These forays into the real world sharpened his view that scientists needed the widest possible education. He used to say, “How can you design for people if you don’t know history and psychology? You can’t. Because your mathematical formulas may be perfect, but the people will screw it up. And if that happens, it means you screwed it up.” He peppered his lectures with quotations from Plato, Chaka Zulu, Emerson, and Chang-tzu. But as a professor who was popular with his students–and who advocated general education– Thorne found himself swimming against the tide. The academic world was marching toward ever more specialized knowledge, expressed in ever more dense jargon. In this climate, being liked by your students was a sign of shallowness; and interest in real-world problems was proof of intellectual poverty and a distressing indifference to theory. . Michael Crichton
About This Quote

In the past, the world of academia has been based on knowledge that is very difficult to get. In order to become successful in academia, you need to study a specific subject, get a PhD and get a good job. In the past, people who did not have these qualifications were not successful in academia. In addition, academia was based on academic theories which were too difficult for most people to understand.

However, with the advent of new technologies and new methods of teaching, academia has evolved and changed. For example, a large number of people are now studying education degrees. There is less emphasis on pure knowledge and more emphasis on how to use this knowledge in real life.

Source: The Lost World

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