Mentioning Phil phD's

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
And there are many bus drivers with BS's. So?

I've never met one of those yet.
By bus do you mean nuclear submarine?

[notyoueither]

People do PHD's in the humanities for love, not for money. To me that is far more valuable to society than people seeking a buck.

[CyberGnu]

Sure. I would say, Hey! Look at the benefit of being an engineer. I would not be talking about exactly the same benefits as a Humanities student would be talking, of course.

I don't quite understand you...

[notyoueither]

They are different fields, Gnu.

Why is it difficult to understand that graduates would have different skill sets.

[CyberGnu]

Sure they would. The technical ones, certainly. And engineers are probably more adept at problem solving, while history majors are better at writing and possibly searching for information in literature.

But all the points you mentioned above (wisdom, critical thinking, "better citizenship", contributing in discussions) are equally well taught to engineers as to history majors.

[notyoueither]

You really have no clue what people in the humanities are trained to do, do you?

Write poetry about clouds all day, I suppose is your opinion.

The humanities are about arguement, not math. The humanities are about people, not concrete. The humanities are about evaluating theories, not proving theorems.

Now, of course the sciences and engineering have their places, but so too do the humanities. Those who suggest otherwise are fairly ignorant. btw, Philosophy is a branch of the humanities.

[Asher]

nye: I'd put a slight wager on engineers being better at problem solving than history majors...

Sure, humanities have their place. Nobody's bothered to explain what place philosophy has in university though.

Just saying "well it's a humanity" doesn't cut it...

[notyoueither]

What sort of problems, Asher?

Human problems? I doubt it.

Ethical problems regarding reproduction? Not even close. Give me a few dozen Ethesicsts, please. btw, they are philosophers.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
What sort of problems, Asher?

Human problems? I doubt it.

People in, say, Engineering are trained in general problem solving. You have X many resources, Y places to put them, and Z uses -- how do you do it? Stuff like that.

And many companies hire, say, engineers to do exactly that -- human problems. They hire them because they're proven problem solvers having survived engineering, which is a lot more rigourous than a History degree.

For example, the people my father work with are ALL engineers by training. The company hired them straight out of university, and NONE of them have done engineering work, at all, since they were hired. They're doing human resources and finance and negotiation stuff these days, project coordinators.

I could never see the large companies hiring a history major for the same duties.

Ethical problems regarding reproduction? Not even close. Give me a few dozen Ethesicsts, please. btw, they are philosophers.

I'm not old enough to consider reproduction a problem.

[Asher]

Argh, I just realized I defended engineers.

[notyoueither]

HARR HARR HARR.

And your dad and his coworkers deal with the human problem of how best to get the oil out of the ground. Human problems these are NOT.

No one hires an engineer to sign a treaty.

No one hires a science grad to look into the background of the people on the other side of the table.

People trained in dealing with people are hired to do those jobs. The humanities train one to deal with people in effective ways. Not bridges, or molecules, but people.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
And your dad and his coworkers deal with the human problem of how best to get the oil out of the ground. Human problems these are NOT.

How is that not a human problem?
Human resource allocation on a multi-billion dollar project employing ~60,000 people sure as hell is a human problem in my books.

No one hires an engineer to sign a treaty.

On the contrary, guess who negotiated with the Nova Scotia/NFLD governments for Hibernia, and negotiates with the Alberta government these days...

Almost all the oil companies send their engineers-turned-management to sign those treaties. They've all got economics training paid for by the company as well.

[Asher]

One of my friend's fathers started off as a regular chemical engineer for ATCO gas, and has been doing management and human relations stuff for the past ten years also...

[notyoueither]

Asher, do you think his company employing 60,000 people is made up entirely of Engineers in management? I suggest you grill him on that, because it is bull sh!t.

What company? I will search to find the humanities graduates. There will be many, I can assure you. They will be in human resourses, office management, more than likely procurement too. Trust me. They are there.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Asher, do you think his company employing 60,000 people is made up entirely of Engineers in management? I suggest you grill him on that, because it is bull sh!t.

Huh? Of course all 60,000 people aren't engineers in management. Most of them are labour outside Fort McMurray.

What company?

ChevronTexaco

I will search to find the humanities graduates. There will be many, I can assure you. They will be in human resourses, office management, more than likely procurement too. Trust me. They are there.

Well, his secretary office assistant has a sociology degree... would that count?