I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them, rather than a STEM education failing to enable them to find hidden meanings?
The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
Precisely.
Incidentally I ran this past Mrs LB and she said she'd probably spot the hidden meaning but would do what was explicitly asked rather than implied because this sort of thing annoys her.
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them, rather than a STEM education failing to enable them to find hidden meanings?
The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
C P Snow (of whom I originally heard from Flanders and Swann) said
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's? I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.
(The Two Cultures)
I am given to ask if much has changed.
There's a difference between knowing things and understanding. Having sat through lectures on Greek myths does not mean that one has understanding any more than sitting through lectures on Physics.
Humanities are not supposed to be something to drag about in order to belittle other people. But science is not either.
There is a difference. I do not carry scientific facts in my head. I once learned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics but it was so long ago that I would not be confident talking about it without looking it up. There are many many basic concepts of science that I have never learned, largely because I am not interested. I have read and thought about the science of my field, I have big gaps in interest in other scientific fields.
Humanities are a different type of thing that are not (or not only) to be learned as you might learn scientific principles. For example one might read and appreciate Dostoevsky because it speaks to something significant about human nature. That's a layer of understanding that's beyond the surface of what individual words mean and so on.
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
I would also say that fundamentally all science is philosophy. The fact that so few scientists understand that and even fewer are prepared to think about how they think about science means that the whole thing is impoverished.
Setting up science as an opposition to Humanities is a big mistake.
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
That's simply untrue and a reflection of your own interests. You don't think quantum theory changed people's inner lives? You don't think world views are shaped by studying the natural world?
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
That's simply untrue and a reflection of your own interests. You don't think quantum theory changed people's inner lives? You don't think world views are shaped by studying the natural world?
Not really no. In my own field, ecology, in the main people progress by working within the dominant worldview. There are very few who challenge the implicit power structures and those that do in general have a humanities background. It simply has not occurred to most people who only "learn the science"
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them,
I know what you are saying (and that 'hidden meaning' stuff in interpersonal communication boils my p*ss too) but if I may - I think 'hidden meaning' was all over the place when I was completely sunk in scientific research (during my PhD really - after that things got a lot more admin- and teaching- heavy). Digging up hidden meaning was kind of what I was trying to do. But perhaps that's a different kind of thing to the interpersonal stuff, or perhaps it reflects my somewhat ham-fisted, inductive approach to scientific research.
I think everyone is inclined to think that success in their own discipline means that they are well equipped to handle all other disciplines. My impression is that STEM supremacists are more of a thing than Humanities supremacists right now, though my impression is that the real offenders are the moment are the tech bros who would describe themselves as STEM but whose real area of expertise is business management.
(Have I cited the blog post that argues that Saruman is that sort of person, who thinks that because he knows a lot about the rings, military strategy and tactics will come easily to him?)
I think everyone is inclined to think that success in their own discipline means that they are well equipped to handle all other disciplines. My impression is that STEM supremacists are more of a thing than Humanities supremacists right now, though my impression is that the real offenders are the moment are the tech bros who would describe themselves as STEM but whose real area of expertise is business management.
(Have I cited the blog post that argues that Saruman is that sort of person, who thinks that because he knows a lot about the rings, military strategy and tactics will come easily to him?)
I'm reminded of a rather heated conversation I had with a mathematics professor who seemed to think that their hard-line far-right views were stating the obvious and within the remit of "academic freedom".
The old bird had been in academia for many decades, was thoroughly institutionalised and seemed to think that having an international reputation in one small area of mathematics gave them a special insight to spout off in public about something that is essentially a conspiracy theory.
I think there is a thing where people rise to positions within society where they have been constantly praised for a long time and they start to believe that every thought they have is golden and unchallengeable.
There's something of this in Trump: he seems to believe that things are true just because he said them and then expects the world to change to show the wisdom of his words.
I think everyone is inclined to think that success in their own discipline means that they are well equipped to handle all other disciplines. My impression is that STEM supremacists are more of a thing than Humanities supremacists right now, though my impression is that the real offenders are the moment are the tech bros who would describe themselves as STEM but whose real area of expertise is business management.
And I feel STEM really flattens different tendencies within the different fields, the habits of mind inculcated by engineering are very different from those in natural sciences or mathematics (many people have observed that when a 'young earth creationist' was a 'PhD scientist' it was almost inevitably a PhD in some form of engineering).
