Why Engineering Freshmen Should Take Humanities Courses

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."

Comments

Re:Oh, gag me.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

For science to happen, you need to make three assumptions:
* that the world exists
* that is governed by knowable laws and we can grasp
* that it is worth knowing more about

None of these are empirically verifiable. It's no coincidence that science developed in Europe under a religion (Christianity) that thought all of the above assumptions were true. Not every worldview accepts them.

The fact that you seem to have internalized them simply means you don't test your assumptions that much—I'd recommend a philosophy class or two.

Re:Better idea:

[gtall]

There there, we're about to find dinosaur bones with human bones any day now indicating the humans were riding them (a bit of a misguided endeavor if you ask me). There's a museum in Kentucky showing this. However, Kentucky also gave us Rand Paul so I guess there's something in the water there.

Re:Oh, gag me.

[Dishevel]

Do humans have any effect on our climate?
Of course they do.
Does the earth regularly go from Half the planet covered by ice to tiny little ice caps and craploads of water?
All the time.
Should we keep massive amounts of pollution from darken our skies and making our children sick.
Of course we should. (In many nations we have)
Should we shutdown the economy and declare "War" on stuff in a vain attempt to keep the temperature from changing?
That would be fucking stupid.
I do not deny that the climate changes. I do not deny that humans can have an effect on that.
I do deny that we can do anything to keep the climate the way it is though. The climate is NOT MEANT TO BE STABLE.