# What do humanistic disciplines offer that scientific disciplines do not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057 "2010-06-05T14:13:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dioptre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/278dde/32.png) [@Dioptre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dioptre)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/21 "2010-06-07T10:44:53Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > Post-modernists are extremely obsessed with epistemology, so I do not understand what you mean here. > > Regarding applied science and going beyond the natural world: > > Humanities still rate special distinction because it is not as if applied sciences go so beyond the natural world as to engage in things like metaphysics. My experience - subjective I know - is that post-modernists are extremely obsessed with everyone else’s epistemology. Validation of their own work is almost by definition self-defeating. “Metaphysics” has the same epistemological problems, as it basically refers to anything that there isn’t a scientific method (in a general sense, not a Popper sense) suitable for evaluation. Humanities can provide generation of hypotheses, but we would need a restructuring of the academic framework for hypotheses generation alone to be an entire contribution in its own right. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/22 "2010-06-07T13:00:35Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > Post-modernists are extremely obsessed with epistemology, so I do not understand what you mean here. Have you heard of the [Sokal Hoax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)? It’s pretty good evidence that some (at least) leading post-modernists wouldn’t know epistemology from a hole in the ground, and - more importantly - that post-modernism is a fertile environment for superstition and mumbo-jumbo. Can you explain to us how you tell the difference between a genuine post-modernist thinker who’s really trying to produce “excellent intellectual work” and a snake-oil salesman? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/23 "2010-06-07T13:29:03Z")
I am reminded of the old joke about the dean’s complaint when the head of the physics deparment submitted a budget request: “Why do you physicists need so much expensive equipment? All the math deparment ever needs is paper, pencils, and erasers. And the philosophy department is even better. All they ever need are paper and pencils.” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/24 "2010-06-07T14:21:45Z")
> [@Khaki\_Campbell](#): > > Yeah, as more time passes, a humanities student learns less and less about more and more things. > At the end, s/he knows almost nothing about almost everything. The way I heard that joke, it was the engineers who learned less and less about more and more until they knew nothing about everything. It’s the physicists who learn more and more about less and less untill they know everything about nothing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/25 "2010-06-07T19:00:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yeah, lots and lots of \*discussion \*- and precious little result of value. We’ve had philosophers since the Greeks, and still no answers. We’ve had real science for a few centuries, and lookie here - real answers to all the big questions Can’t that be half the value, though? I mean, if you’re right, then a solid background in philosophy would help budding skeptics pick apart flawed justifications and dispute false claims regarding the truth of Marxism, or whatever – not merely by assuming there are no answers and declaring as much every time a statement of that sort comes up, but by actually playing ‘critical thinker’ on the merits of each claim. And, who knows, once in a great while maybe another conceptual framework _ **does** _ manage to earn a transition over from philosophy to science. The point is to keep plugging away, earnestly and actively, instead of letting preconceptions settle the question by default when acting as philosophical counterpuncher. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/26 "2010-06-08T04:08:55Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > Perhaps you could provide some examples of work done post-tenure in these fields by true academic leaders that you think provides some demonstration of the worth of such departments to people outside of academia. Everybody understands that if you don’t grasp grasp basic epochal distinctions such as the ‘Middle Ages’ you don’t know much history. Peter Brown has shown that we have been ignorant of one such basic epoch, Late Antiquity. See his books _Augustine of Hippo_ , _The World of Late Antiquity_, and _The Making of Late Antiquity_. [http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/brown/](http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/brown/) can give you sense of his accomplishments, post-tenure. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/27 "2010-06-08T04:13:05Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > It’s perfectly fair to ask how well the humanities are aligned with their stated goals. Do they help us to make value judgments? Do they inform our knowledge of the human condition? Is current work still helping in those directions? How well does the body of humanistic knowledge reach outside of the academy? The answers to those questions certainly matter. Right on, it’s just the post I was responding to insisted on objective measurement of progress. I don’t think we’ll ever have objective measurement of human progress in dealing with things like moral dilemmas. Assessment via humanistic disciplinary methods, sure. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/28 "2010-06-08T05:16:40Z")
> [@Dioptre](#): > > My experience - subjective I know - is that post-modernists are extremely obsessed with everyone else’s epistemology. Validation of their own work is almost by definition self-defeating. > > “Metaphysics” has the same epistemological problems, as it basically refers to anything that there isn’t a scientific method (in a general sense, not a Popper sense) suitable for evaluation. > > Humanities can provide generation of hypotheses, but we would need a restructuring of the academic framework for hypotheses generation alone to be an entire contribution in its own right. That’s what I meant too about their obsession with epistemology. But I don’t think they need care about validation because their value is as critics of our philosophical traditions and I doubt they have much promise (or interest) in offering alternatives to what they critique. Metaphysics doesn’t require a rigorous epistemological foundation anymore than interpreting literature does. But I think such activities still have value – a non-scientific value – in the ways I and other posters have posited. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/29 "2010-06-08T05:19:37Z")
General comment on the thread as a whole: Can we get specific critique of what this thread has claimed the humanities have to offer in contrast with the sciences? We are getting instead ‘I don’t like the humanities for these general reasons’. The purpose of the thread is not to juxtapose a list of things some people don’t like about the humanities with a list of things others do like. Criticism of what this thread attempts is much desired, but just generally sperging on the humanities is a little too scattershot to help. How about we try it out on this idea: “The humanities differ from the sciences in that they teach us how to judge what is good and what is bad in both the moral and aesthetic realms.” ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/30 "2010-06-08T05:23:23Z")
