History of Science and the Results of Previous Research in Different Academic Disciplines

The modern mind divides, specializes, thinks in categories: the Greek instinct was the opposite, to
take the widest view, to see things as an organic whole [1]. Previously, men could be divided simply
into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But
your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned, for he is
formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty; but neither is he ignorant, because he is
'a scientist,' and 'knows' very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he is
a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant,
not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own
special line [2]. It is the custom among those who are called "practical" men to condemn any man
capable of a wide survey as a visionary: no man is thought worthy of a voice in politics unless he
ignores or does not know nine tenths of the most important relevant facts [3]... Through these
quotations these philosophers and former researchers expressed our shortcomings in seeing the
whole truth and our inability to collect their parts and necessary and adequate coordination among
them.