I think everyone is inclined to think that success in their own discipline means that they are well equipped to handle all other disciplines. My impression is that STEM supremacists are more of a thing than Humanities supremacists right now, though my impression is that the real offenders are the moment are the tech bros who would describe themselves as STEM but whose real area of expertise is business management.
And I feel STEM really flattens different tendencies within the different fields, the habits of mind inculcated by engineering are very different from those in natural sciences or mathematics (many people have observed that when a 'young earth creationist' was a 'PhD scientist' it was almost inevitably a PhD in some form of engineering).
And climate change sceptics (though some of them are geologists too).
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them,
I know what you are saying (and that 'hidden meaning' stuff in interpersonal communication boils my p*ss too) but if I may - I think 'hidden meaning' was all over the place when I was completely sunk in scientific research (during my PhD really - after that things got a lot more admin- and teaching- heavy). Digging up hidden meaning was kind of what I was trying to do. But perhaps that's a different kind of thing to the interpersonal stuff, or perhaps it reflects my somewhat ham-fisted, inductive approach to scientific research.
Different species of "hidden meaning" altogether, I think.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
Precisely.
Incidentally I ran this past Mrs LB and she said she'd probably spot the hidden meaning but would do what was explicitly asked rather than implied because this sort of thing annoys her.
So, a funny story.
I have an openly ND friend who - years ago - told me a story about his mom yelling at him saying "you're so smart, why can't you make any friends!?"
His mom wasn't very nice, but he said that this remark made a light bulb go off on his head.
And from then on, he made a logical study of people, and in my experience was quite good at it. At the time he was that guy who could make the most inappropriately incisive social observations in the room, but lacked the social sense that would tell a person not to make such observations out loud. And because he was ND - and quite charismatic (thanks @Gwai ) - he mostly got away with it, socially speaking.
At that point in life, I think I'd worked out a similar operating system, but my style was to be super quiet all the time, almost a recluse. People could spend months trying to figure me out and fail because I wasn't comfortable being understood on that level. But I was pretty good at understanding people if I just sat still and listened. Sometimes I think I'm kind of a savant, I'm hypersensitive to certain signals and absolutely insensitive to others, which is confusing.
I think this was how we became good friends, though on the surface we were rather opposite personalities. He was quite gregarious and I would seem "shy" by most measures.
I usually take people at face value because it's safer. I don't know if people want me to tell them what I'm seeing when I can see it. I'm never sure what's a safe observation to make, but I'm learning.
I kind of wanted to be an engineer as a kid, but math was my weakness so I settled into the humanities side of social science. Don't underestimate the logic that goes into working out people, especially when you start with yourself.
Also British medical degrees are for undergraduates. I think in North America it is possible to do an art degree and then later become a medical doctor.
It’s possible, but the person with an art degree* is going to have to take and do well in lots of extra classes in biology, chemistry, etc., before they’re going to be admitted to a med school.
*I’m assuming here that you mean the person in question majored in art, art history or the like, not that they have a Bachelor of Arts. A BA in the US can cover a wider area than just “art.” That said, additional coursework might be required to get into med school. Ditto for someone with a Bachelor of Science, depending on the actual coursework completed.
While an undergraduate pursuing a degree in Music Education, I remember meeting an Administrator of a Medical School who traveled the country to visit leading Conservatories and Colleges of Music to recruit medical students.
I still value education from a sense of roundness. Earlier upthread someone began the "jack of all trades" saying, but left it incomplete. The full quote is "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." The truth is, though, that mastery in any one thing often if not always involves capability in a number of other things. And, expertise may or may not be mastery.
Also British medical degrees are for undergraduates. I think in North America it is possible to do an art degree and then later become a medical doctor.
It’s possible, but the person with an art degree* is going to have to take and do well in lots of extra classes in biology, chemistry, etc., before they’re going to be admitted to a med school.
*I’m assuming here that you mean the person in question majored in art, art history or the like, not that they have a Bachelor of Arts. A BA in the US can cover a wider area than just “art.” That said, additional coursework might be required to get into med school. Ditto for someone with a Bachelor of Science, depending on the actual coursework completed.
While an undergraduate pursuing a degree in Music Education, I remember meeting an Administrator of a Medical School who traveled the country to visit leading Conservatories and Colleges of Music to recruit medical students.
Yep. The advice that used to be given with regard to law schools was to major in something you enjoyed, because your grades were likely to be better.
