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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."
The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities,
BULLSHIT.
The "humanities" in modern American academia are so fucking orthodox they might as well be called the "government worship department."
Scientists should take courses on Rational Thinking. That's basically what you're after here, and it has the advantage of specifically targetting the problems you are trying to address, rather than taking the shotgun approach and trying to get every STEM student to become a Renaissance Man.
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.
I would have thought it more important that humanities students take a basic science and engineering course, so they at least have some understanding of how things work, scientific method, and what a theory is. I think the idea that scepticism comes from humanities rather than science is a joke, and shows a complete misunderstanding of falsifiability and Karl Popper's work on the philosophy of science.
In general, advocates of the humanities have done a poor job of explaining why they are necessary. Which is problematic given that one of the things one would hope that someone in the humanities could do was come up with excellent persuasive arguments about things.
Engineering students should take humanities courses, and they often do. But humanities students should also take science and engineering courses. It's called a liberal arts education, and it should be mandatory. No English major, anthropologist, or historian should get a degree without demonstrating a reasonable understanding of statistics, calculus, physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Unfortunately, most people educated in the humanities are thoroughly ignorant of science, engineering, and mathematics. As a consequences, they are completely baffled by how the modern world works and then proceed to produce utter garbage in their own fields as a result.
I was always taught the opposite...
Are you in the faculty of contradiction?
As someone with an engineering and philosophy degree, I found the humanities are just as deluded if not more so. Sure there is room for interpretation in a way that isn't possible with a science that has a greater likelihood of having a verifiable subject matter. But too often that interpretation is a narrow path. Don't believe me. Try supporting something outside the canon of though in humanities and you will face just as much dogma as anywhere else. The Humanities have their idols too, and they don't want to change them like either.
Learning Science/Engineering **should** teach logic and an understanding of fallacies. These are the most subversive skills one can have because few things in society measure up when you can see why they are incomplete or just plain wrong.
I am not just going to agree with the popular view. In other words I have bad Karma.
The majority of engineering programs I have seen in Australian universities include non-technical content in the form of humanities, economics, accounting, and law units. Is this unusual? They are supposed to produce well rounded engineers, but generally demonstrate that square pegs and round holes are only sometimes compatible.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I think it's just Americans.
The rest of the world doesn't even comprehend this bizarre concept of 'the humanities' that you've invented, and would outright piss itself laughing at the ridiculous arguments about its 'necessity' or otherwise in which you manage to tie yourselves up.
'Justifying their existence' is trivial, but also unnecessary: to the demand, I reply 'ars gratia artis'...
"In your science, mathematics and engineering classes, you're given facts, answers, knowledge, truth. Your professors say, 'This is how things are.'"
That's a funny way to hear "those are only approximations", "there's always going to be some margin of error" or "we're not 100% sure how this behaves".
Many recorded signals and data are filled with noise making it difficult to tell what you are looking at. I guess it depends what level of science education you deal with, but when I teach, students look at the figures and graphs presented in the literature. Some of the effects are easy to see, others are very subtle. A basic understanding of statistics is critical for describing how we come to measure phenomena. From statistical mechanics, to understanding co-morbid disease, or computer vision, probability distributions show just how variable most things in the world actually are. If you tried to stop a stopwatch at the 1 second mark many times in a row, very rarely do you actually hit the goal, but if you plot your responses they will cluster around a mean of more or less 1 second. A large part of forming a scientist is knowing how to play in these distributions of samples.
What about the process of science? Framing a good question is hard. Is the question testable? 'What does the universe look like' is an ill posed question for a scientist. What form could the answer possibly take? If you can whittle it down, say 'what does the universe look like in the infrared spectrum.' Ok, this we can start collecting data to address, but can you still say what the answer might look like? The more specific the question, the better. If you can't clearly say what form the answer will take, then how can you expect to find it in the data?
How long have we been searching through SETI data? How will you know what evidence of communication from an extraplanetary source looks like? Is it more likely that we will find false positives, or let actual alien missives go undetected?
I think with regards to what the humanities can contribute to science education, philosophy and framing of questions is huge. Ultimately the scientist and philosopher are starting the from same place - wanting to answer a question, the difference is in how they go about finding the answer. Communication skills can never hurt scientists either - how many of you have tried to pick up a journal article expecting it to make sense on the first read? Anything that can help frame and communicate uncertainty would benefit scholars of science, but I think it naive to imply that these skills and foci are not already taught in science curricula.
i don't know karate, but i know ca-razy
It's not just Americans, but it is the idea that everything you learn must be done in the interest of making money.
