Mar 30 2012: An important part of having "general" knowledge is developing versatile intellectual capacities - reasoning, analyzing, questioning, sorting information, contextualizing, zooming in, zooming out, identifying patterns, singling out anomalies, etc. What is more important than having general knowledge, in terms of having basic information about a variety of subjects, is having general capacities - capacities that enable acquiring and processing new information outside of one's area of specialization. I'd like to suggest that specialized knowledge combined with generalizable capacities is the best formula for maximizing both benefit to society and benefit to the individual.
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A comment on Conversation: Does society need more interdisciplinary work? Or more well-rounded individuals working together?