When I had my admission interview with the dean of one law school (which I didn’t go to), he told me they liked having students who had been music majors, for two reasons. The first was those students tended to be well-rounded and had prepared themselves for a life outside work. The other reason was they knew those students had learned to balance academic work, practice and performance, so they felt comfortable the music students could balance the requirements of law school and practicing law.
When I got to law school, three of my classmates, like me, had music degrees. And the dean was an excellent jazz pianist.
I think everyone is inclined to think that success in their own discipline means that they are well equipped to handle all other disciplines. My impression is that STEM supremacists are more of a thing than Humanities supremacists right now, though my impression is that the real offenders are the moment are the tech bros who would describe themselves as STEM but whose real area of expertise is business management.
And I feel STEM really flattens different tendencies within the different fields, the habits of mind inculcated by engineering are very different from those in natural sciences or mathematics (many people have observed that when a 'young earth creationist' was a 'PhD scientist' it was almost inevitably a PhD in some form of engineering).
Don't speculate about my habits of mind, you NatSci b*****d
(That's a joke. There are better reasons why you might not want to speculate about engineers' habits of mind).
I'm not sure that the real problem has been successfully identified at all. Surely, it's turning universities, which should be places of self-discovery and discovery of the world beyond previous confines through the medium of advanced study, into degree factories. The transaction process of obtaining a piece of paper entirely eclipses anything open-ended and provisional. The slight issue is that the essential point of higher education - learning how to think, or something like that - is reduced to a very cut-price transaction.
I'm not sure that the real problem has been successfully identified at all. Surely, it's turning universities, which should be places of self-discovery and discovery of the world beyond previous confines through the medium of advanced study, into degree factories. The transaction process of obtaining a piece of paper entirely eclipses anything open-ended and provisional. The slight issue is that the essential point of higher education - learning how to think, or something like that - is reduced to a very cut-price transaction.
My UK HE career runs from '94 until (about - I am semi-detached) now. The model in place when I started might, on a sunny day, be regarded as something like your 'should' - but there was quite a lot of shite buried under a less market-led model too, with crap departments taking big bungs out of centrally-provided cash, personal fiefdoms generating lots of consultancy cash which didn't come back into general circulation - all the normal sort of stuff you'd expect from averagely-sinful but more-intelligent-than-average people gaming the system which existed at the time. Now a new system exists (or rather, a new system has emerged over the last 30 years or so), and they game that instead.
I don't have a solution to any of this; it's possible that the 'apprentice' route will get stronger and if that happened I would say that's a good thing for the kind of courses I'm involved with. How one funds English or Geography or French - I really don't know. My institution is really good at closing things (like our French) just before there turns out to be a market for it, and they have to recreate a cut-price, inferior version of the thing they scrapped (like our Chemistry, Elec Eng, and perhaps (this one is not back on yet) nuclear physics). No modern languages back on the table for us yet and with AI, perhaps that has gone for good.
As a linguist, I find your thought depressing, because again the point of studying languages is not really the language itself. It's learning that it is possible to construct the world entirely differently, make different distinctions between things, and call them entirely different, or closely related, things to what one already knows. It's learning how grammar and syntax embody a mental construction of the world. Also, linguists are the engineers of the arts/humanities. We are the ones who have to work out how it all works, rather than getting to declaim how it should be.
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
That's simply untrue and a reflection of your own interests. You don't think quantum theory changed people's inner lives? You don't think world views are shaped by studying the natural world?
Not really no. In my own field, ecology, in the main people progress by working within the dominant worldview. There are very few who challenge the implicit power structures and those that do in general have a humanities background. It simply has not occurred to most people who only "learn the science"
My son's Master's degree is in Ecology. He found his world view didn't match the jobs he applied for.
He's now been a nurse for eleven years and loves it.
Lots of higher education. Two degrees in England, learning German for two years, then nursing degree in Germany. Ecology's loss imo.
My other son did two engineering degrees then found no job to suit him. Same problem as many graduates meet - no experience. So he trained as a pilot and is now an airline captain. He enjoys it very much. Engineering's loss imo.
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
That's simply untrue and a reflection of your own interests. You don't think quantum theory changed people's inner lives? You don't think world views are shaped by studying the natural world?
Not really no. In my own field, ecology, in the main people progress by working within the dominant worldview. There are very few who challenge the implicit power structures and those that do in general have a humanities background. It simply has not occurred to most people who only "learn the science"
My son's Master's degree is in Ecology. He found his world view didn't match the jobs he applied for.
