
The usefulness of useless knowledge (1939) [pdf] - bookofjoe
https://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf
======
KineticLensman
Essentially a very discursive 1939 collection of stories of scientists (Hertz,
Maxwell, Faraday, Gauss, Ehrlich, etc) who “out of sheer curiosity” developed
the background science that later led others to develop practical (and
monetised) applications. There is some discussion of advantages and
disadvantages of seeking knowledge for the sake of it, a brief mention of the
(then) situation in Germany and Italy (where “the effort is now being made to
clamp down the freedom of the human spirit”) and it finishes with a glowing
description of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), where the author
worked.

~~~
nyc111
> essentially a very discursive...

I thought so too. But the topic is interesting. Mathematicians especially brag
that what they do is valuable in proportion to its uselessness. Personally, I
like spending time in useless things. Recently I was learning APL which is a
totally useless endeavor for me. But then I look at other things I do and I
cannot say that they are useful either. Then there is curiosity. There is no
end to things to be curious about. I’m curious about so many things that I
could never reach the end of curiosness with one topic. Curiousness or
temptation comes at first as a very strong motivation but the next day the
curiousness stregth diminishes and a new and stronger curiousness appears and
attracts me so I go towards it forgetting the thing I was curious about the
day before. Curiousness is also a question. We are curious means we are
searching the answer for a question we asked or was asked to us. Something we
saw or heard can show itself to us as a question. Then we go looking for its
answer. But all answers raise more questions then they answer. So there is an
infinite chain of questions. Curiosity is infinite. In her book The
Manipulated Man Esther Vilar [1] writes that general curiosity for curiosities
sake is a male attribute; a woman is curious only about things that have
direct effect on her. This seems like a more sane and intelligent world view.
That must be the reason all examples given in original article are men.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18692364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18692364)

------
abnry
If you revel in the joy of learning "useless things," that's fine. Just
realize you are wealthy in time, energy and cognitive power being able to do
that.

People learning "useless things" are often found in between pride and
defensiveness. Wealth & ability can impress people. But dedicating so much
time for yourself is sort of selfish.

The problem is that learning "useless things," which is rooted in a form play,
turns into something more--that is a self-centered approach of securing
yourself in a social hierarchy.

~~~
jermaustin1
This is a bit dismissive of anything that considered valuable RIGHT NOW.

Gone are the humanities, the social sciences, the histories, the ancient
linguistics, all of which depending on who you are could consider to be play
around, while the rest of us serious people work for a living building
software.

~~~
abnry
I left a math PhD program due to health reasons. Looking back, none of my
reasons for studying math was for the potential usefulness of the ideas I was
studying.

It was all for social status and personal play reasons.

Investing in ideas that may pay off in the future is an excellent idea. But
except for the cream of the crop, few people will actually have their useless
knowledge turn into something useful.

I suspect many people push this point about potential returns because they
want to "get paid to play" as well as participate in a system that allows them
to gain social status. If they convince others to support them using some
argument about useless knowledge being useful, then they can continue in this
way.

My only point is that I wish more people were open about that. Yes, research
pays off, but if you are in a position of being able to learn lots of "useless
knowledge," you are already doing well in terms of health, intellect and
status. Don't bemoan too much about your life.

------
devindotcom
You can order this very interesting and eminently revisitable essay in
physical form from Princeton University Press:

[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10924.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10924.html)

------
pdfernhout
Ironically, the same author of that report, Abraham Flexner, destroyed
accessible effective medicine for many people in the USA by essentially saying
things like folk remedies, herbalism, cultural differences, gender
differences, and so on were useless knowledge.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report)
"The Flexner Report is a book-length study of medical education in the United
States and Canada, written by Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the
aegis of the Carnegie Foundation. Many aspects of the present-day American
medical profession stem from the Flexner Report and its aftermath. ... In a
very short time, medical colleges were all streamlined and homogenized (all
the students were learning the same thing) ... Flexner sought to reduce the
number of medical schools in the U.S. to 31, and to cut the annual number of
medical graduates from 4,400 to 2,000. ... A repercussion of the Flexner
Report, resulting from the closure or consolidation of university training,
was reversion of American universities to male-only admittance programs to
accommodate a smaller admission pool. Universities had begun opening and
expanding female admissions as part of women's and co-educational facilities
only in the mid-to-latter part of the 19th century with the founding of co-
educational Oberlin College in 1833 and private colleges such as Vassar
College and Pembroke College. ... Flexner viewed blacks as inferior and
advocated closing all but two of the historically black medical schools. His
opinions were followed and only Howard and Meharry were left open, while five
other schools were closed. His perspective was that black doctors should only
treat black patients and should serve roles subservient to white physicians.
