{"id":6946,"date":"2008-05-14T15:30:45","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T15:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/14\/of-value-to-the\/"},"modified":"2008-05-14T15:30:45","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T15:30:45","slug":"of-value-to-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/14\/of-value-to-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Value To The World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent <em>Chronicle <\/em>column,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/jobs\/news\/2008\/05\/2008050901c\/careers.html\">&quot;Tales<br \/>\nof Western Adventure,&quot;<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.swarthmore.edu\/burke\/?p=567\">via<\/a>)<br \/>\nhistorian Patricia Limerick writes on the challenges facing &quot;public&quot; scholars.<br \/>\nThe public scholar vs. &quot;scholar of the esoteric&quot; dichotomy is fraught with<br \/>\nbrambles (might the passionate pursuer of the arcane run afoul of hasty<br \/>\ncaricatures?), of course, but nevertheless the column is a <i>must read<\/i>.<br \/>\nI was especially taken in by her bulleted lists. The first one, halfway<br \/>\ninto the short piece, weighs reasons for not encouraging newcomers to pursue<br \/>\nacademic careers in the humanities. The second list consists of Limerick&#8217;s<br \/>\neveryday techniques or manners for delivering &quot;on the promise that<br \/>\nuniversity-based academics are of value to the world.&quot; Among them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Face up to the fact that your own convictions may not be the final word<br \/>\n\tin human wisdom. Surrender the pretension that can poison professorial<br \/>\n\tefforts to communicate with the public.<\/li>\n<li>Apply to the world around you the methods you were taught you in<br \/>\n\tgraduate school for assessing evidence. Take in information carefully; keep<br \/>\n\tyour hypotheses in a limber state; do not leap to conclusions; resist the<br \/>\n\tcommon human habit of celebrating the evidence that supports your<br \/>\n\tpre-existing point of view, while dismissing the evidence that invites you<br \/>\n\tto question your assumptions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent Chronicle column, &quot;Tales of Western Adventure,&quot; (via) historian Patricia Limerick writes on the challenges facing &quot;public&quot; scholars. The public scholar vs. &quot;scholar of the esoteric&quot; dichotomy is fraught with brambles (might the passionate pursuer of the arcane run afoul of hasty caricatures?), of course, but nevertheless the column is a must read&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Of Value To The World - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/14\/of-value-to-the\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Of Value To The World - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent Chronicle column, &quot;Tales of Western Adventure,&quot; (via) historian Patricia Limerick writes on the challenges facing &quot;public&quot; scholars. 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