Is it good policy to give financial aid to liberal arts majors?

[Imran Siddiqui]

1) Mathematicians are more properly considered scientists than anything else (other than their own category)

Eh... that's not a view shared by most, I'd say.

2) Shi's post mentioned scientists extensively. By arguing that we need people with "knowledge" rather than "technical skill" you are implying, either deliberately or accidentally, that the people he wishes to fund (which included scientists) do not have "knowledge", but only "technical skill"

I said that students that study knowledge is good (research scientists included). That includes anyone that studies knowledge (and you have to admit that most people that Shi mentioned are technical skills). I was saying knowledge is a societal good, and liberal arts majors study that. It seemed Shi was saying scientists were good to subsidize because they benefited technical disciplines... and not for the knowledge they impart (the Big Bang will lead to technical advances, but I think knowledge of where the universe came from is important in itself to know).

[Pekka]

liberal art majors are here to boast their chests, after being beat in the index for best jobs, and now they charge here with foam coming out of there mouths 'but you must learn how to..'

Like I said, if you are in the level where you can't think for your own, then maybe it is good to read some. But everyone has an access to library or what ever to read that stuff and if you need help with it, maybe you should get state sponsorship, and also have someone to help you eat.

If it was up to me, I'd have them all shot. Even less usage for them in the society than hard drug addicts. At least they have the understanding to die when it gets old.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

1) Mathematicians are more properly considered scientists than anything else (other than their own category)

Eh... that's not a view shared by most, I'd say.

Mathematics is always in the faculty of arts and sciences, and it has a lot more to do with the sciences than with the arts...

I'll agree that (most) mathematics is not properly a science, since it does not employ the scientific method, but if you're going to be classifying things into fine arts/liberal arts/social sciences/natural sciences/engineering/commerce then math fits in better with the natural sciences than anywhere else.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What about something else entirely .

[KrazyHorse]

(and you have to admit that most people that Shi mentioned are technical skills)

I think that he split them between what I would call "technical" fields and what I would call "knowledge" fields (to use an imprecise terminology). He called for more funding for both scientists and engineers. Mathematicians and technicians.

Also, I take umbrage with a clean division between technical fields and knowledge fields. You can find people doing technical work and people doing creative work in pretty much any field.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
What about something else entirely .

I think it is properly in the "something else entirely" division, but for the purposes of broad strokes (as we see here) it should be called a science. The people who work in mathematics are very similar to people working in certain subdisciplines of the natural sciences. Many (if not most) mathematicians collaborate with scientists.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

By 2010, it's projected that 90% of the world engineers will be in Asia. China and India already producing more engineers then the USA. Meanwhile, in the USA the trend is going the wrong way, the amount of people in this country interested in studying engineering is going down. And yet it is the high tech fields which are driving our economy.

That's why we open up more spots for legal immigration. Problem solved .

Exactly.
Brain drain

[Shi Huangdi]

Bear in Mind, I didn't say that only the "science" (using KH's broad definitin) majors should receive extra funding. We should also give extra funding to other fields such as nursing, education, social work, or critically important foreign languages such as Arabic or Chinese- fields which are associated with some critical labor shortage in the economy.

If someone really wants to study philosophy on the taxpayer's dime, fine. But have them at least do a double major and have them study something more useful as well.

[Az]

Shi - actually I think that double majors, or continued education in other fields is what is really needed. Here in Israel there is a certain oversupply of medium-high tech degrees, and low-quality electronics degrees. What needed are leaders and visionaries that are also connected to the realities of industry to recognize need and spearhead new products.

I am sort of doing that now. but in the military.

[notyoueither]

Central planning 4 teh WIN!!!

[Imran Siddiqui]

We the Social Engineering

[Asher]

Originally posted by Az
Shi - actually I think that double majors, or continued education in other fields is what is really needed. Here in Israel there is a certain oversupply of medium-high tech degrees, and low-quality electronics degrees. What needed are leaders and visionaries that are also connected to the realities of industry to recognize need and spearhead new products.

I am sort of doing that now. but in the military.

How can a communist be a leader and visionary, when you're clearly holding on to discredited ideas of the past?

[TCO]

math and science go together. You can BS as a philosophy major or polysci. Math, science and engineering requiring math aptitude. The division into fields of knowledge is not the important characteristic for classification. It's the aptitude. Just need more math brains to do science-y fields. Poly Sci is where you run when you don't have the ability.

[TCO]

What's funny is looking at a field like econ, where grad schools are full of econ u/g's who crasah and burn cause they can't handle the math. The field ends up being dominated by phycist and engineer undergrads who cross over. Seriously. Look at any faculty list of econ profs. Most will have an econ Ph.D. and a non-econ u/g.

[Colon™]

Maybe that's why so many are completely oblivious to the idiosyncries of human behaviour.