He's now been a nurse for eleven years and loves it.
Lots of higher education. Two degrees in England, learning German for two years, then nursing degree in Germany. Ecology's loss imo.
My other son did two engineering degrees then found no job to suit him. Same problem as many graduates meet - no experience. So he trained as a pilot and is now an airline captain. He enjoys it very much. Engineering's loss imo.
But no learning is wasted in my view.
I would imagine your first son's ecology background helps him with understanding the ecology of the medical field. After all ecology uses systems thinking in understanding how various aspects of nature fit in with each other. The medical field certainly has various systems interacting with each other to achieve the best possible patient outcomes (I experienced that yesterday when I had a day surgery). Besides, his experience with German would certainly help him interact better with German patients. And knowing a second language would be a plus if he wants to get an advanced degree in the medical field.
Likewise for your second son, aerodynamics is all about engineering. Most Air Force pilots I knew had engineering degrees.
In other words, while you may think the disciplines they studied under have been lost, there professions have gained tremendously because of their backgrounds.
To the story of the mathematical professor who is far right in his outlook, I am reminded of the Peter Principle one will raise to his/her highest level of incompetency.
And, to Lamb Chops point for seminarians to have a degree in something besides religion. Amen. Wished I had. I probably would have gone into something like geology. It is one of my advocations.
In other words, while you may think the disciplines they studied under have been lost, there professions have gained tremendously because of their backgrounds.
So much for trying to get this under the edit window. Let me rephrase this sentence:
In other words, while you may think the disciplines they studied under have lost their potential, the professions they have have gained tremendously because of their backgrounds.
And, to Lamb Chops point for seminarians to have a degree in something besides religion. Amen. Wished I had. I probably would have gone into something like geology. It is one of my advocations.
This has given me an idea for a heavenly thread! Or maybe All Saints 🤔
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them, rather than a STEM education failing to enable them to find hidden meanings?
The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
I think that is very very often a fact. In this case, I don't think the guy is autistic, just very focused and a little clueless. But you never know. He's old enough that he could be masking.
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them, rather than a STEM education failing to enable them to find hidden meanings?
The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
I think that is very very often a fact. In this case, I don't think the guy is autistic, just very focused and a little clueless. But you never know. He's old enough that he could be masking.
Clueless? Or just doesn't see a reason why people don't just say what they bloody well want.
I mean, why would you even imagine that people would play this sort of game? Why, for that matter, do they do so?
I dunno; if someone can't tell me what they actually want and then gets the hump because I'm not looking for hidden meanings, the fault is entirely on them.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
IMHO, speaking as a writer and teacher, they don't say what they want because they don't know how.
If you asked them, they'd say, "I DID say exactly what I wanted!" all indignantly. It doesn't occur to them that it's possible to write (even to speak) more clearly than they do.
They consider communication to be something that comes naturally--something people (especially they themselves) don't have to be taught to do well. And therefore they don't study to do it better.
It takes a lot to overcome that ignorance--the kind that involves ignorance OF their own ignorance.
Fairly often, in internal politics - it is because someone absolutely doesn’t want a paper trail in which they say to a colleague: please do what management asked but slowly, so I have a chance to talk them round to a different plan because this both a terrible plan and something they are not very committed to. But if you make an assertive fight of it now, they will see it as a a crucial issue of their leadership and get entrenched in that position and I won’t be able to shift them out of it.
Because if senior management ever saw such a paper trail, their working relationship would fall down the toilet. Whereas, if management ever see a coded version of this everyone can back away from a confrontation whilst saving face.
Likewise, no one is going to send an email saying for Gods sake don’t send the data, because the decision maker will not understand the data in a predictable and deeply unhelpful way.
(Yes I have seen people try to use mean averages drawn from categorical data.)
Ideally, you'd have a face to face meeting where such things could be said straight, without fearing a paper trail. I've been in communications all my life, and I miss coded messages sometimes.
I wonder which way round cause and effect are here. Perhaps people who struggle to find hidden meanings end up in STEM where they don't have to worry about them, rather than a STEM education failing to enable them to find hidden meanings?
The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
I think that is very very often a fact. In this case, I don't think the guy is autistic, just very focused and a little clueless. But you never know. He's old enough that he could be masking.
