Re: Innoivationm and the Curse of Knowledge, etc

On Dec 31, 3:38 am, "Wolf K." <wolf...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This may be of intereest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/business/30know.html?th=&emc=th&pag....

Enjoy!


I didn't know you were into pop psychology?

An issue raised was the failure for experts
in a field to communicate effectively to
non-experts in that field. An issue I raised
many times with GS and DL without effect.

Experts in a field dismiss the potential for
other fields of interest to impact upon an
understanding of the problem at hand such as
GS when he dismisses simple machines as not
being relevant to understanding complex
biological machines.

When I first read about the Skinner box it
seemed to me that the rat was being replaced
by simple measurable variables such as lever
pushing. The rat could be put in a 'black box'
and the relevant input/output be all that was
seen. You could then play the imitation Turing
game with another 'black box' containing
electronic components and play spot the
difference.

To me the behaviorists were not studying
animals "in all their complexity" but rather
restricting the environment and selecting
a set variables such as lever pushing with
lights, bells, food, over time, to _simplify_
the system they were studying.


--
JC


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