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David McGavock

Big6 » Mike Eisenberg - 1 views

www.big6.com/mike-eisenberg

shared by David McGavock on 15 Jul 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 15 Jul 10
     
    "Mike Eisenberg Big 6 1. Task Definition 1.1 Define the information problem 1.2 Identify information needed 2. Information Seeking Strategies 2.1 Determine all possible sources 2.2 Select the best sources 3. Location and Access 3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically) 3.2 Find information within sources 4. Use of Information 4.1 Engage (e.g., read, hear, view, touch) 4.2 Extract relevant information 5. Synthesis 5.1 Organize from multiple sources 5.2 Present the information 6. Evaluation 6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness) 6.2 Judge the process (efficiency) Posted on November 14th, 2007 in About Big6 by The Big6 Staff Mike Eisenberg is a teacher and mentor whose personal motto is, "make it better!" He is the founding dean of the Information School at the University of Washington, serving from 1998 to 2006. During his tenure, Mike transformed the unit from a single graduate degree program into a broad-based information school with a wide range of research and academic programs, including an undergraduate degree in informatics, masters degrees in information management and library and information science (adding a distance learning program and doubling enrollment), and a doctorate degree in information science. Mike's current work focuses on information, communications, and technology (ICT) literacy, information credibility, and information science education K-20. Mike is co-author of the "Big6 approach to information problem-solving" - the most widely used information literacy program in the world. Mike is a prolific author (9 books and dozens of articles and papers) and has worked with thousands of students-pre-K through higher education-as well as people in business, government, and communities to improve their information and technology skills. For more information about Mike Eisenberg here. Mike Eisenberg Dean Emeritus and Professor The Information School of the University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-2840 Phone: (206) 616-115
David McGavock

A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority « Clay Shirky - 1 views

www.shirky.com/...-idea-of-algorithmic-authority

shirky trust authority community evaluate critical_thinking crap detection

shared by David McGavock on 10 Feb 11 - Cached
  • people trust new classes of aggregators and filters, whether Google or Twitter or Wikipedia
  • algorithmic authority
  • do I have certification from an institution that will vouch for my knowledge of Eastern Europe?
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The social characteristic of deciding who to trust is a key feature of authority
  • information that can’t be evaluated independently
  • information that is correct by definition
  • authorities making untestable propositions
  • Why would you feel less silly getting the same wrong information from Britannica than from me? Because Britannica is an authoritative source.
  • Like everything social, this is not a problem with a solution, just a dilemma with various equilibrium states, each of which in turn has characteristic disadvantages.)
    • David McGavock
      David McGavock on 10 Feb 11
       
      "Not a problem with a solution" - there's something very freeing about that idea. So often we try and fix nature and our social "states" but they are too dynamic for a fix.
  • Algorithmic authority
  • it takes in material from multiple sources, which sources themselves are not universally vetted for their trustworthiness, and it combines those sources in a way that doesn’t rely on any human manager to sign off on the results before they are published.
  • just an information tool.
  • people come to trust it.
  • produces good results
  • people become aware not just of their own trust but of the trust of others:
  • his is the transition to algorithmic authority.
  • spectrum of authority
  • Good enough to settle a bar bet
  • Evidence to include in a dissertation defense
  • he criticism that Wikipedia, say, is not an “authoritative source” is an attempt to end the debate by hiding the fact that authority is a social agreement,
  • David McGavock on 10 Feb 11
     
    "Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying "Trust this because you trust me." This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority, and has, I think, three critical characteristics. "
Sheri Edwards

primary source documents - Google Search - 0 views

www.google.com/search

critical_thinking primary sources

shared by Sheri Edwards on 16 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Sheri Edwards on 16 Jun 10
     
    Google Search of Primary Sources Documents: Getting to the truth; finding the perspectives; analyzing the progression; making connections; projecting into the future
David McGavock

Intute - Training - Encouraging Critical Thinking Online - 1 views

www.intute.ac.uk/criticalthinking.html

criticalthinking intute critical tutorial training resources teaching digital

shared by David McGavock on 10 Jun 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 10 Jun 10
     
