"Maths, in university, is useless bull..."

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So please, tell me what I have cost society through my education.

If you've been private and unsubsidised all the way, then that would be true. If not, then you've cost society money, in paying for your education.

Note I do agree about the worth of arts degrees, but they still cost society money with education.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
It's self-refuting.

You cannot be a consistent relativist.

Yes you can. Relativism is not a moral philosphy, it's a philosophy of morality, just like you have philosophies of science, etc.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You telling me you wouldn't benefit from an ethics course?

Yes. I already know my system of ethics inside and out.

You just flung a huge passage from Hume at me.

That wasn't ethics

[Fve Crathva]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Actually, it does Philosophers some good to take a few writing courses, to make their ideas more understandeable.

Of course, some 'writing' courses teach jargon, but that's another matter.

That's why it needs to be technical writing. No jargon, no thesauruses, no compacting ideas into subjective packages. Ideas are all well and good, but they're damned useless if only a few nerds can understand them (that is, of course, only if they're supposed to be relevant to normal people).

SP

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Maybe it's because Ethics requires you to think of something besides numbers and figures for once?

Obviously, you have no concept of what goes on in university programs. If all we did was numbercrunching, we'd have computers for that.

Somebody has to solve the problems. Somebody has to think. And I'm talking real thinking here, not the "thinking" you get with ethics courses. Where we do not argue if it's ethical to save a burning baby against its mothers wishes, but try to figure out how to write the most efficient algorithms to, say, fold proteins...

Right, and I suppose the scientists who are honest will get the most government pay.

Scientists are not more honest then lawyers, they are just better at covering things up, Mendel's thumb and all.

Scientists, in general, don't have to lie to make a living. Most lawyers do this without thinking. Politicians do it, as well (funny how many lawyers become politicians).

It's generally impossible to lie in science, or if you do you're caught and severely punished (see the Bell Labs incident last year).

Society has invested nothing. I paid for half of it myself, and all of my tuition portion of the degree. The rest of my costs, such as housing, my parent's covered.

So please, tell me what I have cost society through my education.

You're seriously unaware that your education is heavily subsidized by the Canadian government?

You pay a minority of the cost it takes to educate you. The rest comes from society in the form of taxpayers.

Finally, there's nothing wrong with manual labour. It's a valuable contribution to society. Everybody wants a nice place to live, and how can you have that without construction workers?

There's nothing wrong with it, of course. I do take issue with lots of public funds being used to teach useless courses that do not benefit society in return. Such as you taking a whole degree in something trivial (was it history?), and then end up doing something that you don't even need a high school diploma to do.

Society invested tens of thousands of dollars into you to educate you, and what they got in return was someone doing manual labour with virtually no educational requirements.

You're uber-right-wing, don't you see the wastefulness of your behavior?

[notyoueither]

So what do we do with all the science majors who work outside their field? I could fill a warehouse with the BScs who work in warehouses. We could fill a city if we include those driving buses, working in mines and on the rigs, stocking shelves in grocery stores, and yes, working in construction.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
So what do we do with all the science majors who work outside their field? I could fill a warehouse with the BScs who work in warehouses. We could fill a city if we include those driving buses, working in mines and on the rigs, stocking shelves in grocery stores, and yes, working in construction.

Obviously they went to the University of Alberta.

They, too, have obviously not done very well with society's investment if they don't use it.

The problem is, most science grads do find relevant jobs. The same is not true for philosophy majors, or even history majors (though I do think history is useful in a university, I just question why people choose to major in it if not to become a prof themselves).

[notyoueither]

Actually, I'd like to see stats cos I seriously doubt that 50% of science grads ever get a job in their field, or even related. You need more than a bachelors in many cases.

You seem to seriously disagree with what society expects from undergrads. University education has been massively expanded in the last 50 years because most of the governments involved have felt that having more, better educated people would be good for society in general and the economy in particular.

There are a lot of jobs that do not require technical expertise with chemistry, biology, computers, or any other 'science'. A majority of them, I would bet. Still, it is good to have people who are trained to think on their own to fill those jobs. That is why the humanities are as large a part of universities today as any of the sciences.

[Asher]

It's true that the "pure" sciences have more trouble with jobs, like chem and physics.

It's usually up to the applied sciences to find jobs.

That said, it's the "pure" scientists doing research that makes everyone's life better. I honestly can't say the same thing about philosophers today at universities, though they'll proclaim otherwise I'm sure...

After all, we need their guidance on how to form our morals and ethics. We need someone of their stature and intellect to tell us what we should believe is ethical.

[Kuciwalker]

Without the pure sciences we wouldn't have the applied.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Asher
It's true that the "pure" sciences have more trouble with jobs, like chem and physics.

It's usually up to the applied sciences to find jobs.

That said, it's the "pure" scientists doing research that makes everyone's life better. I honestly can't say the same thing about philosophers today at universities, though they'll proclaim otherwise I'm sure...

After all, we need their guidance on how to form our morals and ethics. We need someone of their stature and intellect to tell us what we should believe is ethical.

Actually, you might not, but society in general does. Professionals are taught about ethics and how it effects issues related to their field. Medical ethics, legal ethics, even engineering has some component of professional ethics (I am pretty sure). The people who teach students about ethics for their field will be involved with philosophy departments, ususally.

When a new issue arises, say reproductive rights and modern technology, many of the people involved in examining the issues and raising questions will be faculty of philosophy departments.

I wouldn't say that any given member of any philosophy department is incredibly useful on any given day, but it's good to have a few of them around from time to time, even if there were no students to teach (which there are).

[Asher]

Edit: to Kuciwalker

Indeed.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Actually, you might not, but society in general does. Professionals are taught about ethics and how it effects issues related to their field. Medical ethics, legal ethics, even engineering has some compontnet of professional ethics (I am pretty sure). The people who teach students about ethics for their field will be involved with philosophy departments, ususally.

When a new issue arises, say reproductive rights and modern technology, many of the people involved in examining the issues and raising questions will be faculty of philosophy departments.

I wouldn't say that any given member of any philosophy department is incredibly useful on any given day, but it's good to have a few of them around from time to time, even if there were no students to teach (which there are).

What gives Philosophy majors the right to dictate ethics for the rest of society?

Because they've "studied" ethics?

It's patently ridiculous as far as I'm concerned.

[notyoueither]

They don't 'dictate' it, Asher, they discuss it, examine it, and make their opinions known.

[Whaleboy]

It's self-refuting.

You cannot be a consistent relativist.

Wrong. Firstly there is the counter of human truth, secondly there is my counter of the subjective context and thirdly there is the notion of qualitative relativism, assuming a relativist will concede quantative.