The Knowledge Web counters the tendency of modern education to encourage specialized learning and thinking. With formal education today, learners may study either history or physics, or perhaps only Renaissance history and astrophysics,” says James. “People tend to become experts in highly specialized fields, learning more and more about less and less.

“Unfortunately, so much specialization falsely creates the illusion that knowledge and discovery exist in a vacuum, in context only with their own disciplines, when in reality they are born from interdisciplinary connections. Without an ability to see these connections, history and science won't be learnable in a truly meaningful way and innovation will be stifled.

As James’s television programs and published works have shown, the pieces necessary for technological breakthroughs are frequently lying around long before someone makes a connection between them. His work has pointed out many of these types of connections; the Knowledge Web and other projects of the Burke Institute will reveal even more. The aim is to put learning into a context that makes it easier to see the greater relevance of people, ideas, and events—and to inspire new ways of thinking.

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