    "Encouraging Critical Thinking Online Encouraging Critical Thinking Online is a set of free teaching resources designed to develop students' analytic abilities, using the Web as source material. Two units are currently available, each consisting of a series of exercises for classroom or seminar use. Students are invited to explore the Web and find a number of sites which address the selected topic, and then, in a teacher-led group discussion, to share and discuss their findings. The exercises are designed so that they may be used either consecutively to form a short course, or individually. The resources encourage students to think carefully and critically about the information sources they use. The subject matter of the exercises is of relevance to a range of humanities disciplines (most especially, though by no means limited to, philosophy and religious studies), while the research skills gained will be valuable to all students."
David McGavock

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Information Literacy - 2 views

www.p21.org/index.php

skills partnership for 21st Century P21 information_literacy

shared by David McGavock on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 31 May 10
     
    "Information Literacy Print Access and Evaluate Information * Access information efficiently (time) and effectively (sources) * Evaluate information critically and competently Use and Manage Information * Use information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand * Manage the flow of information from a wide variety of sources * Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information"
David McGavock

Steve Hargadon: Search results for Panel on search - 0 views

www.stevehargadon.com/search

thinking evaluate information_literacy critical skills search hargadon

shared by David McGavock on 12 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • David McGavock on 12 Mar 12
     
    Join me Thursday, December 1st, for another live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar as Tasha Bergson-Michelson brings Debbie Abilock and Jole Seroff together for a panel and audience conversation on "search literacy" in education: what is search literacy, what sources should students be using, how do we help them evaluate what they find, what are the biggest misconceptions about search, and what is the school's role in teaching search literacy and skills?
David McGavock

StandardsForStudents - 0 views

www.cde.state.co.us/...StandardsForStudents.htm

crap detection questions Standards Colorado CDE critical thinking evaluate

shared by David McGavock on 18 Jun 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 18 Jun 10
     
    "III. Research and Information Fluency \nStudents apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: \n A. plan strategies to guide inquiry.\n B. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information\n C. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks. \n D. process data and report results. \n\nIV. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making \nStudents use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, design and manage projects, solve problems, engineer solutions and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students: \n A. identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation. \n B. plan, design and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.\n C. collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.\n D. use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions. "
David McGavock

Critical thinking In the classroom - 4 views

www.microsoft.com/...critical_thinking.aspx

thinking criticalthinking resources education classroom research

shared by David McGavock on 22 Jun 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 22 Jun 10
     
    "Students have more information at their fingertips than ever before, yet the challenge remains for them to find, evaluate, and apply the information they discover in the classroom and beyond. Applying critical thinking skills through web research can help students: * Improve search skills. * Evaluate the information they find. * Incorporate them in their work. Explore the ready-to-use curriculum below, including detailed lesson plans, student worksheets, and class demonstrations on: * Mechanics of searching * Validity and reliability * Plagiarism * Citing web sources * Civil discourse"
David McGavock

FINDS - Introduction - 0 views

www.sunlink.ucf.edu/...intro.html

information_literacy skills research evaluate

shared by David McGavock on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 31 May 10
     
    "The Florida Curriculum Framework for Language Arts says, "Students must learn how to locate, comprehend, interpret, evaluate, manage, and apply information from a variety of sources and media. They must learn how to communicate effectively in a variety of settings and for a variety of purposes through many different media.""
David McGavock

GNIC.org - 0 views

gnic.org/dlc

crap detection information_literacy critical_thinking evaluate

shared by David McGavock on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 31 May 10
     
    "The Digital Literacy Contest ...a competition of database and Internet research skill. We created the DLC as a summer project in 2007. We were undergraduates at Purdue University. Since then, we've helped major universities across the country host the contest. We've tripled in size each semester because students and libraries love the DLC. University libraries host the DLC in university computer labs. Students logon to our web-based contest and compete to find information online using the internet and library databases. They must provide sources and the highest total score wins."
David McGavock

