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Comment by frozenport | Hacker News Reader

>>thinkers who know to consider chemistry’s impact on society and the environment.

I would rather we had chemistry that could impact the environment instead of thinkers who philosophized over its impact.

There might be an interesting argument about how liberal arts eduction contributes to STEM, or perhaps that STEM has low standards and anybody can decide to be a biologists on a whim, but the more interesting arguments are not made by the article. Perhaps the author could use an extra English class.

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How about:

A scientist trained in the liberal arts has another huge advantage: writing ability.

It might not be an "interesting" argument, but I remember my best college professor expressly lamenting that engineering students no longer knew how to write.

I also remember discovering the steady decline in the quality of datasheet & manual technical writing, starting somewhere in the late 80's.

Writing is quite important in software development, especially on open-source projects where much communication occurs via email and bug tracker. With the glut of projects competing for attention, copywriting ability can be important in attracting other developers to a project.

>>STEM has low standards and anybody can decide to be a biologists on a whim

I'm not following... what do you mean by biologist? As far as I've been informed (perhaps biased by the difficult job market of recent years) it is VERY difficult to find actual jobs doing meaningful biology work.

>> VERY difficult to find actual jobs doing meaningful biology work.

Depends what you mean by meaningful. My department the EE/CS labs have ~5 people, the biology labs have double. Cells need to grow, protocols can take days. Most people I know in biology are doing some form of technician work. Indeed an undergrad can come in to a biology lab and become a biologist on a whim, I even know many highschool students who are productive with a week of training - I don't know any in remote sensing. So you are correct.

[Looks my rep is gonna take hit, but I work with these people every day, so w/e]

Yeah, you're right. I mean, anyone who can follow basic instructions is part of the field, just like a 15 years old editing a WordPress config file is a Computer Engineer, right?

In all seriousness, there is a big difference between doing lab work, which can absolutely be done by high schoolers, and skilled, technical work in the biological / chemical fields. As pa5tabear said, there just aren't as many jobs out there for the skilled biologists or chemists, which is one reason you can usually see people with degrees doing jobs which they are "overqualified" for.

> Indeed an undergrad can come in to a biology lab and become a biologist on a whim, I even know many highschool students who are productive with a week of training

Are these people getting paid?

I guess burger flipping experience makes you a chef, too?

Sigh.

I knew exactly the kind of arguments I'd see on this thread. The same 'hurr durr STEM > liberal arts' I see on Reddit and elsewhere.

It's time we moved beyond a confrontational, antagonistic relationship between these two most fundamental pursuits of study.

There's a very good reason why this argument comes up again and again.

STEM disciplines are in the analytic philosophy tradition (at least the ones that are any good). For the most part, liberal arts are in the continental philosophy tradition (this wasn't always the case).

There can be no peace, or even understanding between the two schools of thought.

It's closer to say that the analytic philosophy tradition grew out of STEM (especially M) roots, via people like Russel and Whitehead. "Analytic philosophy" is a phenomenon of the 20th century, while STEM fields go back anywhere from centuries to millenia.

I do agree that the current (and hopefully transient) dominance of continental philosophy in the liberal arts makes it more difficult for people in those areas to grasp STEM fields, and would furthermore say that since "STEM people need more liberal arts training!" has been the call for my entire decades-long career (and likely before) there is unlikely to ever be anything that satisfies people. I've been in grad courses in philosophy where a solid minority of students were from the sciences, but never seen more than one or two people (always from philosophy) even in undergrad physics classes.

It's time to turn things around and say, "Liberal arts people need more STEM training! No one should be able to graduate from university who doesn't have at least some grounding in math, computing and a science." Unfortunately, if you extend this requirement beyond "physics for poets" the graduation rate drops to nearly zero, despite there being English, music, philosophy and history majors out there who make wickedly good software developers. But they are such a tiny minority as to barely count.

Thank you for this. I always wondered why I continually "butt heads" with some of my friends when discussing philosophy-related topics. I am not well-versed (being CS) and thought it was merely due to my lack of background.

Of course - I still lack background in "continental philosophy", but this helps my understanding.

What is your definition of STEM disciplines, and what is your definition of the liberal arts?

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