Clueless? Or just doesn't see a reason why people don't just say what they bloody well want.
I mean, why would you even imagine that people would play this sort of game? Why, for that matter, do they do so?
I dunno; if someone can't tell me what they actually want and then gets the hump because I'm not looking for hidden meanings, the fault is entirely on them.
There are all kinds of understandable reasons for people not to come out and say exactly what they want. @Lamb Chopped and @Doublethink have mentioned some. To which I would add women being socialized from birth not to be direct with men is still a thing, and other cultural expectations and strictures can come into play as well.
I had a boss once, who, when I'd de-coded a few messages a little too forthrightly, winced and said, "Can you be a little less clear?"
Something to that effect, anyway. He much preferred to have everything softened for him. This was a factor in my losing that job in the end. I've never been any good at doing that sort of thing.
Ideally, you'd have a face to face meeting where such things could be said straight, without fearing a paper trail. I've been in communications all my life, and I miss coded messages sometimes.
I'm so glad my job doesn't require me to guess what people want. If anything, I spend most of my time either making things really specific in as few words as possible (telling busy people what they need to do) or making things as general as possible while still COA (policy documents). The code switch between the two can be quite drastic. The bit that makes me more twitchy is trying to use standard emails where I think the grammar is off.
And said students are disproportionately likely to be women, particularly women of colour and/or women with caregiving responsibility. This particularly goes for courses like nursing and teaching, and related subjects.
One of the saving graces of nursing (I have experience via the daughters of two close friends), (I assume with no knowledge) teaching, and (my area) engineering, is that to run a course which recruits strongly enough to be profitable, some form of external accreditation is required. So - in the area with which I am most familiar - the Joint Board of Moderators are something of a partially-effective bulwark against the unlimited dumbing-down which otherwise is financially attractive to managers, and which is sold straight-faced as 'improving the student experience'.
The stories I hear from nursing and midwifery is that the (external) clinical parts of the courses 'we' offer are good, but that the 'academic' offering is variable and often woeful. I'm not surprised by that.
Maintaining standards while supporting students with additional needs (to be as general as I can about it) represents a net cost. Taking content out (to reduce drop-out rates, which are a bottom line issue) and inviting all-comers for an increasingly worthless experience, invites a net profit. In the bottom half of the sector, the second approach predominates heavily in preference to the first - though the language of the first is always used to appease worthy opinions, with which I of course agree, such as those expressed in this thread.
A late postscript to this (and sorry to quote myself). I was chatting yesterday with an academic who pointed out that our institution was most of the way through a serious attempt to divest itself of ALL its accredited courses, not so long ago. It reached the stage of a dean ringing the JBM to cancel a very proximate inspection visit for the department I work for, and the JBM ringing the department to ask 'WTF is your management up to?'.
The idea was to remove all external scrutiny. I don't know whether the prospect of lost income from non-accredited (and therefore non-recruiting) courses was the thing that pulled them back, or possible legal challenge from students already on courses which were about to become worthless. But they are stupid, and venal, enough to try it. Let's be careful out there.
With regards to arts and humanities and eschewing sciences, lots of what I suppose you might call applied arts or technical arts are very aware of how they rely on STEM - dancers wouldn't get far without physiotherapists and dietitians, for instance. Fine arts rely heavily on chemistry. Film and photography rely heavily on engineers. I don't think it's a surprise that BTecs (UK technical qualifications equivalent to A Levels) comprise both arts and STEM subjects.
I would also add that at least from my own English perspective (I cannot speak to other countries or even other parts of the UK) a lot of the defensive reactions from people in the arts and humanities comes from how badly those areas have been treated by the Westminster government, even to the detriment of the UK economy given what huge industries they are in the UK (I will grudgingly give Lisa Nandy some credit for sincerely being in favour of strengthening arts infrastructure eg film studios at Sunderland - I believe she has some personal connection). Telling dancers to retrain in cybersec during the height of Covid springs to mind.
However, such things aren't coming from scientists - who haven't been treated any better by Westminster even if on the surface various governments have claimed to be pro-science.
If I had to choose between the general humanities, and STEM for what would be the most vital for people to learn before learning other stuff, I would absolutely go for the general humanities. I believe that that ties more into basic humanity (no pun intended), and into learning a lot of basic things about life, than the current technological situation, which changes very rapidly.
