I really like guys who can talk about finance. And politics.
And molecular biology. And now evolutionary biology. And the law. And morality
and ethics. And obscure social constructs. I really like guys who know about
everything.
And you’d think Yale University would be the place to find
that guy? Well, maybe he exists, but it feels a monumental task to find him.
But, more so than my unreasonable taste in fellas, I think this is indicative
of my generation’s loss of the polymath.
Maybe the polymath I'm looking for is in my beloved Sterling Memorial Library |
For those who haven’t bothered to look it up, a polymath, as
defined by the OED, is “A person of great or varied learning; a person
acquainted with many fields of study; an accomplished scholar”. Alfred Russel
Wallace comes to mind. He’s most famous (as I’ve mentioned in previous blog
posts; sorry for being repetitive!) for not getting his due credit on the
theory of evolution by natural selection. But after his work was jointly
published with Darwin, Wallace went on to do some other impressive, although
questionable things.
Wallace held well-respected opinions on social policy,
publishing Land Nationalisation; Its Necessity and Its Aims in 1882. He also backed a monetary system
based on pure paper money, and declared himself a socialist. Wallace, to my
hearty displeasure, was also set firmly against vaccination in the Victorian
era. And, in The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures,
Wallace analyzed the scientific and technological advances of the 19th
century, but also criticized the century’s social shortcomings. Clearly, Wallace
was well versed in all the relevant topics of the era.
I don’t think that
person exists today, the modern Renaissance man who can be well-respected
across even wholly different disciplines. Much of that has to do with the
culture of skepticism that has pervaded Western culture since the
Enlightenment. But more than that, people confine themselves to certain areas
of pronouncement. For example, in class we read Huxley’s 1874 On the Hypothesis that Animals Are Automata,
and Its History. More than
one of us, including one of our professors, thought that it was odd that a
British naturalist was pronouncing the nature of mankind as it relates to
theological matters. Is science not firmly out of the religious realm? Alfred
Russel Wallace clearly did not think so.
The Lourdes Basilica Church I'll get a chance to learn from Alessandro Francisis, Director of the Lourdes Medical Bureau tomorrow. |
Perhaps it’s just too difficult to be so widely read today. There is
simply just too much knowledge in the world to be conversant in all areas of
potential study. And there’s the very real possibility that no one will take
you seriously if you do decide to comment on such varied matters. Given that I’m
in no danger of being mistaken for a polymath, I’ll take my sweet time learning
from all those almost-Renaissance figures about me now.
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