We are too often unable or unwilling as a society to discuss and
debate things well, which greatly impairs our effectiveness, connectedness, and
growth.
A small minority of ideologues, pundits, commercial interests, and
angry trolls hold the vast majority of us who welcome reasoned, reasonable
debate as hostages. This frequently translates to some people feeling they are
unquestionably correct about an issue, pushing their camp's sometimes
fallacious talking points, while others in their zero-sum equation are totally,
disgracefully wrong. If it were only that simple.
This phenomenon is dangerously at work when people pit STEM
against the humanities, social
sciences, and liberal arts. Edward Luce wrote in
the May 3rd Financial Times
that, “In an ever more algorithmic world, people believe the humanities are
irrelevant.” The truth is, of course, that humanities have never been more
relevant – and more desperately needed – than right now.
Science is under a brutal attack, so our commitment to its advancement
is more essential than ever. That’s precisely why STEM must work in an integrated
manner with the humanities, social sciences, and liberal arts unless, of
course, we’ve concluded that human beings and the pressing need to
understand human cognition and emotion are no longer relevant. Until we live in
world so pristinely algorithmic that human capability, motivation, and emotion no longer
matter, then STEM and humanities must be two sides of the same coin. It’s
not an “either-or” game, and those who pit these two great traditions against
one another in the age-old "science vs. art" cliché do us all a disservice.
The study and advancement of STEM is exponentially enhanced by an
underlying understanding of human nature. After all, employers always tell us
that they are satisfied with college graduates’ technical training, but largely
dissatisfied with graduates’ ability and willingness to listen, write, and speak
well, participate on teams effectively, think critically, understand context,
and manage their emotions and expectations. We should encourage young people to
study STEM disciplines, for sure, but let’s help them choose schools and programs
that require serious exposure to writing, public speaking, logic, creativity, history,
and sociology. This knowledge will only make them better, more employable scientists, mathematicians, and engineers and, over time, even better leaders ... and citizens.
The impulse to engage in “us against them” tribalism
and participate in warring camps is societally self-destructive. Yes, we want
to belong. As such, we boil things down to simplistic, black-and-white and
often extreme notions, which is too bad since most solutions to complex
challenges lie in the vast gray area between self-certainties. That’s why we find some
STEM folks proclaiming that we don’t need more poets, as if the
humanities was somehow the province of idle poets. Besides, it seems to me that the we could use a few more thoughtful poets these days. It’s also why some in the
liberal arts portray STEM people as nerds and geeks unacquainted with the
human condition. Do these folks ever consider that virtually everything we depend upon in medicine, transportation, or environmental remediation, for example, stems from STEM? Once again, the cliché of extremes does little to illuminate.
I always marvel at the battles between "quant" and
"qual" camps in scholarly research, as well, which is
particularly absurd since the choice of methodology should depend on the
research questions being asked and not on allegiance to a particular camp. I
shake my head when I hear arguments about offense being far more important than
defense or the passing game being more critical than the run game in football
since, holistically, each needs the other to succeed.
Of course, it's difficult to discuss - let alone fathom - the
verbal diarrhea that passes for most political “discussion” these days, so
let's just set that one aside for the moment.
Image courtesy of memegenerator.net