That's comparing the absolute best case of the humanities with a parody of STEM. I'm pretty sure if you go back a couple of centuries all wars in the Western World were being fought by kings and generals who had variants on 'classical education'
I don’t believe it’s a parody, no. I’m talking about the basic principle of anything to do with the latest technology or advances in the sciences. And I’m tempted to say that for all we know, though as Aslan says no one knows “what would have happened,” things could have been worse and less honorable without that classical education. I really believe that we should have more of it rather than less. This also includes things like logic and what have you. And yes, the sciences matter absolutely but I’m thinking if we had to pick something to start off people with or make sure it was absolutely included, if we had to pick one or the other, then I believe the humanities would be the most vital thing. If we had to rebuild civilization after an apocalypse or something, then I really believe that, yes, the works of Shakespeare or Ancient Greek works or what have you would be more vital than many other things.
There is a large variation in the quality of students. Even among those who regularly get a collection of A grades, there are students who produce perfectly serviceable but uninspired summaries of other people's thought, and those who are brilliant. I don't think the regurgitators have actually learned anything: if you are unable to apply the things that you "know" to scenarios that differ slightly from what you have been taught, you don't actually know anything.
Likewise, no one is going to send an email saying for Gods sake don’t send the data, because the decision maker will not understand the data in a predictable and deeply unhelpful way.
(Yes I have seen people try to use mean averages drawn from categorical data.)
There's a whole rant here about appointing complete idiots to positions of authority where they feel empowered to make decisions that are beyond their competence.
My daughter was showing me today some graphs created in her government department that made their way into an official document. Even my statistician wife could not make any sense of them.
I know @Nick Tamen and I discussed this some time ago. Turns out a small community college that serves our region is in danger of closing. It is a branch of a larger community college in South Central Washington. That college is facing a $4 million shortfall largely because of reduced taxes and a statutory limitation on how much tuition can increase in a given year. It costs about 4 mil to keep the branch college going.
Deal of it is this branch college supplies much of the region's medical staff other than physicians. There are five small hospitals and numerous medical clinics covering an area the size of Connecticut that hire their graduates. If we cannot depend on the branch's graduates, the medical field in our area would collapse and create a very large medical desert.
A counter proposal is for the larger college to make across the board cuts to cover the shortfall instead of just closing the branch.
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The number of autistic folk in STEM would point in that direction, to my mind.
Certainly when I read ""She says she wants this, but if you read between the lines here, here, and here, she really wants that. She's saying you aren't cooperative because you gave her what she asked for not what she wants," my response is "FFS, say what you want!"
Precisely.
Incidentally I ran this past Mrs LB and she said she'd probably spot the hidden meaning but would do what was explicitly asked rather than implied because this sort of thing annoys her.
Ditto! I hate that!
There's a difference between knowing things and understanding. Having sat through lectures on Greek myths does not mean that one has understanding any more than sitting through lectures on Physics.
Humanities are not supposed to be something to drag about in order to belittle other people. But science is not either.
There is a difference. I do not carry scientific facts in my head. I once learned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics but it was so long ago that I would not be confident talking about it without looking it up. There are many many basic concepts of science that I have never learned, largely because I am not interested. I have read and thought about the science of my field, I have big gaps in interest in other scientific fields.
Humanities are a different type of thing that are not (or not only) to be learned as you might learn scientific principles. For example one might read and appreciate Dostoevsky because it speaks to something significant about human nature. That's a layer of understanding that's beyond the surface of what individual words mean and so on.
A humanities education has the potential to fundamentally upset and change the inner life of the student. Not so much science.
Setting up science as an opposition to Humanities is a big mistake.
That's simply untrue and a reflection of your own interests. You don't think quantum theory changed people's inner lives? You don't think world views are shaped by studying the natural world?
Not really no. In my own field, ecology, in the main people progress by working within the dominant worldview. There are very few who challenge the implicit power structures and those that do in general have a humanities background. It simply has not occurred to most people who only "learn the science"
I know what you are saying (and that 'hidden meaning' stuff in interpersonal communication boils my p*ss too) but if I may - I think 'hidden meaning' was all over the place when I was completely sunk in scientific research (during my PhD really - after that things got a lot more admin- and teaching- heavy). Digging up hidden meaning was kind of what I was trying to do. But perhaps that's a different kind of thing to the interpersonal stuff, or perhaps it reflects my somewhat ham-fisted, inductive approach to scientific research.