How's Your Bullshit Detector? | The Smirking Chimp - 2 views

smirkingchimp.com/8863

shared by David McGavock on 22 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • the phrase, "crap-detecting," originated with Ernest Hemingway who when asked if there were one quality needed, above all others, to be a good writer, replied, "Yes, a built-in, shock-proof, crap detector."
  • As I see it, the best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullshit
  • There are so many varieties of bullshit I couldn't hope to mention but a few, and elaborate on even fewer. I will, therefore, select those varieties that have some transcendent significance.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Pomposity:
  • plenty of people who are daily victimized by pomposity in that they are made to feel less worthy than they have a right to feel by people who use fancy titles, words, phrases, and sentences to obscure their own insufficiencies.
  • Fanaticism:
  • The essence of fanaticism is that it has almost no tolerance for any data that do not confirm its own point of view.
  • Inanity:
  • The press and air waves are filled with the featured and prime-time statements from people who are in no position to render informed judgments on what they are talking about and yet render them with elan and, above all, sincerity. Inanity, then, is ignorance presented in the cloak of sincerity.
  • Superstition:
  • Superstition is ignorance presented in the cloak of authority. A superstition is a belief, usually expressed in authoritative terms for which there is no factual or scientific basis.
  • you can't identify bullshit the way you identify phonemes. That is why I have called crap-detecting an art. Although subjects like semantics, rhetoric, or logic seem to provide techniques for crap-detecting, we are not dealing here, for the most part, with a technical problem.
  • if you want to teach the art of crap-detecting, you must help students become aware of their values.
  • So any teacher who is interested in crap-detecting must acknowledge that one man's bullshit is another man's catechism. Students should be taught to learn how to recognize bullshit, including their own.
  • Postman's Third Law: "At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself."
  • The reason for this is explained in Postman's Fourth Law, which is; "Almost nothing is about what you think it is about--including you."
  • An idealist usually cannot acknowledge his own bullshit, because it is in the nature of his "ism" that he must pretend it does not exist. In fact, I should say that anyone who is devoted to an "ism"--Fascism, Communism, Capital-ism--probably has a seriously defective crap-detector
  • Sensitivity to the phony uses of language requires, to some extent, knowledge of how to ask questions, how to validate answers, and certainly, how to assess meanings.
  • You, therefore, probably assume that I know something about now to achieve this. Well, I don't. At least not very much. I know that our present curricula do not even touch on the matter. Neither do our present methods of training teachers. I am not even sure that classrooms and schools can be reformed enough so that critical and lively people can be nurtured there. Nonetheless, I persist in believing that it is not beyond your profession to invent ways to educate youth along these lines. (Because) there is no more precious environment than our language environment. And even if you know you will be dead soon, that's worth protecting.
  • David McGavock on 22 Dec 11
     
    ""Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection" by Neil Postman (Delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.)"
David McGavock

The demise of quality content on the web - 4 views

www.elezea.com/...the-demise-of-quality-content

thinking evaluate information_literacy critical_thinking ads lowest common denominator

shared by David McGavock on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • I remember exactly when I decided to stop reading Mashable.
  • You can’t see a single word from the actual article without scrolling. It reminded me of a comment that Merlin Mann recently made in his typically funny and obnoxious style:
  • we seem to be in this bizarre race to the intellectual bottom to write the most generic article in the world so that everyone with an Internet connection will click through. And the only purpose seems to be to keep the advertising monster fed, fat, and happy.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • I’m worried that all the noise makes it increasingly difficult for quality content[1] to be seen. Worse, I’m worried that it’s discouraging the creation of quality content because what’s successful (i.e. what gets the most clicks) is mostly lowest-common-denominator blog post titles that either start with a number or end with a question mark.
  • The problem is not that people don’t have enough time, it’s that people don’t have enough attention.
  • The wells of attention are being drilled to depletion by linkbait headlines, ad-infested pages, “jumps” and random pagination, and content that is engineered to be “consumed” in 1 minute or less of quick scanning – just enough time to capture those almighty eyeballs[2]. And the reality is that “Alternative Attention sources” simply don’t exist.
  • David McGavock on 30 Dec 11
     