If I was a University funding board and had to chose between a Hadron collider experiment or a guy sitting in a room thinking really hard I’m pretty sure I know what I’d go with. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/31 "2010-06-08T07:28:52Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > If I was a University funding board and had to chose between a Hadron collider experiment or a guy sitting in a room thinking really hard I’m pretty sure I know what I’d go with. Good thing you weren’t in charge of deciding whether to support Andrew Wiles’ research that resulted in the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, then. As a researcher in a field involving both sciences and humanities, I see a lot of these misunderstandings from both sides, as it were. I yield to nobody in my admiration for what modern science has accomplished and is accomplishing, but I think a lot of its fanboys are awfully naive about not only fields outside science, but also science itself. Science doesn’t actually exist in an intellectual vacuum, and trends in other fields have always had profound effects on it. IME, one thing that the humanities provide that the sciences generally don’t is a sense of proportion about historical evidence and the development of cultures. I work partly on the history of ancient science in some areas that are chronologically quite uncertain, and I simply can’t count the number of times I’ve encountered some ninny of a scientist (or doctor or engineer) who’s got this great theory based on interpreting ONE particular artifact or textual reference from the relevant period as a pointer to a specific astronomical event. Because we can precisely date the astronomical event, that enables us to fix the chronology for this historical development! What a great theory! Except that it’s bullshit. You can’t simply toss out a carefully constructed best-guess historical model, based on a large totality of information about linguistic development, cultural context, intertextual allusions, and historical probabilities, in deference to your preferred interpretation of ONE data point. A historical theory, unlike a scientific theory, generally doesn’t have nice neat criteria for falsifying it, and it generally takes a lot of sophisticated and far-reaching reinterpretation to falsify a dominant theory plausibly. I spend a fair bit of time explaining to ignorant hopefuls (who have PhD’s in scientific disciplines and are clearly no dummies) why their brilliant strategy for scientifically resolving a historical controversy isn’t actually going to do squat to resolve the controversy. Scientists, for some reason, seem very prone to severe naivete and lack of perspective when dealing with evidentiary and epistemological issues in fields outside of science. That’s something that only in-depth exposure to the humanities seems able to cure. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/32 "2010-06-08T11:49:38Z")
Didn’t Wiles essentially do his research in secret, on his own time? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/33 "2010-06-08T12:13:55Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > I’m an English teacher, and I got my start tutoring at a community college. Most of the students I worked with were computer science students from foreign (non-English speaking) countries. They were brilliant within their specialized field, but none could write a declarative sentence or convey simple information (directions to a house, or the contents of a college transfer essay) to speakers of English. Exposure to the humanities enables them to do things beyond writing code. They can ask a girl out to dinner, order food at a restaurant on a date with this girl, make connections to a larger circle of contacts than their immediate co-workers, distinguish between the values of multiple candidates for public office. And none of this will diminish their ability to write code. Yes, Humanities doesn’t need to exist for the purpose of making money. It exists for the knowledge it brings to the students. I would vote for a lot less time spent on science and more time spent on learning how to grow up emotionally. ---
**Author:** ![Dioptre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/278dde/32.png) [@Dioptre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dioptre)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/34 "2010-06-08T16:18:41Z")
To keep on topic with the thread, the main point of my introduction of epistomology was not to rail on humanities in general, but to suggest that you can only resolve the value of a discipline if they themselves can make repeatable judgements about what is valuable work within the discipline. That’s why I think philosophy, history and maths have almost self-evident value. I think that an accurate summary of the value would be “increasing knowledge about things other than the physical world”. Happy to expand further on the type of knowledge each increases if anyone wants to disagree with this. It would be interesting what types of knowledge people see the other humanities as increasing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/35 "2010-06-08T16:34:05Z")
> [@Captain Ridley](#): > > Didn’t Wiles essentially do his research in secret, on his own time? He kept the subject of his work secret, yes, but his research activity in general was funded by various fellowships, as well as by his department at Princeton. It’s fair to say that he was being deliberately funded for “sitting in a room thinking really hard”, with no guarantee that what he was thinking about would ever produce significant results. Some major breakthroughs in human knowledge don’t actually involve massive experimental technology and dozens of lab assistants; some of them are nothing more than “a guy sitting in a room thinking really hard”. > [@Dioptre](#): > > […] the main point of my introduction of epistomology was not to rail on humanities in general, but to suggest that you can only resolve the value of a discipline if they themselves can make repeatable judgements about what is valuable work within the discipline. > > That’s why I think philosophy, history and maths have almost self-evident value. I’m not following you about philosophy and history being able to make “repeatable judgements about what is valuable work within the discipline”. Valuable work is indeed frequently recognized in philosophy and history, but there certainly are no uniform criteria across the entire discipline of either field about what constitutes “value” in research. ---
**Author:** ![Swarog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Swarog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swarog)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057/36 "2010-06-08T18:36:26Z")
> [@vaevictis](#): > > in the second paragraph, you just sound as if you are trying to judge the humanities by objective scientific measurement. This thread is about how they are different from the sciences, so such a metric is not pertinent. exactly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-humanistic-disciplines-offer-that-scientific-disciplines-do-not/542057.md?page=1)