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Why Engineering Freshmen Should Take Humanities Courses

Posted by Soulskill on from the need-to-sleep-some-time dept.

Lasrick sends in an article from John Horgan at Scientific American explaining why he thinks engineering freshmen should make a bit of space in their course-load for the humanities. Quoting: "But it is precisely because science is so powerful that we need the humanities now more than ever. In your science, mathematics and engineering classes, you're given facts, answers, knowledge, truth. Your professors say, 'This is how things are.' They give you certainty. The humanities, at least the way I teach them, give you uncertainty, doubt and skepticism. The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities, whether political, religious or scientific. This skepticism is especially important when it comes to claims about humanity, about what we are, where we came from, and even what we can be and should be. Science has replaced religion as our main source of answers to these questions. Science has told us a lot about ourselves, and we’re learning more every day. But the humanities remind us that we have an enormous capacity for deluding ourselves."

4 of 564 comments (clear)

  1. Should take law by anarcobra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Engineering students should take courses in law so they can have some idea how to avoid legal problems.
    Also, it could give us some lawyers who actually know what they are talking about.

    1. Re:Should take law by Vintermann · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Law students should take courses in statistics, statistical modelling, and applied statistics in the social sciences. So that they avoid elementary mistakes like the prosecutor's fallacy, and so they could systematically identify biases in their own profession.

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  2. Re:Oh, gag me. by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "We live in a world increasingly dominated by science. "

    That's like saying "We live in a world increasingly dominated by reality".
    If science doesn't match reality, than it's not science (or atleast the specific scientific theory is broken).
    Humanities is religion for people who don't believe in a deity.

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  3. Re:Oh, gag me. by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think majors in the humanities should take some engineering courses... like some basic math, and formal logic.

    The most clued-up logicians I have ever met are graduates in philosophy. Logic is a seriously hard course of study, and I haven't met many engineers who are up to the challenge. (It's just a pity that philosophers are doomed to unemployment.)

    On the other hand, I don't know if the universities I have attended are typical, but I have noticed an extreme level of erudition with regard to humanities in a majority of the most brilliant mathematics professors I have known. It seems to come with the territory, for some reason. I have not noticed any such broad-mindedness among engineers.