However the same is equally true of physicists for example Bohm and Popper. As biologists Dawkins and Gould seem to get closest, but even they have their limitations. Bohm for example talks about when humans evolved from chimps (!) Popper is not much better. In "All Life is Problem Solving" he states that one should never make predictions. Two chapters later he is making predictions!
Even our better informed scientists have their limitations. For example, the Blind Watchmaker Dawkins suggest (p.300)
"If parents could somehow
transcribe the wisdom of a lifetime's experience into their genes, so that
their offspring were born with a library of vicarious experience built in and
ready to be drawn upon, those offspring could begin life one jump ahead.
Evolutionary progress might indeed speed up, as learned skills and wisdom would
automatically be incorporated into the genes" p.300
From a learning perspective this does not make any sense. If we had learned something we inherited, this might not suit the environment the off-spring inherited. One of the reasons homo sapiens are 'successful' is that each individual starts off as a tabula rasa, or blank slate.
The question is, why does make a difference in business in management? Well, mainly because research into work-based learning always has a philosophy that underpins it. For example, whether it is positivist or whether it is phenomenological. The majority of research is positivist, as in the tradition that underpins physics. Although an applied subject, 90% of management is sociology.
What are we to make of this? Scientists make lousy philosophers and philosophers make lousy scientists? I'll leave the final word to one of my favourite authors, Richard Dawkins (From the Selfish Gene):
"Publishers should correct the misapprehension that a scholar’s distinction in one field implies authority in another. And as long as that misapprehension exists, distinguished scholars should resist the temptation to abuse it". pp.277-8
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