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'Why Liberal Arts and the Humanities Are as Important as Engineering' (wadhwa.com)
Engineering professor Vivek Wadha writes: A technological shift is in progress that will change the rules of innovation. A broad range of technologies, such as computing, artificial intelligence, digital medicine, robotics and synthetic biology, are advancing exponentially and converging, making amazing things possible. With the convergence of medicine, artificial intelligence and sensors, we can create digital doctors that monitor our health and help us prevent disease; with the advances in genomics and gene editing, we have the ability to create plants that are drought resistant and that feed the planet; with robots powered by artificial intelligence, we can build digital companions for the elderly. Nanomaterial advances are enabling a new generation of solar and storage technologies that will make energy affordable and available to all.
Creating solutions such as these requires a knowledge of fields such as biology, education, health sciences and human behavior. Tackling today's biggest social and technological challenges requires the ability to think critically about their human context, which is something that humanities graduates happen to be best trained to do. An engineering degree is very valuable, but the sense of empathy that comes from music, arts, literature and psychology provides a big advantage in design. A history major who has studied the Enlightenment or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire gains an insight into the human elements of technology and the importance of its usability. A psychologist is more likely to know how to motivate people and to understand what users want than is an engineer who has only worked in the technology trenches. A musician or artist is king in a world in which you can 3D-print anything that you can imagine.
Creating solutions such as these requires a knowledge of fields such as biology, education, health sciences and human behavior. Tackling today's biggest social and technological challenges requires the ability to think critically about their human context, which is something that humanities graduates happen to be best trained to do. An engineering degree is very valuable, but the sense of empathy that comes from music, arts, literature and psychology provides a big advantage in design. A history major who has studied the Enlightenment or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire gains an insight into the human elements of technology and the importance of its usability. A psychologist is more likely to know how to motivate people and to understand what users want than is an engineer who has only worked in the technology trenches. A musician or artist is king in a world in which you can 3D-print anything that you can imagine.
The article, presumably written by a liberal arts major, extols the importance of "critical thinking", yet is just a string of conjectures based on no evidence, displaying a clear lack of critical thinking.
True enough. Unfortunately, a lot of the social sciences these days just teaches a view of history in which the Enlightenment, the Roman Empire, and technology are just tools of the male patriarchy to suppress women and Africans. Social science departments at universities like Yale have explicitly defined themselves as institutions for political change, not institutions concerned with seeking truth. And that's why social sciences as taught in academia are pretty much worthless these days.
Fortunately, you don't need to be a history major (or minor) in order to learn these things, there are plenty of excellent books and online lectures, and I encourage everybody to listen to them. But listen critically and distinguish between indoctrination, advocacy, and scholarship.
The humanities teaches nothing accept discrimination and indoctrination because it has now relegated itself to an "in crowd" echo chamber and is becoming more and more anti-science as time has gone by.
It pretty much creates the premise that only "accredited" people are allowed to discuss human issues with any authority which is total bunk. The goal seems to be taking possession of humanity/liberal arts as an idea away from everyone else that did not attend. Every person unto themselves, regardless of race, minority/majority, religion, politic, ethnic, or whatever "label" you can think of has a right to represent their own ideas about humanity and life. It is a natural extension of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy except it is now a formally indoctrinated fallacy.
You want to be a philosopher then go be it, Academia needs to keep its pie hole clamped on the subject as it no longer caters to all possible philosophers and only says that "certain ones" should be allowed the right to speak.
(1) Thank G-d for the fact that a lot of people can't wire in a light switch or change a tire. After all, it keeps the electricians and mechanics employed.
(2) The problem isn't liberal arts, which is the idea that an education should be broad and deep. It's in fact the opposite -- the problem is SPECIALIZATION. People have become too specialized in a modern society.
The liberal arts and humanities could be as important as they once were but not as the perverted ideological joke they are rightfully seen as now.
that has been on the table for 50 years. FIFTY YEARS yet there has been nothing to actually apply it to.
now what they need is MARKETING ETHICS as that's where it really is needed, the act of selling something thats not as self driving as self driving and so forth - there is actually no need to ponder should it hit a deer or a truck in a case it had to choose.
also marketing ethics about ai. ai just means information technology now. fucking excel sheets are sold as AI. anything making binary choices is being now sold as AI.
so these AI ethicists, robot rights experts etc - they're just selling bullshit. they want a cheque and way to get it is just to bullshit. that's what we need critical thinking against in the media.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
In before the anti-intellectual comments about "snowflakes" and "gender theory majors" commence.
No need. The anti-intellectuals in those majors have already done a bang-up job of showing why they need to have funding cut. Bret Weinstein explains it very well, Jordan Peterson shows a great example of those students who trash private property to stop views from being expressed. And Melissa Click is an exemplar of that egotism wrapped in a bubble of anti-intellectualism, that supports and teaches students to shutdown view points that are contrary to the groupthink. Being a victim is profitable, pretending you're outraged is currency.
But hey, believe whatever you want. Don't pretend that there's a swath of the humanities and liberal arts that have their heads shoves so far up their own asses that they sniff farts. Don't believe that this same elitism isn't a cancer that gets people fired from their jobs for making a joke based on personal experience(Sir Tim Hunt) and then drives them from their own country. Or creates a climate of intimidation and fear over wearing the "wrong kind of shirt" like with Matt Taylor.
Om, nomnomnom...
