> STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years
What does this refer to?
What does this refer to?
I'm not sure I would phrase it as STEM itself devaluing non-stem (I mean it's an acronym for subjects) but, rather society in general devaluing these, example, how hard is it go out, get a philosophy degree, and practice/write that and live comfortably with that occupation (no external sources of income). History/Literature seems to be much the same
Carl Sagan would have been a much better steward for science today, as he had a very healthy respect for the relationship between science and humanities and the latter's value for understanding our world.
This dangerous rift goes back even further. See C.P. Snow's lecture "The Two Cultures".(1)
EDIT: Not sure how this slipped my mind, but Sean Carroll is exactly the kind of representative of the syncretic relationship between sciences and humanities that ought to be the default, rather than the exception.
2. He has been quoted saying, "What they teach in the humanities is not 'skepticism' or 'critical thinking.' It's mental masturbation disguised as critical thinking"[5].
3. Tyson warned that philosophy "can really mess you up" and has implied that philosophy does not progress in the way science does[5].
4. His attitude towards philosophy has been characterized as science-defeating by some, as it dismisses the role of philosophy in addressing moral and aesthetic questions that science cannot answer[6].
5. Tyson's comments have sparked discussions and defenses of the humanities and philosophy, with critics arguing that his views are overly simplistic and do not represent the true value and diversity of philosophical inquiry[1][4][5][6].
[1] Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Wrong about Philosophy https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2014/05/13/neil-degrasse-tyso...
[2] An Open Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/2521di/an_open_...
[3] Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Value of Philosophy https://www.huffpost.com/entry/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-v...
[4] Why Does Neil deGrasse Tyson Hate Philosophy? https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2014/05/22/why_doe...
[5] Please Save Me from Neil DeGrasse Tyson https://humanitiescenter.byu.edu/please-save-me-from-neil-de...
[6] Neil deGrasse Tyson and the value of philosophy - 3 Quarks Daily https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/05/neil-degrasse-...
[7] Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Scientism and the Scapegoating of Philosophy http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2014/05/neil-deg...
[8] Maybe Neil DeGrasse Tyson Should Embrace The Humanities More https://terribleminds.com/ramble/2018/03/06/maybe-neil-degra...
[9] Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins on how philosophy has ... https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/2554xu/neil_deg...
[10] 225 thoughts on “Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy” https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physici...
[11] Neil deGrasse Tyson is wrong to dismiss all of philosophy, but he may have a point on some of it https://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/05/14/more-thoughts-on-ne...
[12] Neil deGrasse Tyson and Philosophy: The Voice and Never-Was of Science Insults the Foundation of All Intellectual Thought https://milliern.com/2014/05/31/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-phil...
For example, if a new exo-planet were found to have a certain chemical make up that our current understanding didn't agree with, that would go back to theoretical physics and mathematics, where they might discover a way to better describe the discovery. That then becomes a new model that allows us to recognize a new pattern of solar system formation, etc etc.
There's a practical application to STEM work. In what way is there a practical application in philosophy? Is it isolated to educating people on broader more complex thought?
Without those principles, people are often left with "I am just doing my job" and "this is what any person would do, right"?
Whereas a lot of us won't do certain things because, say, if everybody did them they'd be self contradictory (Kant) or when we look at the overall utility of dumping toxic waste into a river we might it has some larger negative consequences for society (Mill).
The point is someone has to start somewhere, and frequently philosophy is the field that tackled open ended questions. Once the questions get 'solved', it gets spun off into another branch of science.
Philosophy is the startup of science, the leading edge. Once it become a 'common' ordinary science, it gets re-named, re-packaged as 'the accepted way'.
It is happening a lot right now, because so many STEM people building AI are suddenly arm-chair philosophers coming up with 'new' questions, that are really 'old'. So the whole field is re-discovering philosophy.
Neither of them has said anything like this. Hawking's "philosophy (metaphysics) is dead" is a narrow point about the relevance of philosophy to basic theorizing about nature. NDT said something along the lines of he doesn't have time for questions like "what is the meaning of meaning". Neither can be reasonably construed as denigrating humanities. There have been a lot of folks on the other side who have put words into the mouths of these two for the sake of self-promotion. It's created a very warped perspective on what Hawkings and NDT actually believe.
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/neil-degrasse...
As far as I can tell, he doesn't say one charitable thing, and more, his attitude comes off as smug and arrogant.
