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Re: OT: art and language and THE DAVINCI CODE

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 3, 2003, 9:33
En réponse à John Cowan :


>"Explain" was a poorly chosen word. I can do that too, but I can't prepare >someone to tell the difference between valid work and rubbish, which is >what Sally is lamenting she can't do either.
In science, it's easy to do that afterwards, that's to say to compare completed valid work and "completed" rubbish. But I still claim (and with experience) that it's impossible to make such a comparison before the works are close to completion. The best you can do, sometimes, is to guess whether a person is fit for the research or not, but you cannot judge whether a research itself will give results or not before it gave results or arrived at a dead-end.
>If you don't learn this skill, at least in this country, you will have a >big problem getting grants.
Don't get me started on all the things scientists have to do to get grants for their research. Believe me, it has little to do with science, and certainly nothing to do with an alleged "skill" to guess whether a research project will be successful or not. There is *no* such skill. What scientists do in those cases is pure acting (and some politics, which some people say is the same thing ;))) ). Trust me on that one, I've seen it myself, more than once. Now it's part of the game, and considered part of being a "scientist". But it has only little to do with science.
>Well, "creative writing" is not quite the term here: "the criticism (= >understanding) of literature" is what we want here to correspond to >physics and musicology.
Yep, brain fart from me :((( . Sorry :(( . Christophe Grandsire. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.