From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Subject: origins of "experts"
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:57:49 GMT


  In article sci.physics.fusion:4601; 
 ==  colin@physci.uct.ac.za  (COLIN HENDERSON) retorts 
 ::  Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>:


::  "If you have not done an experiment, and not even met with the
:: people who have, then you have no business passing judgement
::  on CF like some kind of expert.
        [Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>]


==   "The way science is supposed to work, someone in his
==  field should be able to be an expert just by reading all the
==  literature.  That's the whole point of publishing.
==  If Dieter, an expert electrochemist, can't be an expert in
==  CF by reading the papers, and I think we'll all agree that he
==  has :-), then there's something wrong with the way the papers
==  have been written."
         [colin@physci.uct.ac.za (COLIN HENDERSON)]


    Deiter Britz has done a very credible and great service by his
 magnum opus of compilations.  Notwithstanding that, science is
 systematized knowledge.  People get education from experience. 


  {From Webster's [ibid.]}

   "experience   from the Latin  experientia act of trying

      2a: direct participation in events
      4 : something personally encountered, undergone,
          or lived through"


    Experience (the quality presumably characterizing an expert) 
is gained by reading, doing, teaching, doing and then realizing the
 mistakes you made.
  Of the other fields I studied [including surgery and
 positron-emission imaging (dual photon)] several just didn't enter
 my mind either by osmosis or just reading.
  Same goes for ciruit design or any of a number of spectroscopies.



==  "There's no point in doing an experiment unless you do it
==  properly, so that you can trust your results 100%,
==  so that  you're prepared to put your head on a block in
==  defense of your experiment, etc etc."

  The "head should be on the block", with the realization total
 diligence is important, tempered by the understanding that
 retrospect often makes you finally realize the experiment
 could have been done better.
  
   Corrolary:  15 years ago after a decade as an electrical engineer
 (electrophysics), I spent a few years intensively in operating
 rooms, and  was performing a below knee amputation on an
 unfortunate end-stage diabetic man.  The hospital was fantastic
 at minimizing surgery, and maximizing the length of time a slowly
 deteriorating lower limb would take to reach catastrophe (by
 infection or compromised blood flow).  My own engineering
 background made me want to carefully round off the rough bone
 surfaces after sawing through the man's proximal tibia.  File.
 File. File.  Smooth. Smooth. File.   Finally, a tap to my shoulder,
 as the surgical Chief, exasperated andworn of patience, said into
 my ear: 
             "Perfection is the enemy of good".


    It remains insightful and true.  And applicable elsewhere.
    An experiment should be very good.    but 100%?  A priori?

    I'll take 3 experiments with clean data,  evolving rough-&-ready
 towards a polished experiment over one "100% a-priori" type.

    Science and knowledge ring true but tardive.


Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion