Science specialization

We spend most of our lives in academia specializing in our chosen field, and I wonder if it's all a ruse. There's an old joke about a professor telling their students "As I learn more and more about less and less, eventually I will become an expert in nothing." Funny, but do we unconsciously accept this calculus as fact or is the reality far different?

The first thing that strikes me as obvious are that the very best scientists are well-read and well-rounded. They typically have good writing skills, elegant in their prose (and sometimes poetry), and often quote books unrelated to their fields. Consider Oppenheimer's famously attributed line after the first atomic bomb detonation "Now, I am become death, destroyer of worlds". This was in fact a direct citation from Gita, the ancient Hindu scripture he read during his time with the Manhattan Project. Richard Feynman, by no means unfocused in his work on physics, also painted, learned new languages, and wrote in his spare time. Some scientists even write works of fiction, others compete in high-level sports, and some have a penchant for cooking and fine wine. Some choose to involve themselves in politics. At the very least a well-rounded academic is aware of what's happening beyond his front door.

Who actually benefits from an obsessive, myopic focus on work? There are a few fields which can support this behavior, such as high-level mathematics and data-collectors. In the study of prime numbers it is unlikely you will hit upon a new discovery in reading Wuthering Heights, nor will your comprehensive fossil record be improved by learning how to repair a motorcycle. Then again, you never know.

It might be some people's view that learning broadly outside your field is a way of showing off. Not only smart enough to understand your expert field, you also have more hobbies than the rest. I disagree, as this neglects the synergistic effects of combining new information. Healthy genes come from diversity. Our brains are even more capable of grafting diffuse areas of thinking compared with our DNA can link two species together. Science can teach new things to politicians, and political theory can teach scientists a thing or two about group decisions.

Does studying more and more of the same subject make you smarter in said field? If you knew spending 10 hours a day on your profession instead of nine would make you that much more clever, I'm sure many would do it. In fact some do. Newly hired profs spend a lot of time playing 'king of the hill' to keep atop their field. This introductory phase is, however, relatively short-lived. In this dangerous time period they may be tempted to continue on this narrow road. Once the basics are mastered it is only possible to make significant discoveries by combining diffuse areas.

Keep in mind there is an unlimited amount of detail in every field. Thanks to combinatorics, we will never run out of things to research even in the smallest of research areas . Only a few fundamental discoveries will ever be made; the rest is a form of engineering. Biology is application of chemistry, chemistry is the application of physics, ditto for physics and math, and so on. Old news, but consider that science is about 'discoveries' yet most papers are spending time on the details. We need both the inventors and the fine-tuners. Inventions, as far as science is concerned, are about combining information together. Look at how many books have been written on chess. Just one game, with a dozen or so rules, but thanks to the near-infinite combinations that these rules provide no-one will stop writing about or playing the game.

To make a contribution you must either play the game straight or set about to changing the rules. Both types of individuals play an invaluable role in science. Some 'play' with science, others look for ways to 'tinker' with the rules to make the game more interesting. A weakness of the scientific community is in practice we don't properly separate these roles, and we refer to both groups as 'experts'. Those who 'play' with science benefit from having many physical tools available; those who 'tinker' with the rules need a broad assortment of mental tools. This is not meant to diminish these roles into doers and thinkers. Both think for a living; no-one would accuse Kasparov of being a doer rather than thinker because he plays with the accepted rules of chess. [Aside: We also need both groups. Too many of either creates an imbalance. Were discoveries made every day, no-one would have to optimize procedures, equipment would become outdated overnight. Soon everyone would spend so much time learning that the constant onset of new rules would prevent anyone the time to discover new rules. Ergo the runaway discovery process would come to an immediate halt!].

A 'tinkerer' tries to tweak or add to the rules, like Newton including force equations to nature. Some tweaks are a simple adjustment, others change the game entirely; we can never guess in advance. Since tinkerer are grounded in the rules of science, their objective is to see what changes bring the field in closer alignment to reality (The analogy breaks down here, but think of those who change the rules of chess intend to make chess more human-like and worse for machines). To know what would be a good rule-change requires inspiration from life apart from your immediate expert surroundings.

A player tried to get better at the game than his peers. Some know more about fossils, human history, zoological knowledge, etc. They outdo each other by surprising them with the volume of what they know about the system. Jared Diamond explained why human cultures developed at such different rates by learning as many related disciplines as possible, i.e. agricultural history, geography, anthropology, and genetics. Darwin collected data for years before committing to paper the inevitably natural selection (though he suspected as much before).

To sum up: tinkerers discover new rules, players discover new tactics. 

Back to thinking broadly. One item in common with both camps is they each benefit from taking a look from outside their field. Broad thinking benefits both camps. Both attempt to get better at the game, a game we play against nature, by having more scientific tools at their disposal. Don't get too comfortable in your field if your are a tinkerer; researching other disciplines is necessary. Don't get too comfortable if you are a player, as better strategies are always needed for the given rules.

My simple conclusion is that no matter what kind scientist you are, you need to have broad thinking.

Final note: A third category exists among science: popular science writers. They write broadly, in many areas, and meant for public consumption. But I find this group is closer to journalism than science. Science writers are important, and required for popularizing science, but do not strictly play the game themselves. They are no different than a sports writer reporting on baseball, hence an informed spectator who cannot change the game's outcome.