Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus, Darwinand Bohr

Hi, (my first post to this list....) It seems to me that there is the
knowledge / power issue here and yes, a knowledgeable person has
power, to be used as their ethics dictate. However, I've been
thinking a bit about practice of late and it seems to me that
expertise comes from practice and as such it is earned regardless of
how it is then used. When I want a service I want an expert, not a
novice. But that's not to say that various experts are not implicated
in power hierarchies that need to be challenged. I suppose that point
that I'd like to make is that expert does not equal bad. But perhaps
does require care and as Ed said, wisdom.

Cheers, Geoff

On 28/06/07, Ed Wall <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:
> Hi
>
> There are perhaps two conceptions of experts floating around here.
> One framed in terms of knowledge or something like that, and one
> framed in terms of wisdom or something like that (Hubert Dreyfus has
> written a bit about this). Perhaps the latter is worth nurturing. As
> a side note, all the teachers I have known that I might call wise
> were more than open to learn from a student. Whether that is a
> general trait of the wise, I don't know.
>
> Ed Wall
>
> >But the argument the other way around is that when you have an
> >identified expert you also have a hierarchy, and you give the
> >knowledge of that identified expert some a priori higher worth. And
> >again, I would ask, who would be the person to identify the expert?
> >We have financial experts who invest our money for us, but for many
> >you could do just as well tossing darts at a board. You have
> >international experts who tell us how to handle difficult
> >international situations - and get us in to brutal wars with no end.
> >If you are in a birthing room with a nurse and a doctor, and the
> >doctor tells you that you must have a C-section right now, and the
> >nurse tells you that you should wait who do you listen to? Who gets
> >listened to? If you go to a brilliant Park Avenue heart doctor and
> >he tells you that you need to have a double bypass, and you go to a
> >homeopathic doctor in a four floor walk up in Brooklyn who tells you
> >that you would do better with diet or excercise, which is the right
> >advice to choose?
> >
> >Of course the whole idea of expert is hard to shake loose. But the
> >truth is that we never know what the next problem, the next issue
> >will be, so how could anybody really be an expert at it? That
> >doesn't mean we devalue the abilities and knowledge individuals
> >already have. When I raise the idea of there being no experts to
> >students they say, "Wouldn't you want a doctor who was an expert
> >operating on you?" I think from what I know of hospitals I would
> >rather have nurses that have not been overworked and an operating
> >unit that works well together - but if I thought about it I would
> >rather have somebody who could explain to me what they were going to
> >do and help me make an informed decision than somebody who carried
> >that label of expert surgeon.
> >
> >We don't all start denovo, but to use Pepper's description of
> >contextualism - we come to a river and we build a boat to cross. We
> >will never come to that river, at that crossing point, at that
> >particular time again. We always have to take that in to account
> >when we meet the next crossing point. To forget our frailties and
> >flaws, no matter how successful we may be been previously, is to
> >invite tragedy.
> >
> >Michael
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Mike Cole
> >Sent: Wed 6/27/2007 10:51 PM
> >To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
> >Copernicus,Darwinand Bohr
> >
> >
> >
> >Hi Louise.
> >
> >I spend a lot of my time working on creating activities where expertise is
> >widely
> >distributed across age, class, gender, etc. So the heterogeneity of
> >expertise
> >is important to me for many reasons. It is a wonderful generative condition
> >of human life, or can be.
> >
> >But, to deny that in a domain specific way there are people who have
> >attained a deep
> >mastery of activities in that domain: abacus users, magicians, cooks,
> >pre-school teachers,
> >invites the idea that there is no differentiation, in general, to cope well
> >with life challenges.Next time
> >you fly, ask yourself if you want to change places with the pilot......
> >
> >I fear that that way lies cultural nihilism and the idea that we all start
> >de novo. That is a very despairing
> >view. Equal to the despair of the experts as unquestionable, context free
> >authorities, and not, as my son likes to remind
> > me, drips under pressure.
> >mike
> >
> >On 6/27/07, Louise Hawkins <l.hawkins@cqu.edu.au> wrote:
> >>
> >> I also find issue with the distinction between expert and novice, as if
> > > the expert has something to give and the novice something to receive.
> >> How many times is it the student who poses a question that raises a
> >> point that the 'expert' learns from?
> >>
> >> Louise
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> >> On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
> >> Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 04:37 AM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: RE: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus,