What NDT is guilty of in the minds of so many of the commentators is not having what they consider due reverence and deference to philosophy. What none of the responses do is justify the supposed reverence scientists and popular culture more broadly should have. The points about philosophy being dead in the context of describing the physical world appear to be true. The point about philosophy not making progress (understood in the way that science makes progress) appears to be true. If the only claim to value one can make is for activity that happened centuries ago (being the forebearer to science), then philosophy truly is dead. While Pigliucci's points in defense of philosophy are true, they still don't tell us why anyone outside of philosophy should care about philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a philosophy hater. I quite enjoy philosophy, I read an awful lot of it. But this is because I like puzzles and I like navigating conceptual spaces and gaining deep understanding. But this isn't all that relevant to most people's lives. You want people to care about philosophy, you need to be relevant to them. Philosophy is failing at being relevant.
I don't see how any of that negates the effect of one of science's pre-eminent public advocates bad mouthing philosophy and the humanities. People hear this and take it at face value. It informs their opinions. It shapes their lives. And it's his purpose to shape people lives. He is partially responsible for the proliferation of similar views throughout the intellectual ecosystem. On this point, he is being irresponsible and ignorant. He ought to have and communicate more nuanced views of the world.
I am having a lot of trouble understanding how their is anything but a tortured defense of his behavior on this front.
Philosophy doesn't deserve deference or respect simply because it's an academic discipline. We've been far too deferential to questionable disciplines and their practitioners, and the academy is in bad shape because of it. Disciplines should be constantly challenged and expected to offer full throated defenses of their merits. If philosophy wants to be valued, it needs to actively demonstrate it's value. if the only thing it can do is get defensive when someone says something negative publicly about it, we might as well just shut it all down now because there's truly nothing left.
It's got nothing to do with what philosophy can't take.
The context of this conversation: science is not self-sufficient to be a force for good in this world without the aid of the humanities.
Scientism is naive and self-undermining.
Not what this discussions is about at all.
That is some straw man rhetoric.
That actual point was "Hey STEM people, you are talking in circles yourselves, and re-inventing the wheel, maybe checkout what some other fields have already studied"
There are two hypotheses: one is that consciousness is essentially a computation, the other that it is an unknowable stuff. Philosophers spend time talking how one or the other hypothesis "feels right" to them. Scientists try to see what results can be obtained through computation.
Now we got to the point where we have automaton talking. Still very very far from understanding how brain works, but an interesting discovery on the way to it. Meanwhile, what philosophers have to say is still as uninteresting and irrelevant as it was in 1879...
Similarly progress in understanding AI will come from people who actually build and experiment with AI, or with brains.
As for ethics, i don't see how is it relevant.
Do you realize that physics requires the adoption of a philosophy? Physics addresses problems that are effectively easy. Physicists have tools, such as mathematics, at their disposal and can make wildly simplifying assumptions.
Philosophers are often trying to address what the questions even are and then try to develop new tools to both explore the questions and their answers. Physics is downstream of philosophy.
In the example of question of consciousness, the point of view presented by William James here was obvious to people long before him. Scientific observation have shown the possibility of the alternative theory: that we are automata. We still do not have a definitive answer which one is correct, but philosophy have not contributed anything towards finding the correct answer. And the only progress we had in last 2500 years was due to science.
That's the point. And the converse is true as well.
Bwahh! Sick burn.
The humanities is not a monolith.
If you ask a philosopher in the analytic tradition, which is the tradition in which most of the philosophical world resides, they are likely to disagree with social constructivist views.
The Sokal affair was not some sort of isolated aberration, the truth is that enormous chunks of the humanities are worthless.
Many of the smartest people I have met, including some of the best programmers, have had non-STEM backgrounds. The push by the STEM industry has pushed universities to be STEM industry preparation and training centers. This, among other things, has greatly devalued non-STEM education. And even within STEM, there are subdisciplines that been devalued.
It's a shame, because many of the non-STEM disciplines that have been devalued are effectively systems disciplines that help train for understanding complex relationships and the effects of time and other effects on these relationships. So we are also devaluing those skills in favor of short-term STEM thinking.
They were likely all dead before you were born.
Do you know some things about the Manhattan Project, Bell Labs, Bletchley Park, the Apollo Project, the Gutenberg press, the invention of carbon steel?
That’s history.
I’ll go further. If I said ‘he was referencing Science, not science’ would that make any sense?
I was a CS professor for a long time. Like many of my STEM colleagues, I taught the history of the ideas in my discipline as an intrinsic and important part of the curriculum. It’s also good pedagogy, since the long process of getting closer to the truth or developing more powerful technology is part of the toolbox we are trying to impart.
It's not a deeper point.
Of course science has its own history and that history is examined (sometimes) in the course of scientific education. That's not what's at issue.
What's at issue is that History as a subject and other Humanities disciplines are systematically devalued in STEM disciplines and by scientific cultural mouthpieces and participants in STEM endeavors.