Ways of being intelligent

We present an idea that won’t work.

Our astronomer had friends in several different disciplines while in graduate school.  One couple was studying Medieval literature (in various languages); there were lawyers, international-relations Master’s students, a linguist, even the odd undergraduate.  Sometimes the most illuminating conversations crossed the large distances between subjects.  Unfortunately the need to finish his thesis eventually meant he couldn’t spend as much time “playing hooky” from Astronomy as he liked.

A little later on, he found himself digging into some rather specialized History texts.  He noticed that there were some very high-level skills involved in doing History properly, and that they were often quite different from those demanded of a scientist.  More than one astronomer over the years, he found, did not notice, and wrote something with decent science but poor historical insight.  A good scholar is not simply an educated person lacking math and science.

This prompted his idea of the Synthesis Project.  Gather six to eight recent PhDs in a range of disciplines; they would all be intellectually skilled people, but with different skills.  House them in some comfortable place, far enough from distractions to be able to concentrate, but still not feel isolated.  Then task them, over a year (or better two), with teaching each other their separate subjects.  The tangible outcome would be a book. The chapter on Chemistry would be written by the poet, that on Physics by the Doctor of Literature, on Biology by the historian; on Literature by the Chemist, Poetics by the biologist, History by the physicist.  The aim would not be a graduate-level text, but maybe undergraduate-major level.

Ideally there would be little or no restriction on how the teaching/learning was done, allowing these imaginative and intellectually capable people to figure out what works best.  Should we include a visual artist?  A lawyer?  A neuroscientist?  Covering the entire field of human knowledge would be unmanageable.  Should we select related subjects, say in pairs, so that no one feels entirely isolated; or would that generate cliques?

There are many practical difficulties, even beyond the obvious one of funding.  Spending a year or two outside of one’s field as a new PhD could be career death; yet established professors already have their methods of teaching and learning, and might not be as flexible as we’d like.  A small number of people kept in close company for an extended time might not always get along.

But we think it would be a fascinating project.  Not only does each field have its own way of working, it has its own ways of learning (and teaching).  We’re not aware of much work that has been done to compare them, certainly nothing of this systematic intensity.  And it just might produce something useful for undergraduates across the board.

It would fail, of course.  But we’re very interested in just how it would fail.