Added: 1 year ago
From: ForaTv
Views: 3,311
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (68)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Science aims at the truth.

    Arts aim at the good and the beautiful.

    Interestingly enough, they both fail horribly.

    I think we need a balanced education in order to realize how little we know.

    But of course, this should start in high school, not university.

  • i find, in 100% of cases, this is true. science majors are interested in the world, which is why they chose to study science in the first place. but the world also holds arts and social fields of study. somebody taking a humanity major is by the very definition a person is is only oriented to learn about a narrow field, and no more. i find that a scientist and a businessman are just two different levels of intelligence: a good businessman can be a scientist, but not the other way around!

  • Columbia's student Scientists and Engineers for a Better Society hosted a event on this topic recently!

    The panelists present: Dean Michele Moody-Adams, Professor James Valentini, Professor Philip Kitcher, and Professor Severin Fowles

    Please come watch on my channel!

    :)

  • Interesting, and I do agree that the humanities can be pretty underpowered but that's because a lot of students don't ponder the implications of what they are learning. If you walk into a class and just digest the information the prof gives you at face value you probably arn't going to learn much. You only learn if you are willing to go deeper and ask what it all means. That requires motivation and lack of motivation is certainly not confined to the humanities.

  • "to think a guy in a wig in the eighteenth century thought this up" gave me a chuckle

  • Really stupid title.

  • I do agree with this to some extent. It is easy to be a humanities student, but hard to be good humanities student. There's more to the humanities than knowing the major works of major people. Unfortunately, I believe, most humanities students don't know this. And I'm saying this as a humanities student! Regardless, I would like to speak to speak to the scientists he knows, to find out how much they really know about the humanities, to see if they know beyond the "major works of major people."

  • @qwe07 Oops, I need to proofread more. Anyways, I need to add that I do have a great deal of respect for scientists. The humanities do need to bridge the gap the best they can.

  • The man has a point. However, in defense of the social sciences, they are more subjective than the natural sciences because humans are conducting the research and humans the subject of the research. One cannot study oneself objectively. Of course, this doesn't mean that the natural sciences are totally objective either because implicit judgments come into play as to why and how the research is conducted (i.e., corporate or state interests).

  • @arcanist9 By that logic, nothing is objective, because everything relies on the human mind, our inferences, and the construct of research papers.

    I quite disagree and would rather live in a world where objectivity does exist, in certain places such as the Maths and Sciences, rather than label everything subjective.

  • At least a science book tries to be as direct as possible, while literature always beats around the bush.

  • This guy is absolutely right.

  • We shouldn't discount liberal arts. Sure, a "scientist" can read a novel, but will he understand the deeper meaning and how it fits into various larger contexts? And will he be able to effectively communicate it to others? Or is it just passive "entertainment"?

    I'm shocked by how inept otherwise intelligent "scientists" are at catching even the most obvious historical fallacies -- e.g., the standard "holocaust" narrative.

    Don't underestimate a healthy balance of science and liberal arts.

  • @LibertaerUeberAlles I definitely agree that there's more to the liberal arts than just reading books. At the same time, however, all my science major friends spent hours in labs day in and day out, something that liberal arts students never had to. So I don't know if there could be some sort of literature lab; if not, then it does seem only fair that they get a decent understanding of math. Don't know if I agree with your whole Holocaust thing, though.

  • @m0nkeybl1tz

    I suppose unfortunately many people who choose a liberal arts major do so because they aren't good at math and science. At least, so they claim.

    To see a good video presentation demonstrating a balance between liberal arts and science skills, search the Web for:

    "One Third of the Holocaust"

    It might settle your uncertainty about whether or not to believe the official "millions gassed in a three-car garage" narrative. Cheers!

  • @LibertaerUeberAlles This is why most scientists I encounter have a lower than normal social IQ. As you stated balance is key.

  • So agree, As a science major I would hear my non-science friends bitch and complain so much about how bad they had it. Wow they had no idea and I had no sympathy for them.

  • There is more to humanities than reading English novels. Try studying Classical Chinese or Sanskrit and attempt to "wrap your mind" around various theories of mind and causality. That's quite comparable to anything like calculus.

  • @phalanx1000 the underlying point of difficulty is usefulness. learning is learning, but different subjects obviously have vastly different useful application and different workloads too. arts can argue politically but never invent the technology it might demand. we only need so many art experts in our means of production before it's a blunder to let people keep choosing those luxury fields, especially out of high school, especially as the single chance at good education many people can afford.

  • @tyrannicoystercult To some degree what you say is true, but a lot of science is mostly just as useful as humanities. Theoretical physics for example is interesting, but it doesn't build new oil drilling technologies or cure diseases. The problem is that universities are businesses now and their original purpose has been lost. People go to university to get jobs or to ensure their place in the middle-class. Universities are over populated.