    "I used to believe that if you write with passion and clarity about a topic you know well (or want to know more about), you will find and build an audience. I believed that maybe, if you're smart about it, you could find a way for some part of that audience to pay you money to sustain whatever obsession drove you to self-publishing (and to do it without selling your soul in the process). "
andrewyaz

Genius.com - 0 views

I received this email last week from the creators of Genius.com - originally of Rapgenius.com - a site where people can annotate all types of primary sources: Hey (screen name), Last Friday we to...

critical_thinking thinking information_literacy evaluate resources crap detection skills criticalthinking critical thinking critical

started by andrewyaz on 19 Jul 14 no follow-up yet
Bill Bell

The 7 Bad Habits of Ineffective Job Seekers - Regional Help Wanted - Job search and job... - 0 views

enewsletters.biospace.com/...of-ineffective-job-seekers.htm

shared by Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10 - No Cached
    • Bill Bell
      Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10
       
      Clearly you cannot waste all of your time.
    • Bill Bell
      Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10
       
      I would also say that it's quite possible to land a job that is very unsuitable because employers themselves are often poor at screening candidates.
    • Bill Bell
      Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10
       
      This may be less important in Canada where there are fewer job boards. For a way of finding a much wider array of job boards and job postings using Google see my blog.
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • Bill Bell
      Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10
       
      I have heard that LI now houses the biggest collection of jobs on the 'net. Are you a member?
    • Bill Bell
      Bill Bell on 19 Oct 10
       
      You can build up a reputation or 'brand' on LI by participating in groups and answering questions.
BTerres

Stephen Downes: Things You Really Need To Learn - 1 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...u-really-need-to_b_788989.html

downes learn

shared by BTerres on 03 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • to educators, I ask, if you are not teaching these things in your classes, why are you not?
  • 1. How to predict consequences
  • The prediction of consequences is part science, part mathematics, and part visualization. It is essentially the ability to create a mental model imaging the sequence of events that would follow, "what would likely happen if...?"
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • 2. How to read
  • how to look at some text and to understand, in a deep way, what is being asserted (this also applies to audio and video, but grounding yourself in text will transfer relatively easily, if incompletely, to other domains).
  • 3. How to distinguish truth from fiction
  • Do not simply accept what you are told. Always ask, how can you know that this is true? What evidence would lead you to believe that it is false?
  • 4. How to empathize
  • this will allow other people to become a surprising source of new knowledge and insight.
  • 5. How to be creative
  • Sometimes people think that creative ideas spring out of nothing (like the proverbial 'blank page' staring back at the writer) but creativity is in fact the result of using and manipulating your knowledge in certain ways.
  • creativity involves a transfer of knowledge from one domain to another domain, and sometimes a manipulation of that knowledge.
  • pattern recognition can be learned
  • 6. How to communicate clearly
  • 7. How to Learn
  • Learning to learn is the same as learning anything else. It takes practice.
  • 8. How to stay healthy
  • 9. How to value yourself
  • You can have all the knowledge and skills in the world, but they are meaningless if you do not feel personally empowered to use them; it's like owning a Lamborghini and not having a driver's license.
  • 10. How to live meaningfully
  • When you realize you have the power to choose what you are doing, you realize you have the power to choose the consequences. Which means that consequences -- even bad consequences -- are for the most part a matter of choice
David McGavock

The Critical Thinking Co. - What is Critical Thinking? - 1 views

www.criticalthinking.com/articles.html

crap detection critical_thinking information thinking critical

shared by David McGavock on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • 1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives 2. Tries to be well-informed 3. Judges well the credibility of sources 4. Identifies conclusions, reasons, and assumptions 5. Judges well the quality of an argument, including the acceptability of its reasons, assumptions, and evidence 6. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position 7. Asks appropriate clarifying questions 8. Formulates plausible hypotheses; plans experiments well 9. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context 10. Draws conclusions when warranted, but with caution 11. Integrates all items in this list when deciding what to believe or do
  • David McGavock on 31 May 10
     
