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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.
You don't need a music, arts, literature or psychology to have empathy. Further, there really is a war on the middle class jobs - construction workers, plumbers, electricians, etc.. We've basically stereotyped these jobs as the low-class when the majority of people with degrees can't wire in a new light switch or change their car tire.
Because if it weren't for liberal arts majors, the STEM people wouldn't be able to go home after work and watch Netflix.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
In science, even an incorrect prediction can be valuable if it's disproven and gets you closer to the truth. Discovery and learning are iterative processes.
You want liberal arts and the humanities because you _can_ teach critical thinking. If you're dealing with someone that doesn't get that naturally you need a subject simple enough they can grasp it. Liberal arts fits the bill. Maybe they won't grasp everything, but unlike Math there's value in being 50% right.
As for why you want to train people to think critically, well, if you don't like dictatorships & fascism then you want an electorate that thinks critically. I mean, ever notice how one of the 1st things a dictator does is go after the intelligentsia?
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Tanking enrolment means less profit for the university.
http://sappingattention.blogsp...
Only enrolment in Gender Studies remained stable. No surprise there. They cry the loudest to get "diversity programme" running. There are lucrative (although parasitic) jobs for that segment.
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...
Ethics have been on the table for 50 years, yes. But only because it's been 50 years and we still haven't learned a goddamn thing.
If more of us software engineers had studied some liberal arts or humanities, maybe fewer of us would work for companies that suck up personal information and sell it to the highest bidder. The ability to stop and think about what it is you're actually doing is apparently a rare commodity in the tech business these days.
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I hate to agree with Ben Stein, but about 40 years ago (while finishing college at beer drenched Michigan State) I read a short essay in Playboy and never forgot it...
If I recall correctly at my advanced age, the claim was that before World War II when far fewer Americans went to college, many students from wealthy backgrounds studied liberal arts because they would not really have to work or else they already had nice careers waiting for them because of their birth.
After World War II and the G.I. Bill explosion in college students, many students from modest backgrounds wanted to study liberal arts so they, too, could have the traditional polish of the wealthy. But Stein claimed this was a fallacy - that those working class background students assumed that the intellectual, liberal arts background caused those in the upper class to become successful, but actually they had the liberal arts education precisely because their wealthier backgrounds allowed them the luxury of not really having to learn a trade.
Of course, we will always need English professors, historians, philosophers, et cetera, but not nearly at the quantity produced by colleges each year.
Looking back, I had a great time at a big, fairly average college in the late 1970's, but now I realize it was only because my late father had worked so hard, lived cheaply, and invested for many years. But as a straight economic investment in my future, it did not really pay off. Of course I have no one to blame for my choices but myself.
Tom from Traverse City
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.
Snow noted the divide, and suggested that "Literary" types needed to learn science, while noting that "Scientific" types already knew, or at least valued, Arts and Literature.
The debate has now been going for over 50 years and shows no signs of resolution.
While I'm not sure that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics should be the touchstone, I would argue that any graduand that can't demonstrate both a knowledge of the scientific method and an appreciation of art or literature should be required to do so before they can graduate.
I'd also like to see something like Ethics 101 and Aesthetics 101 as compulsory subjects.
I'm realistic enough not to actually expect any of these things to happen.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
The commercial application of "humanities" is called "marketing," and yes, it is very relevant to the modern world.
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.
Don't worry. liberal arts and humanities majors, you are _also_ important and valuable members of society. Ok, so maybe you are not as smart as the engineering majors, but that's ok. You are _emotionally_ intelligent, and that is also a valuable trait. And true, your deep understanding of the human condition has not prevented you from going down a path that pretty much guarantees you will never be able to buy a house, but you can compensate for that by finding a line of work where your mastery of human interaction will in fact be appreciated.
And yes, I would like some fries with that, thank you for asking!
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...
That their liberal arts degree isn't making them as much as their STEM pals.
Humanities asks questions. Engineering provides solutions. That's pretty much the difference right there.
Yeah, that's a key tenet of fascism.
Democracy is any form of government that originates with the people; that includes the US.
What was supposed to protect the US from authoritarianism was limited government, not representative government. Representative government without limits is even worse than direct, majoritarian democracy.
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.
A problem with liberal arts is that whatever its merits, it frequently isn't applied.
Consider medicine... we value people with medical degrees, right? But what if you don't use it? I mean, you don't do anything with it at all.
It is all well and good to say that some CEOs in tech were able to use it to help their product design. But that is a very obscure and rarefied context. What about everyone else in the company?
Ultimately, you're going to be left arguing it does in "mysterious ways"... that there are subtle influences that help all sorts of things in ways that you can't really prove one way or the other.
You could do that with theology though as well... that's where this argument goes.
And I could show you lots of company heads from times gone by that said as much about their faith in God or whatever as helping them with their company.
I'm not disparaging liberal arts, rather I'm suggesting that they take a greater interest in applying themselves. Instead of going always for this "holistic person" concept, they should look at how language can help an individual... how art and history and philosophy, etc can help.
I'm not saying don't teach roughly the same thing. I'm saying teach it in a different way so that it has a better chance of being used.
Because if it isn't used, it is useless. The most amazing machine for doing whatever has zero value if it isn't used. The most amazing information about whatever is useless if it isn't used.
It MUST be used or it is useless.
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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
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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Yeah but wouldn't 3D printing music in braille be a good idea?
Because if it weren't for liberal arts majors, the STEM people wouldn't be able to go home after work and watch Netflix.
We would be able to but we would not want to.
Liberal Arts and the Humanities are indeed as important as Engineering.
However, Liberal Arts DEGREES are not as important as Engineering DEGREES.
Yes, it's important to have art and music and an appreciation for history, but I really would like someone to be ACTUALLY TRAINED AND CERTIFIED when they start calculating the load-moment on that bridge they're building.
-Styopa