(Have I cited the blog post that argues that Saruman is that sort of person, who thinks that because he knows a lot about the rings, military strategy and tactics will come easily to him?)
I'm reminded of a rather heated conversation I had with a mathematics professor who seemed to think that their hard-line far-right views were stating the obvious and within the remit of "academic freedom".
The old bird had been in academia for many decades, was thoroughly institutionalised and seemed to think that having an international reputation in one small area of mathematics gave them a special insight to spout off in public about something that is essentially a conspiracy theory.
There's something of this in Trump: he seems to believe that things are true just because he said them and then expects the world to change to show the wisdom of his words.
And I feel STEM really flattens different tendencies within the different fields, the habits of mind inculcated by engineering are very different from those in natural sciences or mathematics (many people have observed that when a 'young earth creationist' was a 'PhD scientist' it was almost inevitably a PhD in some form of engineering).
And climate change sceptics (though some of them are geologists too).
Different species of "hidden meaning" altogether, I think.
So, a funny story.
I have an openly ND friend who - years ago - told me a story about his mom yelling at him saying "you're so smart, why can't you make any friends!?"
His mom wasn't very nice, but he said that this remark made a light bulb go off on his head.
And from then on, he made a logical study of people, and in my experience was quite good at it. At the time he was that guy who could make the most inappropriately incisive social observations in the room, but lacked the social sense that would tell a person not to make such observations out loud. And because he was ND - and quite charismatic (thanks @Gwai ) - he mostly got away with it, socially speaking.
At that point in life, I think I'd worked out a similar operating system, but my style was to be super quiet all the time, almost a recluse. People could spend months trying to figure me out and fail because I wasn't comfortable being understood on that level. But I was pretty good at understanding people if I just sat still and listened. Sometimes I think I'm kind of a savant, I'm hypersensitive to certain signals and absolutely insensitive to others, which is confusing.
I think this was how we became good friends, though on the surface we were rather opposite personalities. He was quite gregarious and I would seem "shy" by most measures.
I usually take people at face value because it's safer. I don't know if people want me to tell them what I'm seeing when I can see it. I'm never sure what's a safe observation to make, but I'm learning.
I kind of wanted to be an engineer as a kid, but math was my weakness so I settled into the humanities side of social science. Don't underestimate the logic that goes into working out people, especially when you start with yourself.
While an undergraduate pursuing a degree in Music Education, I remember meeting an Administrator of a Medical School who traveled the country to visit leading Conservatories and Colleges of Music to recruit medical students.
I still value education from a sense of roundness. Earlier upthread someone began the "jack of all trades" saying, but left it incomplete. The full quote is "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." The truth is, though, that mastery in any one thing often if not always involves capability in a number of other things. And, expertise may or may not be mastery.
When I had my admission interview with the dean of one law school (which I didn’t go to), he told me they liked having students who had been music majors, for two reasons. The first was those students tended to be well-rounded and had prepared themselves for a life outside work. The other reason was they knew those students had learned to balance academic work, practice and performance, so they felt comfortable the music students could balance the requirements of law school and practicing law.
When I got to law school, three of my classmates, like me, had music degrees. And the dean was an excellent jazz pianist.
Don't speculate about my habits of mind, you NatSci b*****d
(That's a joke. There are better reasons why you might not want to speculate about engineers' habits of mind).
My UK HE career runs from '94 until (about - I am semi-detached) now. The model in place when I started might, on a sunny day, be regarded as something like your 'should' - but there was quite a lot of shite buried under a less market-led model too, with crap departments taking big bungs out of centrally-provided cash, personal fiefdoms generating lots of consultancy cash which didn't come back into general circulation - all the normal sort of stuff you'd expect from averagely-sinful but more-intelligent-than-average people gaming the system which existed at the time. Now a new system exists (or rather, a new system has emerged over the last 30 years or so), and they game that instead.
I don't have a solution to any of this; it's possible that the 'apprentice' route will get stronger and if that happened I would say that's a good thing for the kind of courses I'm involved with. How one funds English or Geography or French - I really don't know. My institution is really good at closing things (like our French) just before there turns out to be a market for it, and they have to recreate a cut-price, inferior version of the thing they scrapped (like our Chemistry, Elec Eng, and perhaps (this one is not back on yet) nuclear physics). No modern languages back on the table for us yet and with AI, perhaps that has gone for good.
My son's Master's degree is in Ecology. He found his world view didn't match the jobs he applied for.