    "A SUPER-STREAMLINED CONCEPTION OF CRITICAL THINKING Robert H. Ennis, 6/20/02"
David McGavock

Neil Postman - Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection « Critical Thinking Sni... - 2 views

criticalsnips.wordpress.com/...-and-the-art-of-crap-detection

postman bullshit neil

shared by David McGavock on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • Pomposity: Pomposity is not an especially venal form of bullshit, although it is by no means harmless. There are plenty of people who are daily victimized by pomposity in that they are made to feel less worthy than they have a right to feel by people who use fancy titles, words, phrases, and sentences to obscure their own insufficiencies.
  • by Neil Postman
  • Fanaticism:
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Inanity:
  • with the development of the mass media, inanity has suddenly emerged as a major form of language in public matters. The invention of new and various kinds of communication has given a voice and an audience to many people whose opinions would otherwise not be solicited, and who, in fact, have little else but verbal excrement to contribute to public issues.
  • Superstition: Superstition is ignorance presented in the cloak of authority.
  • “At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself.”
  • “Almost nothing is about what you think it is about–including you.”
  • “crap-detecting,” originated with Ernest Hemingway who when asked if there were one quality needed, above all others, to be a good writer, replied, “Yes, a built-in, shock-proof, crap detector.”
  • David McGavock on 31 May 10
     
    "Neil Postman's classic essay Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection. Contains a handy taxonomy of forms of bullshit, and some useful "laws" such as: Almost nothing is about what you think it is about-including you.""
David McGavock

As We May Think - Magazine - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...4

thinking evaluate resources information_literacy skills thought_tool

shared by David McGavock on 16 Jan 11 - Cached
  • Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome.
  • human mind
  • operates by association
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
  • Selection by association, rather than indexing, may yet be mechanized
  • memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.
  • "memex"
  • It affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another.
  • It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book
  • And his trails do not fade.
  • photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.
  • Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.
  • David McGavock on 16 Jan 11
     
    All of this sounds a lot like social bookmarking - Diigo, Delicious, others.
  • David McGavock on 16 Jan 11
     
    Wikipedia
David McGavock

Making Science by Serendipity. A review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber's The Tra... - 0 views

