetics techniques to analyze them, to know about relevant physical characteristics of the landforms, and a buttload of organic chemistry, and the list goes on and on.
As someone a few posts up mentioned, if you're getting a broad-spectrum treatment of all sorts of hard sciences at the undergrad level, you're not really learning much of consequence. You're being taught that stuff because it's considered extremely basic knowledge that everyone should know to be a reasonably educated person. A century ago, learning a little about several sciences made you a jack-of-all-trades. Now, learning a little about several sciences just makes you not a moron.
Edit: as a final note, it is now literally impossible for one person to produce cutting-edge level research in more than one field. There's just too much information for anyone to come even close to "knowing all there is to know" about anything other than their own focus. I'm also not sure what you're trying to get at with your comment about funding. Yes, science is driven by grant money, which mostly comes from either corporations or government agencies. However, you seem to be misunderstanding what "most qualified" means in terms of a grant application. It's not like you send the NSF your CV and ask for money, and they say "ooh look at that, you gave invited talks at 34 different institutions and are published in 4 journals" and give you the money... You send the NSF a letter describing what you'd do with the money and why they'd regret giving it to somebody else, because you've got a great idea which should work and will benefit them. The fact that some topics are trendy and loaded with grant money does not mean that you need to be capable of doing research in several areas so you can cherry-pick what sorts of projects you attempt, because that's not feasible. It means if you're specialized in something that nobody cares about funding, you're boned.
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On February 24 2012 05:43 Iranon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 05:15 TG Manny wrote:
From what I have seen with many of the overlaps in scientific areas, the majority of scientist at the masters/PhD level that I've been introduced to have dual-triple focuses. Bio-Physical-Engineer, CS-Mathematics-Quantum Physics, and Bio-Chem-Physicists (all of course having a specific spec with following knowledge that is required to followup).
In a specific case of my CS professor atm, is doing quantum EM theory to work on hardware pathing deficiencies (it was way over my head at the time). Many of my professors are looking into this type of multidiscipline work on their own with a few assistance. I kind of assume this is turning into the norm if my professors are doing this, and their experimental counterparts (I'd assume) are of similar qualification but decided to work in business rather than academia. I do want to note I was just "blogging" and this is by no means scientific. (I realize this more as I think about it...It's a case study if anything at this point)
You're sort of missing the point. It's not that people in academia now need to work in multiple fields to be competitive, it's that people need to be able to use tools from other fields in their own, and the high level of specificity forces the baseline level of required background knowledge to also be higher. Take those triple programs you listed above, for example. If you're getting your MS and say your field is bio-chem-physics, that does not mean you're doing the sort of work that a MS-level biologist, and chemist, and physicist would be doing, except all at once. It means that you're SO specialized that your area of expertise doesn't fit into a neatly defined category, so you're forced to call it a blend of whatever branch of science has relevant tools. My wife is working on her PhD in bio-geo-chemistry. Does that mean she's going to be some sort of fusion of a biologist and a geologist and a chemist? No, she's a wetland ecologist, studying nutrient cycling in bogs and marshes. To study such a thing, you need to know about the microbial communities in the soil, a working knowledge of current genetics techniques to analyze them, to know about relevant physical characteristics of the landforms, and a buttload of organic chemistry, and the list goes on and on. As someone a few posts up mentioned, if you're getting a broad-spectrum treatment of all sorts of hard sciences at the undergrad level, you're not really learning much of consequence. You're being taught that stuff because it's considered extremely basic knowledge that everyone should know to be a reasonably educated person. A century ago, learning a little about several sciences made you a jack-of-all-trades. Now, learning a little about several sciences just makes you not a moron. Edit: as a final note, it is now literally impossible for one person to produce cutting-edge level research in more than one field. There's just too much information for anyone to come even close to "knowing all there is to know" about anything other than their own focus. I'm also not sure what you're trying to get at with your comment about funding. Yes, science is driven by grant money, which mostly comes from either corporations or government agencies. However, you seem to be misunderstanding what "most qualified" means in terms of a grant application. It's not like you send the NSF your CV and ask for money, and they say "ooh look at that, you gave invited talks at 34 different institutions and are published in 4 journals" and give you the money... You send the NSF a letter describing what you'd do with the money and why they'd regret giving it to somebody else, because you've got a great idea which should work and will benefit them. The fact that some topics are trendy and loaded with grant money does not mean that you need to be capable of doing research in several areas so you can cherry-pick what sorts of projects you attempt, because that's not feasible. It means if you're specialized in something that nobody cares about funding, you're boned.
i am so glad to have read this; the OP infuriated me to a certain extent. compsci-physicist-mathematician-biologist here
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The comic is naive. The special sciences are reducible to mathematics ontologically but not epistemologically.
edit: mathematics reduces to philosophy, anyway.
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On February 24 2012 07:18 sam!zdat wrote:
The comic is naive. The special sciences are reducible to mathematics ontologically but not epistemologically.
edit: mathematics reduces to philosophy, anyway.
Hence "PhD" for every study.
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my dad is a physicist and indeed knows a lot about chem and bio, but that is why the lab he works at has people he can consult with. He only needs to know enough to be able to ask and understand when they explain to him.
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On February 24 2012 07:18 sam!zdat wrote:
The comic is naive. The special sciences are reducible to mathematics ontologically but not epistemologically.
edit: mathematics reduces to philosophy, anyway.
I believe that if you go to any article on Wikipedia and click on the first hyperlink (outside of the initial parenthesis for sure, though I think it might work if you click on the stuff inside the parenthesis too) in every article, you'll eventually arrive at philosophy.
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i think that the OP is right in some ways, yet it just seems a little 'dramatised' in the sense that the era isn't necessarily coming to and end at all, it's just that as technology accelerates there's much more of an opportunity for there to be blends of multiple disciplines in the pursuit of scientific discovery. i graduated with an degree in science, double majoring in microbiology and immunology, and i can honestly say that chemistry and physics which i studied before my majors didn't really help too much in trying to get better at my specialisation. in saying that, it's the physicists and engineers who are going to be creating the new crazy microscopes that will enable people in my field to study cells more effectively, but at the core i think that each field can stand on its own. i never took my degree any further mind you, i decided to be a lawyer and i'm one semester away from graduating. still, it never hurts to have knowledge.
nath pretty much nailed it on the head i think, as you develop more and more of an understanding of your own field, knowing how other fields of science interact is going to be necessary. still, a wetland ecologist is still a wetland ecologist and won't go around saying that they're a chemist too, even though they understand the chemical compositions of soil and flora etc.
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They keep trying to cram physics into my pde's course. Stupid physics, shits gross
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Specialization's good, but so is being well-rounded. AFAIK, even though say, pure physicists aren't in as high demand, the amount of them has decreased (I can't cite this, can someone here please verify this) so the value is more or less still the same.
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EPT