> >> Darwinand Bohr
> >>
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >> Why this distinction between expert and novice? What does it really buy
> >> us? And who gets to make the distinction? It seems to me in an
> >> expert/novice scenario all power lies in the hands of those who get to
> >> make this distinction on whatever level, and get to define the two
> >> classes. Take a look at the political class in the United States, we
> >> define experts as those who have the right cultural capital, wear the
> >> right type of ties and suits, who speak in somber, modulated voices with
> >> a weary sigh of resignation, suggesting "of course you cannot see what I
> >> can see, but trust me."
> >>
> >> This is not to say every generation starts from scratch. Every
> >> generation starts with the tools that they have, but then they figure
> >> out how to use those tools to solve what invariably must be new
> >> problems, or they develop new tools out of the old tools. Let's say we
> >> have a set of spears we use to hunt food. There are great spear
> >> throwers who use those spears and teach others to use them as well.
> >> Their "expertise" in spear throwing gives them great power within the
> >> community. But things change, and the spears that were once used on
> >> larger animals are not as good for smaller animals. Are the spear
> >> throwers going to give up their place in the community as "experts?" Or
> >> are they going to say, well if we just wait, or if we use the spear in a
> >> different way, or it is the fault of our lazy children who do not train
> >> in spear throwing the way previous generations did. Meanwhile the food
> >> supply dwindles for the community. A young person examines the spear
> >> and says, hmmm, the arrow head pierces the skin but it cannot reach the
> >> skin with these new animals that we hunt. Perhaps I can create
> >> something else - a bow and arrow perhaps. But she is not an expert.
> >> Who, in a hierarchical system of knowledge development would listen and
> >> adopt the work of this young innovator? This is always the danger of a
> >> heirarchical system of knowledge development.
> >>
> >> In a more lateral system of development information is everything. As a
> >> species were are problem solvers, but our problem solving is based on
> >> the easy access and flow of information. I just read the most
> >> fascinating article by the economist Amriyat (sp?) Sen. In it he talks
> >> about famine. He makes a really good argument that famine is almost
> >> never about food. There is always enough food even in some of the major
> >> famines of the twentieth century. It is about the lack of capability
> >> for getting to the food. At its core the lack of information as a tool
> > > in obtaining this basic human function. What else is there other than
> >> information. When we define information as static and give it value
> >> separate from the problems we are working on, isn't that when we find
> >> the most trouble, have the most difficulties in problems solving?
> >>
> >> I watch my son play his World of Warcraft game. I wish I knew more
> >> about it. But I see him adapting and recalibrating constantly,
> >> developing strategies and processes that see incredible to me. It is a
> >> virtual world in which there are no "experts." The world and my son and
> >> the other players co-exist.
> >>
> >> I don't know if I've done such a good job trying to explore this.
> >> Perhaps a problem that needs greater consideration.
> >>
> >> Michael
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Martin Packer
> >> Sent: Tue 6/26/2007 2:04 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus,
> > > Darwinand Bohr
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Michael, you would have each generation start on their own, from
> >> scratch? No
> >> experts, just novices? That really is a post-apocalyptic vision!
> >>
> >> My point was there is more to life (and education) than "functioning"
> >> and
> >> "information." The danger with the tool metaphor, and the emphasis on
> >> artifacts as tools, is that they reduce all of life to the production
> >> process. That is not just a conceptual mistake, it is a political
> >> agenda. To
> >> argue that thinking is not important, only tool use, is not to argue
> >> against
> >> formalization, it is to promote a purely instrumental conception of
> >> human
> >> action and interaction. It is to promote an extreme version of the
> >> division
> >> of labor, in which only a tiny elite get to think about the nature of
> >> thinking, and everyone else is simply using tools skillfully but
> >> thoughtlessly.
> >>
> >> On 6/26/07 12:40 PM, "Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> > But if this information is so important, and it exists as part of the
> >> problem
> >> > solving tools of humanity, don't we trust humans to discover it
> >> through their
> >> > own activities?
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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-- 
Geoffrey Binder
BA (SS) La Trobe, BArch (Hons) RMIT
PhD Candidate
Global Studies, Social Sciences and Planning RMIT
Ph B. 9925 9951
M. 0422 968 567
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