Plenty of people in the engineering and I.T. fields also have their heads up their anal orifices. Elon Musk anyone? Look at Tesla's parts availabilily ... how dare a mere plebe un-authorized mechanic presume to want to work on a Tesla? Tim Cook. Let's show some courage by stripping useful functionality out of our products and reduce them to toys for the lowest common denominator.
Frankly, people SHOULD have the right to protest against wrong or abhorrent views. The Earth is NOT flat. Global warming is a real thing. Treating fellow humans badly because of the color of their skin or their country of birth is abhorrent. Deal with it.
Who knew! Upper management consists of people with little technical skills and good people skills! And if you want to be one of those people, by all means, don't get an engineering degree and get a social science degree instead.
But let's be clear about this: these people are by and large not successful because they understand the Enlightenment or good design, they are successful because they understand Machiavelli and politics, something that success in a social science environment prepares them for.
Whoa, what a jump. CEOs and heads of product engineering don't "work hand in hand" with people, they lead and direct.
Well, that is certainly good advice. Add to that the notion that government shouldn't pick winners and losers among academic fields and instead let the market decide.
Sure, and let's look. When was the last time Elon Musk was going out of his way to push his ideology on everyone, and then stating that if you don't follow it you're a racist/sexist/homophobe/fascist/nazi/. When was the last time that Tim Cook used his position to turn around and shutdown free speech? But we can see the organized events from university professors, to shut down a group of MRA's who are gathered to talk about the inequality in family law. Pulling fire alarms, making fake police calls, and other shitty behavior. We can see the students being given extra credits for a course if they protest a speaker who doesn't hold the same views, to the point where the police cancel the event for fear that the protestors will turn violent.
Frankly, people SHOULD have the right to protest against wrong or abhorrent views. The Earth is NOT flat. Global warming is a real thing. Treating fellow humans badly because of the color of their skin or their country of birth is abhorrent. Deal with it.
Well I'd agree with that, more or less. So why aren't you up in arms when someone points out the number of educators in the humanities and liberal arts and/or leftwing elitists, and so-on who hold racist views? Or indoctrinate students into these views? I mean the NYT just finished hiring a devout anti-white racist for example, who has a track record of literal years of being such. Then there's the educators in the universities(of all flavors, but predominantly liberal colleges, but in nearly all universities) who push sexism against men, and racism against anyone who isn't black.
And why is it that when average people call this absolute bullshit out, that the response from the left is to circle the wagons and screech that "the accusers are sexist/racist/fascist/etc/etc/etc." Why is there a literal culture of fear against particular groups of racists, if we're agreeing that all racism is bad.
Perhaps when you say "deal with it" you mean that the rules and laws should be applied equally? In which case, I'm sure you'd agree with me that the little snot rag that the NYT hired should be canned. After all, they canned another reporter for having vocal disagreements with a white supremacist.
Om, nomnomnom...
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
When was the last time that Tim Cook used his position to turn around and shutdown free speech?
I don't know about Tim Cook specifically, but please. The Apple Store does it all the time.
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Yes, you do. Unfortunately, most liberal arts programs don't produce that. In fact, throughout the 19th and 20th century, academics and universities were often key institutions in promoting totalitarian ideologies.
They don't go after "the intelligentisa", only after those intellectuals who are critical of them. The intelligentsia, on the other hand, has often been instrumental in bringing communists and fascists into power. Both Hitler and Stalin were powerfully supported by intellectuals, academics, and universities.
Liberal arts are as important as engineering, indeed. Where would we be without our artists, our philosophers, musicians, playwrites and humanists? But if you do pursue liberal arts, please don't expect to earn the same amount of money as STEM. On the other hand, a four year liberal arts degree is generally more fun, a bit easier and you get laid a whole bunch more. Fact.
If you can possibly manage it, consider a combined STEM + liberal arts path. The technical term for it is "renaissance".
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Yes that someone is you.
You got so angry at the title, you flipped your shit and wrote an angry post without even reading the first word of the summary. I'll grant you that's actually quite impressive since the word it right there and kind of hard to miss.
The author is an engineering professor.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
- Voltaire
Besides, Heinlein was nuts because specialisation is what made a civilisation possible in the first place. Any hunter-gatherer society left is a prime example.
Well, actually Heinlein was nuts for all kinds of reasons, like an unhealthy obsession with slide rules, but they are not important right now.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
but the sense of empathy that comes from music, arts, literature and psychology provides a big advantage in design
This is complete nonsense.
There are just as many people with empathy who study useful subjects as there are who study arts and humanities. And just as many sociopaths and crazies, too. Writing turgid prose, discordant music, and making self-indulgent art or design does not imbue someone with empathy. Nor do "deep" and ambiguous creations mean someone is enigmatic, insightful or more intelligent - it often means that they are confused, unable to communicate clearly and don't really know what it is they are trying to put across. Just as scientists are often accused of being.
Most of the artists I know will tell you "I do it for myself, not for other people" when asked to explain their work. That is not the sign of an "empathic" personality.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Specialization is required in today's society because jobs have become so complicated that you cannot do them anymore without specializing heavily. If I get an operation on my knee, I want a surgeon (first specialization from "medical doctor") who specialized in knee operations (as compared to, say, brain surgery, second specialization).
I certainly wouldn't want a shrink to do it. Even though both have that "MD" next to their name.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nothing alone is the answer. That goes double for technology.
Technology is an enabler, no more and no less. It's up to us to decide how we use it.
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