Formality vs Liberal arts

[phrostbyte]

Does it irritate anyone when liberal arts people (for instance, film critics, journalists, humanities professors, etc.) try to pass off opinion as fact? To me anything that isn't formally defined (via a mathematical proof), or by the scientific method ISN'T fact! But these people make a career out passing off opinions as facts..

Which brings me to my next point, how liberal arts can assign creditability to people and not to what they say. I mean, if a mathematician says something false, he gets called out on it, it doesn't matter if he/she is a student or a tenured professor.

This rant is a result of me having a debate about a certain movie with someone who is a studying to be a film critic by the way. But I've always generally disrespected the liberal arts fields and the whole subjectivity and opinions as science within it.

Sorry if anyone is offended.

:)

[luisito]

Even though I strongly disrespect liberal arts people intellectually, I carefully try to keep this to myself. Afterall, there are plenty of hot girls in liberal arts and I don't want to loose my chances with them.

[phrostbyte]

Even though I strongly disrespect liberal arts people intellectually, I carefully try to keep this to myself. Afterall, there are plenty of hot girls in liberal arts and I don't want to loose my chances with them.

My girlfriend is a liberal arts major (MA in English), and she openly admits the stupidity of the field and the people majoring in it. And yes, I've heard a computer science professor once joke that the whole liberal arts academic system was created so that people who can't pass College Algebra can get degrees. =D>

Again, sorry if I offended anyone! ):P

[keynell]

Don't you hate it when uppity science people try to pass off inductive reasoning as truth?

Don't you hate it when math people try to reduce the entirety of existence and the intricacies of the human condition into numbers and logic?

Don't you just love broad generalizations? ;)

[jrusso2]

I had to take algebra

[phrostbyte]

Don't you hate it when uppity science people try to pass off inductive reasoning as truth?

Yes I agree, but I don't see that very often. :)



Don't you hate it when math people try to reduce the entirety of existence and the intricacies of the human condition into numbers and logic?

Mathematics is the language of nature. Scientists use mathematics as a tool and a language to understand nature.



Don't you just love broad generalizations? ;)

I don't, but I just don't respect liberal arts. I was a liberal arts major myself for two years (I don't even know why! It's not me) so I've formulated my opinions on the field based on first hand experience. In fact one of the last essays I wrote before I switched over for good was in summary, an essay to disparage the field of Engineering as being cold and heartless and that liberal arts people are the smart and wise people. :roll: I'd probably barf if I'd read it again. But I got an A on that essay. :guitar:

[keynell]

Hey, we're all entitled to our opinions, but when you say you simply disrespect the liberal arts, as a whole, it cuts me rather deep. Yes, I am very partial to the humanities, especially after majoring in philosophy, but I can't help but feel that you're building a big puffy straw man out of personal bad experiences with 'liberal arts' people. I mean, I can understand not liking it, but poo-pooing the study of thousands of years of human art, language, philosophy, and culture itself... is that really reasonable?

And who gave you an A for that paper? I'm less bitter about 'cold and heartless' engineers than I am about the false division in our culture between the humanities and the 'hard' sciences. I hear that they used to be friends not that long ago...

[phrostbyte]

Hey, we're all entitled to our opinions, but when you say you simply disrespect the liberal arts, as a whole, it cuts me rather deep. Yes, I am very partial to the humanities, especially after majoring in philosophy, but I can't help but feel that you're building a big puffy straw man out of personal bad experiences with 'liberal arts' people. I mean, I can understand not liking it, but poo-pooing the study of thousands of years of human art, language, philosophy, and culture itself... is that really reasonable?

And who gave you an A for that paper? I'm less bitter about 'cold and heartless' engineers than I am about the false division in our culture between the humanities and the 'hard' sciences. I hear that they used to be friends not that long ago...

I'm sorry, I may have been too harsh. The Arts are important, I'm sure as a philosophy major you know that there is no real "formal" meaning of life, and progression of society, i.e. what do we really accomplish if we advance science as a society? Why is that worth it? It starts getting into the realm of subjectivity itself. :)

It just irrates me that that a film critic can call a movie, say Citizen Kane, a masterpiece and I disagree I am somehow less of a person to what is basically a very large segment of the discipline.

I mean it sorta undervalues the discipline, but an opinion is an an opinion, and you can't have an "informed" opinion if there is no formality behind the opinion in the first place! Following down the path to try and find formality to this mess just leads to smoke and mirrors, there is no mathematical proof or scientific theory for what makes a "good movie", or a "good book", or a "good philosophy". Yet we are often forced to take sides and pretend there is formality but it's really in the end groupthink and tradition.

[keynell]

I relish is subjectivity! I love it so much that I'd go out and claim that even 'objective' knowledge is subjective when scrutinized enough, but I'm not gonna go that far today :)

And no worries; it would irritate me too if someone said something so incredibly subjective and tried to pass it off as fact. Most awesome humanities people understand that they're dealing in incredibly subjective matters. And now I'm guilty of what I preach against! ARGH!

[sloggerkhan]

Believe whatever you like. If people disagree, decree a crusade.

It's not like anything is definitive outside of accepted context anyhow.

And often times liberal arts majors to annoy me, but so do a lot of science majors.

[original_jamingrit]

Numbers don't exist in the real world.

:D

[il-luzhin]

The art is in the words. A discussion is worthless when the results are predefined as in mathematics. Not having definitive answers makes the conversation more interesting, no?

And let us not forget, that simply because you may not have liked Citizen Kane, doesn't mean it wasn't good. Your opinion of it has no bearing on the fact that it changed the industry, revolutionized technique, and incapsulated one of the greatest directorial performances in film history.

Yes, opinion as fact sucks, but no more than opinion as justification to refuse facts. I get the impression that your attitude had an overbearing effect on your conversation.

I've got a Liberal Arts degree, BFA in Technical Theatre, and I wouldn't spend my life in any other way than surrounded by artistic personalities. And there is nothing I hate more than people who are incapable of seeing that imagination and artistic vision and opinion are what make everything from our GUIs to our floor carpet design possible.

Keep your cold mathematics, and the arrogance that you are using to give it a bad name as well.

[original_jamingrit]

I just think the premise for this thread is a little flawed. I know many computer science/engineering students who are extremely opinionated in terms of politics, acceptable social behaviour, video games, and hockey.

Creativity and Reasoning are not a dichotomy. Math and Science people need creativity to form hypothesis and/or strive to prove or disprove something they intuitively know is right or wrong (or they simply have curiosity). Writers and Painters need Reasoning to follow propers rules in their work, to create meaningful pieces that people other than themselves can appreciate. I mean, shoot, like at Da Vinci and Shakespeare. They are mostly admired by artists and writers, but engineers should be able to appreciate Da Vinci's work, just as programmers should be able to appreciate Shakespeare's writing. Or, look at XKCD (http://www.xkcd.com), for a more contemporary example. You need be neither a writer nor a engineer to laugh at those comics.

[p_quarles]

just as programmers should be able to appreciate Shakespeare's writing.
Or better yet, use quotations from his works as comments. Double points for relevance.

I have a master's degree in a humanities field, and agree that the premise of this thread is deeply flawed. There are people in all walks of life and disciplines that can't be bothered to reason their way through an open door. The fact that they exist doesn't say anything about their endeavors.