“In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another.” (This is a year of Feynman – week 23 of 52)

– Richard P. Feynman (11 May 1918 – 15 Feb 1988)

From the Manhattan Project to the Challenger investigation, the physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman loved to shoot down what he called “lousy ideas.” Today, the world is awash in lousy ideas — so maybe it’s time to get some more Feynman in our lives?

Credit: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-curious-mr-feynman/

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This was extracted from a transcript of a talk given by Feynman at the Caltech YMCA Lunch Forum on May 2, 1956, on “The Relation of Science and Religion“, subtitled “Some fresh observations on an old problem“. He goes on to say:

“The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public. When we look at the past great debates on these subjects we feel jealous of those times, for we should have liked the excitement of such argument. The old problems, such as the relation of science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the limitations of specialization.”

The full speech can be found here, if you want an analysis of Western civilisation and the intersection between science and religion.

Stargazing Guy

“In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another.” (This is a year of Feynman – week 23 of 52)

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“In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another.” (This is a year of Feynman – week 23 of 52)

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