The Humanities are important because they link people with their culture on a deeper level than the latest blockbuster does. They enrich the soul and give you a place in eternity, which in turn boosts your self esteem and reduces depression. Even the things your average geek enjoys like video games and science fiction are informed on a deep level by culture and the arts.
In short, Humanities deal with the things that make life worth living. Dressing it up as hard science does both science and the arts a disservice.
In my experience, scientists and engineers come ladled with doubts on human authority. In fact, it is often something that derives their dislike of the humanities—they trust numbers and figures, but when it comes to interpreting poems or arguing politics, their skepticism leads them to wish little to do with it. (and if it's not skepticism then it's their relative lack of skill)
I go to an engineering school which has almost no arts program. (Some english, history, and philosophy -- just what we need for general accreditation.) Although I myself am pretty keen on literature and many of the humanities, I hear all the gripes from the engineers. And I can tell you exactly what is wrong with this "scientists need humanities to understand such and such" approach. Scientists and engineers understand exactly what they need to achieve what they want, and thoroughly resent being shoe-horned into somebody else's idea of a well-rounded graduate when it has absolutely nothing to do with their personal interest or goals.
If you want the STEM crowd to embrace the humanities, stop trying to justify why they should join your program and come up with a new program especially for them. Let their literature be Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. Teach them "Art in Fractional Dimension with Computer Generated Imagery." Give them a music class where they build instruments and synthesizers. Let them walk into the classroom and feel on the very first day like they have something to contribute.
When science and math students walk into a humanities classroom and all their talent and ability in math and science is immediately considered moot, it's not them rejecting the humanities, it's the humanities rejecting them.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
You say we need this to learn uncertainty, doubt and skepticism? .... silly, silly, silly ...
Maybe you missed the obvious but real engineers and scientists are pre-wired with doubt, skepticism and an every questioning, non-believing nature. We end up being what we are because we question everything, we want to know why the things are the way that they are, why things work the way that they do etc. I don't know any real engineer or scientist that is willing to leave well enough alone or do something just because it's "the way things are supposed to be" As for uncertainty ... that's a science unto itself. We all know that the world is chaos incarnate but that doesn't keep us from trying to spot the patterns :D
I almost flunked out of college in computer science because I couldn't pass my humanities classes. I had to take writing 5 times in order to finally pass--and I mean literally 5.
American English is my native language, and I'm much better at spelling and grammar than most people I know. I just can't think of things to say about literature and history for which I care nothing. In other words, my computer science brain is not well-versed in the ancient art that they eloquently call "bullshit".
The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities, whether political, religious or scientific.
But not academic.The humanities have become woefully dogmatic and riddled with citogenesis, where theories without a solid body of supporting evidence are held up as solid platforms from which other assumptions can be made. Then again, perhaps the humanities could use an influx of students of engineering and hard sciences. Could be entertaining...
The problem with what Mr Horgan is advocating is that his argument is based on his view of the Humanities subjects that he teaches, and the way he teaches them.
His view of science subjects, as fields dominated by facts and accepted doctrine based on those facts is an accurate representation of the way science subjects are taught by many teachers, but it does not match the science teaching I received from the teachers and lecturers throughout my school and university life.
There, I was taught that scientific "facts" are opinions tested and supported by experimentation, and which have not yet been proven incorrect. I was taught to consider the experiences of others, but to keep my eyes open and brain engaged, observe the world around me and to form my own opinions, then conduct my own experiments to determine the validity of those opinions. I was given the freedom to decide on the nature of those experiments - did I want to form experiments with a goal of proving and supporting my opinions (the "bias for confirmation" approach, and one in which Mr Horgan is right - we do have an immense capacity for self-and collective delusion), or did I want to actually test the accuracy of those opinions by trying to disprove them?
In short, my science teachers taught me to see all sides of a question, consider as many variables as I could find, look at things as they are instead of how I would like them to be, and form opinions based on those observations. But also to continuously re-evaluate my opinions in the light of any new information that comes to light.
I cannot comment readily on the teaching of the Humanities subjects, as from the age of 14 I concentrated exclusively on the mathematics and science disciplines, plus the fact that some of my friends were starting to experience a pronounced swelling in the chest area. However, my anecdotal recollection is that a lot of my humanities lessons were dominated by "facts" based on what was written in the Bible, a history book, geological or archaeological "facts", and accepted grammar in foreign languages.
