Re: [Phys-L] proportional reasoning, scaling laws, et cetera

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 05/16/2012 02:48 PM, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> I think that our society needs both kinds of physicists, (a) those
> who begin addressing problems by using a small number of basic laws
> and (b) those who recognize familiar situations and begin by using
> memorized formulas.
>
> Do we need two learning  tracks for physics majors?

I say no.  Definitely not separate tracks.

Just as we should not rigidly treat everybody the same, we should
not rigidly separate people into "kinds" or "tracks".  Human
behavior is more plastic and more situational than that.

Imagine a situation where one morning it is appropriate to use a 
certain formula "as is" ... and then that afternoon it is appropriate
to ponder the origins and ramifications and limitations of the formula.

The same applies to acquiring (as opposed to using) information.
 -- If you are serving as a court reporter, you should write down
  what is said, verbatim.  You are not supposed to embellish it
  or even correct it.  This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do
  _in that situation_.  
 -- If you are doing R&D, or listening to the news, or reading 
  advertisements, you should *not* take everything at face value.

My point is that the same person might serve as a court reporter in
the morning and then do something else in the evening, something
that involves a dramatically different skill-set.  It would be a
disaster to separate people into "kinds" or "tracks" or "castes"
such that each person has only one narrow set of skills.

If I occasionally emphasize the importance of not taking everything
at face value, it is not because I disrespect memory, disrespect
tradition, or disrespect stenographers.  Rather, it is because we
currently have an educational system that is grotesquely unbalanced 
against critical thinking.  We need to push back against that, hard.