A very interesting piece from Michael Brooks, in the New Statesman, which highlights the creative aspects of the Ordered Universe collaboration, both in terms of critical thinking, but also in terms of the way in which imaginative responses to the challenges of economic and social life can provide more than a mechanistic approach. Learning to translate, learning the patience to see what is being said and to listen carefully to how different disciplines (in our case) are expressing their points, and to what statements, conclusive or not, they are pointing, are skills too easily underestimated. The creation of environments in which these skills can flourish is surely a central task of modern academe. Critical thinking should lead to critical practice, which opens so many more approaches to the issues of the present, and the future, and making fuller use of the past.