On that basis, I feel a more accurate target for his attention would be the teaching methods in schools across all disciplines, where the individual teachers discourage independent critical thinking in favour of memorizing lists of "facts" designed to (1) prepare students for an exam, and (2) give the teacher an easier lesson plan with less preparation.
To meet girls. Simple!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-english-major.html
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Great post! As someone pointed out in the discussion to a similar story a few months ago, once civilization gets above the level of mere subsistence, culture is pretty much the entire point of human existence--something I wholeheartedly agree with, even though I'm an engineer.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
The case for the humanities is easy:
A metaphor
Say life is about finding the shortest path through a graph. Science tells you what the edges of the graph are -- what nodes are connected to what other nodes. Engineering gives you a shortest-path algorithm (say, Dijkstra's). The humanities tell you what node to find the shortest path to
. A control-theoretic perspective:
More generally, the world has a state x(t), and science gives us the transition model -- the function f such that,
dx/dt = f(x,u)
where u(t) is our control input to the world at time t. This is Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation, or Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, or whatever.
Engineering is about the following problem: Given a functional V that takes a state trajectory and returns a cost for that trajectory (this summarizes our opinion about what we want and what we do not want), solve (or approximately solve) the following optimization problem:
minu V(x) s.t. dx/dt = f(x,u) x(0) = x0
In other words: Having decided what I want (V), and having figured out how the universe will react to my actions (f), figure out how to make the universe do what I want.
The humanities are about deciding what functional V to use. Science can't give it to you: It's an input to this whole thing.
The above formulation can be tweaked a little -- for instance, there is no uncertainty involved -- but it captures the gist of things.
Well, let me make the case for them:
1. There's more to "the humanities" than literature and the arts. They also include language and linguistics, philosophy, and sometimes history.
2. There are skills that fall under "the humanities" that are damn useful - anyone can benefit from being able to write or speak well, anyone can benefit from learning what is and isn't a valid argument, and anyone can benefit from learning how to extract an idea of reality from documents that are frequently suspect or outright lying.
3. There are overlaps between humanities and STEM fields. For example, writing a decent compiler or interpreter requires concepts from linguistics.
4. The point of education isn't just to produce workers. An educated person should have a basic understanding in a wide variety of fields, not enough to necessarily be an expert but enough to understand an argument about a subject and how to verify claims made about it.
I am officially gone from
"The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities, whether political, religious or scientific."
Courses which encourage skepticism, critical thinking and rejection of authority sound great. In my experience however, many college "humanities" courses only enforced the dogma of political correctness and bland mainstream thinking.
As an engineer, I was required to take a specific "communications" course. I was so pissed at having to endure this politically correct brainwashing that I wrote a letter to the Dean of the college of engineering to complain. One of the textbooks in this course was even named "Diversity". Total waste of time and money. College English? Waste hours dissecting fiction and poetry for supposed hidden meanings? Economics? Mainstream Keynesian/Monetarist crap. Stimulus is good, fractional reserve banking is normal, the Fed is above reproach, etc.
Psychology-101 and philosophy-101 were the exceptions. The statement that "the humanities" are somehow subversive by nature is WAY too broad.
So true. Or as Albert Einstein said:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of its religious form and look merely at its purely human side, one might state it perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he may place his powers freely and gladly in the service of all mankind."
John Taylor Gatto talks about the core purpose of education in his writings, which include self-development, becoming a good citizen, and preparation for work. Unfortunately, so much focus now in schools is on preparation for work, and it is overall preparation for work like rote factory work that is less and less in existence. But, adding some humanities courses when someone is 18-21 can't repair all the damage of a missing part of K-12.