jetpress.org/campa.htm

Barber information_literacy critical skills evaluate serendipity

shared by David McGavock on 09 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber’s The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity (English-language translation 2004) is the history of a word and its related concept.
  • Barbano (1968: 65) notices that one of Merton’s constant preoccupations is with language and the definition of concepts and recognizes that the function of the latter is for him anything but ornamental.
  • Merton proposes an articulated technical language now widely used by sociologists and is perfectly aware of the strategic importance of this work.
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • Walpole tried to illustrate the concept of serendipity with other examples, but basically failed to do it in an unequivocal way.
  • It was in the 1930s that Merton first came upon the concept-and-term of serendipity in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here, he discovered that the word had been coined by Walpole, and was based on the title of the fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, the heroes of which “were always making discoveries by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”
  • As Rob Norton (2002) recognizes: “The first and most complete analysis of the concept of unintended consequences was done in 1936 by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton.” In this way, the combined etymological and sociological quest began that resulted in The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity.
  • it was to serve as a propedeutic to Merton’s seminal work – On the Shoulders of Giants, acronymised to OTSOG and published in 1965.
  • Merton provides interesting statistics to illustrate how quickly the word had spread since 1958. By that time, serendipity had been used in print only 135 times. But between 1958 and 2000, serendipity had appeared in the titles of 57 books. Furthermore, the word was used in newspapers 13,000 times during the 1990s and in 636,000 documents on the World Wide Web in 2001.
  • The Italian version was published in 2002, after Barber’s death. Two years later and a year after Merton’s death, we could welcome the appearance of the original English version.
  •  Now let us focus on an analysis of the content of the book and its theoretical consequences, that is, on the history of this term-and-concept and its significance to the sociology of science.
  • The first few chapters elucidate the origin of the word, beginning with the 1557 publication of The Three Princes of Serendip in Venice.
  •  In a letter to Horace Mann dated January 28, 1754, Walpole described an amazing discovery as being “of that kind which I call Serendipity.”
  • in 1833, Walpole’s correspondence with Horace Mann was published.
  • As Mario Bunge (1998: 232) remarks, “Merton, a sociologist and historian of ideas by training, is the real founding father of the sociology of knowledge as a science and a profession; his predecessors had been isolated scholars or amateurs.”
  • Serendipity was used in print for the first time by another writer forty-two years after the publication of Walpole’s letters.
  • Edward Solly had the honor
  • Solly defined serendipity as “a particular kind of natural cleverness”
  • he stressed Walpole’s implication that serendipity was a kind of innate gift or trait.
  • Walpole was also talking of serendipity as a kind of discovery.
  • The ambiguity was never overcome and serendipity still indicates both a personal attribute and an event or phenomenon
  • the word appeared in all the “big” and medium-sized English and American dictionaries between 1909 and 1934.
  • authors reveal disparities in definition
  • To avoid both the ambiguities of the meaning and the disappearance of one of the meanings, Piotr Zielonka and I (2003) decided to translate serendipity into Polish by using two different neologisms: “serendypizm” and “serendypicja” – to refer to the event and the personal attribute respectively.
  •  Even if Merton waited four decades to publish his book on serendipity, he made wide use of the concept in his theorizing.
  •  It is worth now turning our attention to the theoretical aspects of serendipity and examining the sociological and philosophical implications of this idea.
  • “Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.”
  •  It is true that the American sociologist studies mainly institutions of science, not laboratory life and the products of science (e.g., theories). But he never said that sociologists cannot or should not study other aspects of science.
  • His attention to the concept of serendipity is the best evidence
  • Some scientists seem to have been aware of the fact that the elegance and parsimony prescribed for the presentation of the results of scientific work tend to falsify retrospectively the actual process by which the results were obtained” (Merton and Barber 2004: 159)
  • “Intuition, scriptures, chance experiences, dreams, or whatever may be the psychological source of an idea.
  • Colombus’ discovery of America, Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, Nobel’s discovery of dynamite, and other similar cases, prove that serendipity has always been present in research. Merton (1973: 164)
  • Indeed if you are clever enough to take advantage of the opportunity, you may capture a fox thanks to accidental circumstances while searching for hares.
  • This descriptive model has many important implications for the politics of science, considering that the administration and organization of scientific research have to deal with the balance between investments and performance. To recognize that a good number of scientific discoveries are made by accident and sagacity may be satisfactory for the historian of science, but it raises further problems for research administrators.
  • If this is true, it is necessary to create the environment, the social conditions for serendipity. These aspects are explored in Chapter 10 of The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity.
  • The solution appears to be a Golden Mean between total anarchy and authoritarianism. Too much planning in science is harmful.
  • Whitney supervised the evolution of the inquiry everyday but limited himself to asking: “Are you having fun today?” It was a clever way to make his presence felt, without exaggerating with pressure. The moral of the story is that you cannot plan discoveries, but you can plan work that will probably lead to discoveries:
  • If scientists are determined by social factors (language, conceptual frames, interests, etc.) to find certain and not other “answers,” why are they often surprised by their own observations? A rational and parsimonious explanation of this phenomenon is that the facts that we observe are not necessarily contained in the theories we already know. Our faculty of observation is partly independent from our conceptual apparatus. In this independence lies the secret of serendipity.
  • David McGavock on 09 Jul 11
     
    Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber's The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity (English-language translation 2004) is the history of a word and its related concept. The choice of writing a book about a word may surprise those who are not acquainted with Merton's work, but certainly not those sociologists that have chosen him as a master. Searching, defining, and formulating concepts has always been Merton's main intellectual activity.
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