From Nick Hunn, London, UK
I enjoyed Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s look at stepping outside her scientific comfort zone. It reminded me of a line in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano: “Show me a specialist, and I’ll show you a man who’s so scared he’s dug a hole for himself to hide in.” As a physicist who has spent my working life in industry, I see the same issues that Chanda observed within academia, which is an overwhelming aspiration to specialise, rather than reap the benefits of a broader perspective (21 September, p 22).
This leads to multiple, parallel reinvention, where industries fail to share knowledge. I increasingly see the same issue in graduates who have gained little breadth of knowledge or application, but have been indoctrinated into the cult of specialism. It feels more important than ever that we try to connect thinking across different industries and disciplines.