The closure of these schools and the fact that black students were not
admitted to many medical schools in the US for 50 years after Flexner has
contributed to the low numbers of American born physicians of color and the
ramifications are still felt more than a century later. ...When Flexner
researched his report, "modern" medicine faced vigorous competition from
several quarters, including osteopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine,
electrotherapy, eclectic medicine, naturopathy and homeopathy. Flexner clearly
doubted the scientific validity of all forms of medicine other than that based
on scientific research, deeming any approach to medicine that did not advocate
the use of treatments such as vaccines to prevent and cure illness as
tantamount to quackery and charlatanism. Medical schools that offered training
in various disciplines including electromagnetic field therapy, phototherapy,
eclectic medicine, physiomedicalism, naturopathy, and homeopathy, were told
either to drop these courses from their curriculum or lose their accreditation
and underwriting support. A few schools resisted for a time, but eventually
all either complied with the Report or shut their doors. ..."

Key treatment modalities abandoned as a result included spending time in the
sunshine (which we now know gives you essential vitamin D), an emphasis on
good nutrition (which is not a "procedure" doctors can be trained in and bill
for), and other aspects of having a happier life like humor and so on (e.g.
what Dr. Andrew Weil or Patch Adams write about). Alternative medicine has
spent a century fighting back on such topics.

Another consequence of that report is that the American Medical Association
and the "MD" established a stranglehold on medical treatments. MDs became in
short supply and could charge large amounts of money. So medical treatment of
any kind became much less accessible for most people. And when you did have
money to pay a doctor, they would invariably be a white male and not a woman
or minority who you might be able to relate to more easily if you were the
same.

Also ironically, the Bamberger family, who wanted to give back to the city of
Newark in some way for the success for their department store there by
creating a medical school and teaching hospital in Newark, NJ, were instead
talked into funding the physical creation of the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton. Some of that is mentioned here: [https://www.ias.edu/flexner-
legacy](https://www.ias.edu/flexner-legacy)

One big irony about Abraham Flexner is that he was very interested in hands-on
education. While Flexner's excellent recommendations for making K-12 education
"hands on" were ignored, his recommendation for making medical education
"hands on" in terms of learning specific procedures were adopted by the
mainstream instead of learning to see the bigger picture of a unwell person's
life -- like Patch Adams advocated for instead with the Gesundheit! Institute.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Adams)

I have some other comments on that theme here: [https://pdfernhout.net/to-
james-randi-on-skepticism-about-ma...](https://pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-
on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html) "The Flexner Report a century ago
(1910) began a purging process of alternative medicine practitioners in the
USA. It lead indirectly to people like Herbert Shelton for being persecuted
and prosecuted decades later for telling people age-old wisdom that sunlight,
whole foods, and occasional fasting (and avoidance of stuff like cigarettes)
could cure or prevent most chronic disease, and could do it better than
mainstream medicine at the time (something that modern medical science is
grudgingly coming to admit). Herbert Shelton may not have had the whole truth,
but he had part of a bigger older truth, and he was harmed by a mainstream
medical-financial system by advocating for that truth from the past and from
his own experience."

I also include there a section of the older version of that Wikipedia article
since removed: ""The Report (also called Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number
Four), called on American medical schools to enact higher admission and
graduation standards, and to adhere strictly to the protocols of mainstream
science in their teaching and research. ... One of the consequences of
Flexner's advocacy of university-based medical education was that medical
education became much more expensive, putting such education out of reach of
all but upper-class white males. The small "proprietary" schools Flexner
condemned, which were contended to be have been based in generations-old folk
traditions rather than relatively recent western science, did admit African-
Americans, women, and students of limited financial means. These students
usually could not afford six to eight years of university education, and were
often simply denied admission to medical schools affiliated with universities.
At the same time, the Report tended to delegitimize existing women doctors and
doctors of color. While many such doctors continued to practice, usually
within underserviced clienteles, they did so under proscribed circumstances
and for less pay."

And as I also mention there, From Marcia Angell: "The problems I've discussed
are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form
there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field
of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is
simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is
published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative
medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached
slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England
Journal of Medicine."

So, while the IAS is indeed a wonderful place as far as it goes, it is too bad
Abraham Flexner did not advocate more broadly on the topic of the value of a
diversity of knowledge and a diversity of exploration by a diversity of
explorers -- especially in the medical field.