He's now been a nurse for eleven years and loves it.
Lots of higher education. Two degrees in England, learning German for two years, then nursing degree in Germany. Ecology's loss imo.
My other son did two engineering degrees then found no job to suit him. Same problem as many graduates meet - no experience. So he trained as a pilot and is now an airline captain. He enjoys it very much. Engineering's loss imo.
But no learning is wasted in my view.
I would imagine your first son's ecology background helps him with understanding the ecology of the medical field. After all ecology uses systems thinking in understanding how various aspects of nature fit in with each other. The medical field certainly has various systems interacting with each other to achieve the best possible patient outcomes (I experienced that yesterday when I had a day surgery). Besides, his experience with German would certainly help him interact better with German patients. And knowing a second language would be a plus if he wants to get an advanced degree in the medical field.
Likewise for your second son, aerodynamics is all about engineering. Most Air Force pilots I knew had engineering degrees.
In other words, while you may think the disciplines they studied under have been lost, there professions have gained tremendously because of their backgrounds.
To the story of the mathematical professor who is far right in his outlook, I am reminded of the Peter Principle one will raise to his/her highest level of incompetency.
And, to Lamb Chops point for seminarians to have a degree in something besides religion. Amen. Wished I had. I probably would have gone into something like geology. It is one of my advocations.
So much for trying to get this under the edit window. Let me rephrase this sentence:
In other words, while you may think the disciplines they studied under have lost their potential, the professions they have have gained tremendously because of their backgrounds.
This has given me an idea for a heavenly thread! Or maybe All Saints 🤔
I think that is very very often a fact. In this case, I don't think the guy is autistic, just very focused and a little clueless. But you never know. He's old enough that he could be masking.
Clueless? Or just doesn't see a reason why people don't just say what they bloody well want.
I mean, why would you even imagine that people would play this sort of game? Why, for that matter, do they do so?
I dunno; if someone can't tell me what they actually want and then gets the hump because I'm not looking for hidden meanings, the fault is entirely on them.
IMHO, speaking as a writer and teacher, they don't say what they want because they don't know how.
If you asked them, they'd say, "I DID say exactly what I wanted!" all indignantly. It doesn't occur to them that it's possible to write (even to speak) more clearly than they do.
They consider communication to be something that comes naturally--something people (especially they themselves) don't have to be taught to do well. And therefore they don't study to do it better.
It takes a lot to overcome that ignorance--the kind that involves ignorance OF their own ignorance.
Because if senior management ever saw such a paper trail, their working relationship would fall down the toilet. Whereas, if management ever see a coded version of this everyone can back away from a confrontation whilst saving face.
(Yes I have seen people try to use mean averages drawn from categorical data.)
Something to that effect, anyway. He much preferred to have everything softened for him. This was a factor in my losing that job in the end. I've never been any good at doing that sort of thing.
That would require a high level of trust.
A late postscript to this (and sorry to quote myself). I was chatting yesterday with an academic who pointed out that our institution was most of the way through a serious attempt to divest itself of ALL its accredited courses, not so long ago. It reached the stage of a dean ringing the JBM to cancel a very proximate inspection visit for the department I work for, and the JBM ringing the department to ask 'WTF is your management up to?'.
The idea was to remove all external scrutiny. I don't know whether the prospect of lost income from non-accredited (and therefore non-recruiting) courses was the thing that pulled them back, or possible legal challenge from students already on courses which were about to become worthless. But they are stupid, and venal, enough to try it. Let's be careful out there.
However, such things aren't coming from scientists - who haven't been treated any better by Westminster even if on the surface various governments have claimed to be pro-science.
There is a large variation in the quality of students. Even among those who regularly get a collection of A grades, there are students who produce perfectly serviceable but uninspired summaries of other people's thought, and those who are brilliant. I don't think the regurgitators have actually learned anything: if you are unable to apply the things that you "know" to scenarios that differ slightly from what you have been taught, you don't actually know anything.
There's a whole rant here about appointing complete idiots to positions of authority where they feel empowered to make decisions that are beyond their competence.
Deal of it is this branch college supplies much of the region's medical staff other than physicians. There are five small hospitals and numerous medical clinics covering an area the size of Connecticut that hire their graduates. If we cannot depend on the branch's graduates, the medical field in our area would collapse and create a very large medical desert.
A counter proposal is for the larger college to make across the board cuts to cover the shortfall instead of just closing the branch.