It may not surprise you to know that in lamenting this disconnect between the field and the actions, you are in good company. Calls exposing the gap between science and practice have appeared in fields as diverse as business management, economics, human resources, climatology, and especially my own field, psychology. The gradual acknowledgement of this gap has been one of the prime motivations behind the emphasis on “translational” research, with calls to “bridge the gap.” Interestingly, while the loudest calls have been for science to inform practice, there are plenty who see the relationship as reciprocal, insisting that practice must also inform science because….well…..a tree is known by its fruit, but the fruit does not ripen apart from the tree.
However, most of your contemporary choristers who are singing a similar refrain are focused on the limitations this brings to their field. Ironically, their field still, as you say, dominates the space of their critical attention. So I like very much that you bring out in your essay a much greater appreciation for the dangers this neglect brings to the individual. And your observations have poetic elements that suddenly appear and surprise. I love that we might
see the library as obscene,
see ourselves as party to our own insubordination,
see some of the lost; breathless, deprived and unable to speak,
see study as stimulation and not preparation,
see the field taking the place of the world we want to know.
I remember talking about translational research before, and it is interesting. It does seem to respond to one of the problems I'm interested in here, and how it could do that is fascinating. One way it could fail to do that is becoming another "field," a body of theoretical knowledge, which is no less theoretical for the fact that it is about this gap between theory and practice.
I also appreciate the idea you mention - that the practice might contribute essentially to the validity of the theory. Philosophers love to quote Kant, who said something like "thoughts without experience are empty, and experience without thought is blind." Thanks, Dad!!
It may not surprise you to know that in lamenting this disconnect between the field and the actions, you are in good company. Calls exposing the gap between science and practice have appeared in fields as diverse as business management, economics, human resources, climatology, and especially my own field, psychology. The gradual acknowledgement of this gap has been one of the prime motivations behind the emphasis on “translational” research, with calls to “bridge the gap.” Interestingly, while the loudest calls have been for science to inform practice, there are plenty who see the relationship as reciprocal, insisting that practice must also inform science because….well…..a tree is known by its fruit, but the fruit does not ripen apart from the tree.
However, most of your contemporary choristers who are singing a similar refrain are focused on the limitations this brings to their field. Ironically, their field still, as you say, dominates the space of their critical attention. So I like very much that you bring out in your essay a much greater appreciation for the dangers this neglect brings to the individual. And your observations have poetic elements that suddenly appear and surprise. I love that we might
see the library as obscene,
see ourselves as party to our own insubordination,
see some of the lost; breathless, deprived and unable to speak,
see study as stimulation and not preparation,
see the field taking the place of the world we want to know.
Dad
I remember talking about translational research before, and it is interesting. It does seem to respond to one of the problems I'm interested in here, and how it could do that is fascinating. One way it could fail to do that is becoming another "field," a body of theoretical knowledge, which is no less theoretical for the fact that it is about this gap between theory and practice.
I also appreciate the idea you mention - that the practice might contribute essentially to the validity of the theory. Philosophers love to quote Kant, who said something like "thoughts without experience are empty, and experience without thought is blind." Thanks, Dad!!