Encyclopaedia Brittanica

I'm reading a book right now about a guy who decided to read through the whole Encyclopaedia Brittanica... all 66,000 pages and 33 volumes or whatever it is... A.J. Jacobs is his name. I saw it in Chapters before Christmas and it looked interesting. So far, he's gotten as far as the G's... It's kind of fascinating really... to think of reading something that volumnious and momentous... One of the most recent things he's noticed is that back in the 1700/1800's, sort of post-Renaissance, lots of people were an interesting mix of things: lyricist/astronomer, poet/naturalist. There was a mix of arts and science. Somebody like Goethe for instance, was a lot of things during the course of his life... And A.J. laments the fact that nowadays we need to specialize... You can't just be a biologist... you have to be an expert in the Northeast clipper clam sexual reproduction system or something equally silly. Specialization has taken things to a whole new level... but in that, we've lost the connection with other fields, other disciplines. There is no cross-pollination anymore! Now, I know that some fields are looking at "wholistic" approaches, like "whole earth systems analysis"... looking for how everything is related... but still... Anyhow, I don't feel so bad with my geologist/paleontologist/forestry/theology/photography/writer approach to life!!! It's a good thing to have a diverse approach to life!! I make connections that might not appear to others... I have to admit, I do like the scientist/theologian mix... And it is not an uncommon mix from way back when. Think of Teilhard de Chardin...