STEM is not our friend The good life needs the humanities Mike VanQuickenborne Email for a copy of these slides w/ bibliography: mvanquickenborne@everettcc.edu Follow: @VanQuickenborne Thanks To the other presenters in this series. To Joyce Walker who has asked me to do this for a third year. When will she learn Pop quiz time! Which is the answer: a. Science b. Technology c. Engineering d. Mathematics I promise you folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree. Now, nothing wrong with an art history degree I love art history. So I don't want to get a bunch of e-mails from everybody. Barak Obama, January 30, 2014
On the other hand... In a recent New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 who were not working, 37 percent of those who said they wanted a job said technology was a reason they did not have one. What is the question? If this is the question: Which discipline is most useful in helping you to acquire financial security? The answer is: e. Any of the above f. Or, more specifically, Petroleum Engineering If this is the question: Which is most useful in achieving the good life for all? The answer is: e. None of the above
What you decide to study/do Depends at least in part on what you see as the most pressing problems in society: Is it that we don t have enough quality of life? Is it that we don t have enough technology? Is it that we don t have enough work? Is it that there s too much poverty? Which problems I perceive as the most pressing will inevitably be biased by my own circumstances: I m reasonably healthy and have friends and family philosophy instructor B.A. in mathematics (and philosophy) tenured in a faculty union own a nice ipad live in Anacortes The biggest problem as I see it: We can t get along War: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine Terrorism: France, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran Conflict: China/Japan, India/Pakistan Prejudice: Misogyny, Racism, Religious oppression Gridlock: Washington D.C., Olympia If we could get along We could have a higher quality of life The benefits of technology could be more widespread We could have more opportunities to work We could have less poverty
Martha Nussbaum: Not for Profit (2010) She writes that we are in the midst of a crisis of education: The humanities and the arts are being cut away. (2) They are getting lost in the competitive flurry for educational funding (7). To support her view she relates several cases on pages 3-5. Could we add our own anecdotes from EvCC? Could we add our own anecdotes? Class capacities in the sciences: 24 Class capacities in literature classes: 39 Science is our friend? Nussbaum writes: Science, rightly pursued, is a friend of the humanities rather than their enemy. (8) C.P. Snow, in The Two Cultures (1959) argues for an equality of value between the humanities and sciences, and that the two ought to cooperate to each be more fruitful. Snow also notes that Most of our fellow human beings are underfed and die before their time and scientists (rather than literary intellectuals ) are inclined to see if something can be done. (170) If you enjoy doing STEM stuff, by all means, develop that interest. We need good STEMsters. (Bonu$: you ll probably make a lot of money!)
But science is not as valuable as the humanities Do I need to know more about science? (Snow suggests the Second Law of Thermodynamics?) Ever heard of a little thing called the internet? The reason people suffer from a low quality of life is not a lack of scientific prowess, it s that there is too much conflict, a situation that is best addressed through the humanities. We don't need better scientific information as much as the humanities As Ezra Klein writes in How politics makes us stupid : the more information partisans get, the deeper their disagreements become. And: our reasoning becomes rationalizing when we re dealing with questions where the answers could threaten our tribe or at least our social standing in our tribe. This is from research done in 2013 by Dan Kahan, et al. Pop Quiz #2: Strawberry skin cream: 200 get better, 100 get worse Banana skin cream: 80 get better, 20 get worse Which skin cream is better? 4/10 got this correct Now, consider two groups of people taking a test: Americans: 200 pass the test, 100 fail French: 80 pass the test, 20 fail Who are the cleverest? The upshot: Those who were better at math tended to make more mistakes when the topic changed to one which involved group membership Mathematical (scientific, technological, engineering) skills were used to defend a person's preexisting beliefs, not correct their misperceptions This is why climate change deniers tend to be well versed in the science surrounding it
Fairly weighing evidence Requires seeing other people as human beings, not simply as objects. (Nussbaum, 6) Objects as in: Republicans and Democrats Conservatives and Liberals Christians and Muslims And Atheists too. The ability to imagine the experience of another a capacity almost all human beings possess in some form needs to be greatly enhanced and refined if we are to have any hope of sustaining decent institutions across the many divisions that any modern society contains. Martha Nussbaum (p. 10) Which disciplines offers the best way to help us imagine the experience of another: a. Science b. Technology c. Engineering d. Mathematics e. Humanities Moral progress is not a matter of an increase of rationality a gradual diminution of the influence of prejudice and superstition, permitting us to see our moral duty more clearly [it is] a matter of increasing sensitivity, increasing responsiveness to the needs of a larger and larger variety of people and things. Richard Rorty
Conclusions The humanities are indispensable for making moral progress, and this is the type of progress we are most in need of. We don t need to pursue the humanities because we have a soul. (Contra Nussbaum on page 6.) We need to pursue them because it is clear that without them we will only be able to use science to support our own views. Kahan s research shows that being able to bridge the gap between perspectives requires the type of thinking which is developed by the humanities, not more scientific evidence. Conclusions So, STEM is not your friend? In the same sense that a hammer is not your friend. It s a tool. Having a lot of really cool tools is useful. But don t stay out in your workshop all the time: come inside the house and talk about important issues with your significant other, your neighbors, your elected representatives, and strange people you meet in class. Thank you. Questions? Bibliography: Martha Nussbaum Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Princeton University Press, 2010 Get the first chapter of Not for Profit for free here: http:// press.princeton.edu/chapters/ s9112.pdf Also see: To Save the Humanities Change the Narrative : http:// chronicle.com/article/to-savethe-humanities-change/ 149513/ And Harper s Blog from June 1, 2010: http://harpers.org/blog/ 2010/06/_not-for-profit_-sixquestions-for-marthanussbaum/
Bibliography: On belief formation research The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science : http:// www.motherjones.com/ politics/2011/03/denialscience-chris-mooney How politics makes us stupid : www.vox.com/ 2014/4/6/5556462/braindead-how-politics-makesus-stupid Cass Sunstein, Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter, Harvard Business Review Press, 2014. Bibliography: Snow and Rorty C.P. Snow: The Two Cultures available via JSTOR Richard Rorty: Ethics without principles from Philosophy and Social Hope, Penguin, 1999. Also see Colin Koopman s Rorty s Moral Philosophy for Liberal Democratic Culture found online at: http://pages.uoregon.edu/ koopman/courses_readings/ rorty/koopman_cprortyliberalculture-final.pdf Other references: Poll on technology taking jobs away: http:// www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/upshot/as-robots-growsmarter-american-workers-struggle-to-keep-up.html An article on Peter Thiel, who believes technology is the answer to our problems: http://chronicle.com/article/the- Rich-Mans-Dropout-Club/151703/# The vaccination rate database I (may have) mentioned: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-guy/2015/02/04/explorethis-vaccine-exemption-rates-for-every-washington-school/