Word: scientists
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...recent months, Wilson and Crossman have discussed his program with scores of scientists and educators in Britain, the U.S. and Russia (but not, apparently, with Novelist-Scientist C. P. Snow, who has graphically documented the follies of government-directed research in wartime). Finally, the night before his speech last week, Wilson retired at 11 o'clock to his $32-a-day hotel suite, spent seven hours dictating and editing, rose at 6 a.m., and was still working on it when he stood to deliver the speech at the morning session...
Died. Valdimer Orlando Key Jr., 55, Texas-born Harvard history professor and political scientist, author of Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, widely read study of U.S. voting by racial and economic blocs, and Southern Politics in State and Nation, a definitive analysis of the South's one-party form of government; of a heart ailment; in Brookline, Mass...
...agreed that scientists and non-scientists should communicate, one must determine at what level this communication should take place. Snow would like to see conversations on a rather high plane; he would like, for instance, to have seen the overthrow of parity discussed at Cambridge High Tables. His example is unfortunate. Parity is a most sophisticated concept, and full understanding of it requires considerable grounding in physics and mathematics. As Yudkin points out, such training would be worthless for the average non-scientist, and for many scientists working outside the field of atomic physics...
Yudkin asserts that specific concepts, such as mass or acceleration are useless to the non-scientist. Such a statement contradicts the most common definition of education, as the explication and understanding of the structure of human knowledge. Without these elementary concepts, it is impossible to have any notion of the scientists' view of the world. This does not mean that every man must rigorously understand the most advanced concepts; that is surely a waste of time. But some kind of general conceptual scheme would seem to be valuable...
Admittedly, it is impossible logically to prove that such knowledge is necessary to the non-scientist. A classics professor may ride an airplane, watch leaves turn color, skid in his car--and have no idea why these things happen. He may not care, and it is hard to show that he needs to care...