http://www.awakenedamerican.com/content/john-taylor-gatto-explains-secrets-elite-boarding-school-education
And:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinate
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I find it amusing that this argument is still continuing (and will likely continue to occur). I graduated in mechanical engineering almost 35 year ago. On top of the usual heavy engineering workload; requirements to graduate included two full credit (two-semester courses) in the humanities. I also had to have a full credit course in either biology or geology, a one semester course in business, a one credit course in communications (mostly technical writing) as well as some intermediate to advanced (second, third and fourth year) courses in taught by other faculties in the Engineering Department; three one-semester electrical engineering courses, one civil engineering course and one metallurgy / materials science course. This was of course on top of the regular core and elective mechanical engineering courses. After graduation, I had to pass a course in law and one in ethics to get my professional engineering licence, on top of meeting all of the other technical requirements. Frankly, the business and communications courses have been more important in my career than a number of the pure engineering courses. My daughter graduated with an arts degree last year; she went this route because she was not particularly good at maths and sciences. She needed two science credits to graduate (full year courses). She founds these tough, but admits that she has a much more rounded view of the world because of it. We graduated from two different universities; they are consistently ranked as the top two or three in the country. Perhaps these schools are onto something I’ve been working as an engineering manager for over 30 years, and have at various times in my career been involved in college recruitment, hiring, training and mentoring of engineering grads. The one predominant trend that I have noticed is that the young engineers that had a broader, more diversified education (i.e. beyond the purely technical courses) tended to be better engineers; they were generally more successful; they were better at solving problems, meeting their deliverables and meeting deadlines. They also tended to have more successful career paths. The people that were more the “pure techies” tended to get stuck on minutia and had trouble seeing how their work fit into the “big picture”. Corporately, we tended to hire what we saw as more well-rounded individuals. So, stop whining and get a broader education. You may not realize it now, but it will actually work to your advantage over your career.
The humanities, at least the way I teach them, give you uncertainty, doubt and skepticism.
Dude, if the way engineering and science are taught doesn't give one a healthy dose of skepticism, they are not being taught right. The humanities are not the answer to incorrect teaching of science or engineering. Feynman's Caltech commencement speech is all about how science should be done. It's all about doubting yourself and actively working to undermine your warm feeling of being right. You must be your worst adversary - that way, and only that way, you can be guaranteed to win the battle. You control your worst enemy. That's the way good science is done, that's the way good engineering is done.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Did you ever take a humanities class?
Yes, at school. This is where everyone should be exposed to a broad range of subjects to a reasonable level so they have an idea of which area (sciences, engineering, humanities etc.) they want to study at university. In the system I went through (before the UK government damaged it) everyone going to university had to do maths up to basic calculus, english language and literature plus a foreign language and a humanity up to the age of 16 (O' level) if they wanted to go to university.
If students are no longer leaving school with a broad enough and deep enough background as they should then fix the schools: don't dump the responsibility on the universities. Any broadening of programs at university comes at a cost of either lengthening the program or lowering the standards required to graduate in the particular field of study.
online classes are better then big lecture classes done by TA's and can be a lot cheaper as well.
College costs are way to high with lot's of skills gaps to be adding more required classes do you want what used to take 4 years to be 6 years now?
1) Old famous philosophers. Meh. More modern philosophers (e.g. Popper, Hofstadter) whose ideas on epistimology are directly related to science. Yes. Worth studying. Engineering is build in science, which is in turn, built on epistemology.
2) Psychology courses related to the psychoanalytic school? Waste of time. Neurophysiology and Evolutionary psychology, in contrast, show you how you do things and why you do things respectively. Machinery only exists to serve people. If you don't understand what people want, and why, you *will* fail.
3) Biology and ecology. Useful for any engineer. Natural systems are studies of genetic algorithms and generated solutions in action at different domains of complexity. You'd be nuts to ignore them.
4) History. A definite yes. Problems (engineering and otherwise) have been solved in *many* different ways over time. Social contexts have drifted drastically. The ancient Romans would be aghast at our political and sexual behaviors. Theirs were *quite* different. Engineering was different too. Consider that their cement was superior to ours.
5) Anthropology, both primate and social. This too, helps explaing why we do what we do, and sort of rubs your nose in the fact that *your* peculiar, local social context, including your understanding of engineering, is just one of many. Something most Americans, engineers or not, fail to realize. Primate anthropology demonstrates that there are many different successful strategies for success in nature. The patriarchal society of Chimps and the matriarchal societies of bonobos couldn't be more different. Both are successful species. You're forced to understand that there are many different solutions for almost every problem.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In video game you need to tell a good story. And there are guidelines for that going all the way back to Aristotle's seminal work called Poetics. It also greatly helps if you are familar with how stories have been told in great literature, movies, and even comic books. Crappy video games are missing important elecemnts like dramatic conflit, background development, character development, artistic flourish, etc. You learn all these studying other media and earlier works.
In humanities, you parrot the professor and get a good grade. In tech courses, you objectively prove what you know is right and get a good grade.
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