  • @phalanx1000 Theoretical physics does help in oil drilling and the study of disease. Without an understanding of special relativity GPS satellites wouldn't work and quantum physics is an area of research in biology. It's hard to say what discovers of today will have applications in the future.

    With the humanities the practical applications aren't as easy to see, which is why it can be easier to undervalue them. not to That's not suggesting there aren't any.

  • @phalanx1000 I am feeling deep agreement with a lot of the commenting users in this conversation. have any of you found or considered founding some kind of collective or continuous meeting place for modernizing our methods of thinking about and creating these next-level faculties? lots of attempts are springing up to try out multidisciplinary research but the ones I know of sort of flounder, don't state their goal clearly to everyone. books that can unite us? i read zizek but he's unbalanced

  • @tyrannicoystercult I mentioned Ken Wilber's integral theory in my other comment. He has an institute that has drawn a lot of attention. It's located in Boulder, Colorado. There seems to be a lot of interesting stuff going on at Boulder. I'm not sure about multidisciplinary research. I've seen it discussed in various forums, articles and books, but I don't know who may be trying to implement it. Ken Wilber has been trying to get this kind of thing going.

  • @MarmaladeINFP thanks for the tip! i'm reading some stuff on him. Most examples of why multidisciplinary groups work is proved within universities and colleges. this is one on engineering revealing how bafflingly insular faculties can be: watch?v=Xqkjn40SV_g

    an approach like this is only limited by skill and imagination.

    also Cameron Sinclaire's project Architecture for Humanity which combines engineering, information science, and strong social-science/humanities insight into community building

  • @phalanx1000 I would agree with that. I think another thing often overlooked is how "scientific" some non-science fields can be and are.

  • All he offers is anecdotal evidence. He knew a few smart science types who read novels. So what? A liberal arts education isn't simply about reading novels. A liberal arts education is about learning widely. I agree that all students should learn more science, but I'd add that all students should get a broad & balanced education. Students studying the hard sciences should be required to learn about the soft sciences. Business students should have to learn philosophy. Et Cetera.

  • @MarmaladeINFP

    Business students should learn a lot of moral philosophy, i agree!

  • @Mrmoc7 Especially the morality parts.

  • @MarmaladeINFP

    Yep, I know, you are a Chick. LOL.

  • @nonaCbarC You win the most retarded comment of the day reward. What do you mean by saying I'm a "Chick"? And why did you capitalize it as if it is some grand category? You seem to be implying that my statement can be dismissed because you assume I'm female. That makes absolutely no sense from a rational perspective, not that I was assuming you're rational.

  • @MarmaladeINFP

    Oh, so you are saying "Chick" isn't a grand category??!! Are you a sexist??!! LOL. 3 billion Chicks in the world would disagree with you. :D

    "NEXT!!!!"

  • @nonaCbarC "Retard" is a category even if not grand. So, were you born retarded or did your father beat you too much as a child?

  • @MarmaladeINFP

    So, it took you 7 hrs to come up with that!!!! Perhaps, "Retardation" is your middle or last name actually. :D So, that's why your education is broad & balanced, i.e. don't know fuck all, can do nothing. :D

    "NEXT!!!!"

  • @nonaCbarC Retard is as retard does. So many retards and so little time.

  • @MarmaladeINFP

    "Students studying the hard sciences should be required to learn about the soft sciences. Business students should have to learn philosophy. Et Cetera."

    Biz & Phil both are in Humanity Art. LMAO. So which is the hard science & which is the soft science, Moron??!! You are certainly broad & balanced. LOL. Go back to your poetry, women's study, race study, etc, whatever. Certainly being smart isn't your forte. :D

    "NEXT!!!"

  • @nonaCbarC For a retard, you almost make sense... almost...

  • @nonaCbarC As for the 7 hrs, I actually have a life where I do things. I realize that you, as a retard, do very little other than pick your nose and stare at the screen all day. But some of us have better things to do. You do realize that the worst kind of troll is a retarded troll. If you're going to be a troll, then at least be entertaining or witty. But I guess if retardation is all you got going for you, then you have to be the best retard that you can be.

  • @MarmaladeINFP indeed, the smartest people are often those with a very mixed education. getting the strong fundamental core and sparking the path and the desire of each discipline is important for the approach to work. Thomas Jefferson was called the walking talking physical embodiment of The Enlightenment for his ability to intelligently rapturously coordinate and satisfy the needs of many different groups and interests, to show our interests are more connected than we know. he mixed faculties.

