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Anonymous10/19/26, 20:58No.17077734
What is /sci/'s opinion on generalization? Is it a legitimate research strategy or just a cheapshot for midwits who have no idea what problems in their field are actually relevant?
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Anon10/19/26, 21:16No.17077741
Specialization is the way.
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Anon10/19/26, 21:26No.17077745
Generalization lives at the two extremes.On the one hand, generalization can very easily to lead to towards never developing any real research expertise. That's obviously not good because you spent a ton of time focusing only on the surface area of different fields instead of properly gaining an understanding of any one of them.On the other hand, some of the most important breakthroughs in the history of science were a result of generalists using tools which found success in one domain to solve problems in an area where those techniques had never been explored.Being a generalist can give you both better job security as a researcher, and a better chance at making breakthroughs other researchers might miss. But you have to work 10x as hard to get there because you'll need to get 70% of the way to subject matter expert in a dozen different fields instead of getting 90% of the way there in one.
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Anon10/19/26, 22:22No.17077762
all generalisations are bad
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Anon10/20/26, 00:47No.17077799
its just low level physics