the importance of mathematics [or, insert your own discipline]
I try to find something interesting to listen to while doing such mind-numbing activities as cleaning up my references section etc. TED usually has something interesting (though, I’m running out of stuff there); today I listened to this excellent Timothy Gowers presentation on “the importance of mathematics” (there are a total of 8 parts to the talk). (Here’s his blog, and web site)
The talk has something for everyone (including some asides with graph theory, etc), though he largely makes a persuasive argument for why mathematics has critical downstream importance to practice despite the motivations of individual mathematicians themselves (who are interested in interesting rather than practical problems, and interested in such nebulous factors as beauty rather than application). The presentation not only has some nice public policy implications, but it also implicates how we might assess research and its importance in any discipline.
Tim Gowers is great, not only as a mathematician, but also a deep thinker on the nature of science. My favorite is his essay on “two kinds of math.” The basic logic applies to social sciences and explains the divide. In a nutshell, some kinds of math produce very neat and clean statements. Other kinds seem to defy clean results. I think the same applies to social science. Some folks (economists, rat choicers, public opinion) gravitate towards clean results, while others (sociologists, qualitative researchers, networks, etc) produce messy results.
fabiorojas
April 11, 2008 at 11:04 pm