  • @tyrannicoystercult The ideal of knowledge in all fields has been mostly lost. Education has become about career and money. Our society has more respect for the businessman and scientist than for the academic scholar who studies more broadly. The only time a well informed scholar is considered worthy of attention is when he can speak about the socio-cultural context of politics as a guest expert on a news program.

  • @MarmaladeINFP To conflate the businessman and scientist as similarly money/career driven is an unacceptable slander and evinces an ignorance of science and scientists. You're almost an embodiment of Snow's thesis. Scientists go through about a decade of schooling followed by post-doctoral work in order to obtain fairly low paying jobs. This isn't careerism. If money were desired, they'd go to medical school. Instead, they pursue their passion knowing the pay sucks and the respect is nil.

  • @EpigeneticEngineer Just because I mentioned them in the same sentence doesn't mean I was conflating them. The only slander is the one you perceived in your mind. I've never in my life slandered science. In fact, I've on many occasions have defended science. My point still stands that the average scientist is a specialist. It's good that there are specialists, but it's a sad state that the academic generalist is no longer respected. You seem to have entirely missed the point I was making.

  • @MarmaladeINFP I agree! What an ironic twist that he would make a conclusion based on such non-empiric evidence! Arts students SHOULD be challenged with more maths and science, definately!

    I also think the MAJORITY of Science/Engineering students are traditionally poor communicators. If they had a stronger grasp of language/philosophy etc., think of the amazing things the human race could accomplish

  • @MarmaladeINFP I think you should watch Steven Pinker's video on this same topic. He frames the problem as follows (and I believe correctly, too):

    A person ignorant of the standard literary, philosophical, musical, etc canon are perceived as philistines among intellectuals. However, a person can be quite open about their scientific ignorance and this is perfectly acceptable to intellectuals.

    This is the unacceptable double standard that, sadly, still persists.

  • @EpigeneticEngineer I'm not sure I've seen the Steven Pinker video, but I'm familiar with the argument. I researched this topic in the past and wrote about it. Most people in specific fields (whether science, literature or whatever) are mostly ignorant of the knowledge in all other fields. It's not a double standard. Scientists don't expect their peers to be widely informed about non-scientific matters. Non-scientific academics don't expect their peers to be widely informed about science.

  • That's the main problem of our time - the division between the 'two cultures'. We need a 'third culture', a mixture between the two. An engineer reads a novel to catch up, it's not often that somebody with education in the humanities reads chemistry to catch up with the basic knowledge of the science.

  • It should take only one or two yrs to get a Humanity Art degree. If it takes longer than that, then you are a moron.

  • He has a good point

  • @WiseMonkey888 Biology and medicine aren't real sciences? I guess you should ingest trinitrotoluene instead of amoxycillin to cure your infection.

  • Comment removed

  • @JCMac777 - he's just being poetic, expressing taste. Obv math is the purest, then we work our way down the line.

  • @JCMac777 Someone has a monkey on their back. He was obviously just trying to be funny. Surely you've heard this joke like, a million times (I sure have).

  • *flushes history degree down toilet*

  • @Ricky103 Want some Poli Sci to toss in there too?

  • @alowlyapprentice lol, yea just chuck it next to my sense of pride and achievement.

  • @WiseMonkey888 LOL!!!!!!

  • @WiseMonkey888 Certainly a funny statement, but physics is nothing but applied mathematics, am I wrong? :P

  • @Canterwoodcore as an Applied Mathematician I support this statement.

  • @Canterwoodcore Mathematics concerns all self-consistent conclusions(and thus encompasses everything) while physics concerns only the self-consistent conclusions which are applicable to the universe. I've noticed that mathematicians often scoff at physicists for their lack of rigor, while physicists scoff at mathematicians for their lack of intuition. If it was that simple, starting out as a talented mathematician should have made upper-level physics easy for me, and yet, that's not the case.

  • @Zubinen My comment was all in good fun. They are different subjects altogether and can't really be compared, so I concede. You are correct.

  • @Canterwoodcore The problem is that knowledge is too specialized today. When we say "mathematics" there are many things that could come to mind. For example the field of algebraic geometry is very different from numerical analysis, and both are very different from combinatorics. The same is the case with the various fields of physics(ranging from experimental to computational to analytical/theoretical).

  • @Canterwoodcore Re; Physics is just applied math.. am I wrong

    Yes, You're wrong. It's applied mathematics with experiments. Galileo was the innovator who went beyond pure thought. Until that time most people did their physics by math only. It was the addition of experimentation that caused the leap forward that we're enjoying now.

  • @Canterwoodcore Definitely, physics was created from Calculus :-D

Loading...
Alert icon
0 / 00Unsaved Playlist Return to active list
    1. Your queue is empty. Add videos to your queue using this button:
      or sign in to load a different list.
    Loading...Loading...Saving...
    • Clear all videos from this list
    • Learn more