Two college professors are traveling the West Coast on a train; one is a “man of letters” a professor of English literature, the other a scientist, a professor of Physical Chemistry. After a few hours discussing respective tenure tracks, conversations dwindled as they read and gazed out the window to the passing scenery.
Soon the professor of English Literature looked out to see a herd of sheep grazing in the distance “look” he says to his colleague “those sheep have been shorn”; the professor of physical chemistry looks out the very same window, at the very same herd of sheep and says “well at least half of them anyway”.
What did the English professor see that the Chemistry professor did not?
At a distance images tend to appear two dimensional, it’s difficult to appreciate depth and based upon the available evidence the scientist was not willing to presume that the sheep were shorn circumferentially, whereas the professor of English applied no such constraint.
How refreshing and rare the discipline to objectively report only that which is seen.
Tom
