The Rise of Specialization

As an intellectual species, the polymath is threatened by the rise of specialization. Isaac Newton not only made his well-known contributions to mathematics but also studied and wrote about alchemy, theology and chronology. Complaints about what we call information overload multiplied at this time. The problem was not simply the multitude of books which had, after all, been proliferating since the mid-15th century. We are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.