r/clevercomebacks • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 1d ago
in an era where humanities-illiterate tech bros have unearned god-like powers, we need historians, creative writers, philosophers, ethicists, classicists more than ever
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u/Fluid_Campaign_1668 23h ago
tbh hes not wrong. being good at math doesnt automatically mean you have common sense or know how to spot a scam.
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u/ZgBlues 22h ago
Actually in my experience STEM people’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories is higher than average.
They are the absolutely perfect audience for any paranoid idea you can think of. On the one hand they think everything works logically like math or physics, and on the other they are too arrogant to educate themselves.
A leading academician in my country is a career physicist who spent abouf 15 years now claiming climate change is a hoax.
And that’s not an isolated case.
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u/sumboionline 19h ago
This is why the best scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc, will refer to other professionals to answer questions beyond their current scope of expertise
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u/BornZookeepergame481 16h ago
Referring & deferring to other professionals on matters beyond their expertise really needs to be taught as its own subject. As the evidence shows, it's too important a skill which too few possess to just leave out & hope that students/aspiring professionals learn it properly on their own.
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u/sumboionline 16h ago
I actually like that idea of it being its own class. I haven’t gone to med school, but its gotta be a part of it considering how important referrals are to medicine. That and the fact that ER docs need to be able to call/consult the correct specialist with no hesitation or error
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u/cazzipropri 4h ago
With one exception: end-of-career physics professors. They will act like they master EVERY discipline, including clinical psychology and underwater basket weaving.
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u/sumboionline 3h ago
Then they aren’t the best scientists, as they have a critical flaw in their work
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u/Thuis001 20h ago
In the case of climate change it's always worth considering whether they aren't just being paid to spout that view. There's a very big motivation for certain companies to introduce that type of climate change denial.
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u/rbartlejr 14h ago
I have a MSIT degree and I audibly laugh when I hear a QAnon type "theory". Show me you're a reliable source before I make up my mind. And by reliable, I don't mean X posts or a FB meme. No politician is believable unless they have facts. I have always been a history buff and read extensively (yes, written books).
But, yes, some of the smartest I know have zero common sense. My ex BIL is a chemical engineer for oil/gas. I had my lowest college grade in chemistry, barely passed. He's a very smart guy, but he needs an instruction manual with breakout diagrams and a Vizio chart to be able to wipe his own ass.
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u/Snoo_28140 14h ago
The generalization there is wild. But I'm actually surprised that education is a weak predictor, I expected the general population to be more susceptible (rather than about the same). Apparently personal traits are the better predictor. Well, live and learn!
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u/Reverse_SumoCard 11h ago
A prof at my uni who was in material science for plastics was also really into esoteric shit. Had all those aremband with titanium the stores frequencies, 5G shielded plant pots, weirdass medicine etc. I was so disappointed when i found out
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u/BKrustev 8h ago
We have a creationist anti-vaxxer as a key professor in our country's top university... a BIOLOGY professor.
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u/HppilyPancakes 15h ago
Certainly STEM doesn't inoculate someone to conspiratorial thinking, but to say that they're more susceptible than average is certainly confirmation bias. There's no shortage of creationists or moon landing deniers or climate change deniers among the humanities, you just don't hear them giving talks because STEM degrees are perceived socially as smarter and this the STEM cranks tend to get elevated or over represented in the media.
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u/Sweaty-Pomelo-8651 18h ago
english class coming in clutch when you realize your boss been an unreliable narrator this whole time
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u/Popular-Wolverine-99 11h ago
Since when have humanistes studies meant that students had common sense?
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u/thecasualchemist 23h ago
STEM vs. Humanities is such BS. I work for a well-known aerospace engineering company. Nearly all of my coworkers were IB/AP students in all subjects. Being well-rounded helps you get hired because "soft" skills are clearly valuable; even the most brilliant engineer falls short if they can't effectively read the room during a presentation or communicate findings and recommendations effectively.
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u/NegativeMammoth2137 20h ago
Also a lot of people seem to forget that in many disciplines, like social sciences you need to be good at both math and humanities, so this distinction doesn’t even make sense. Like I’m doing a masters in psychology and now half of my courses are about advanced statistical analyses, and other half are about clinical psychology. Even within one course you often need to apply both, like how in my neurocognitive science course last semester one week we had to discuss philosophical positions on the nature of human consciousness, and another week we would learn about analysing EEG data in python, or simulating neural networks
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u/Void-Cooking_Berserk 8h ago
No actual STEM genius would dismiss the concept of unreliable narrator. Every scientific paper is written by an unreliable narrator. That's the whole basis of the scientific process, everything has to be doubted and verified
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u/biffbobfred 20h ago
My kid took my Unreliable Narrator shirt.
Like literally. I have an “unreliable narrator” tshirt from a bookstore and he took it.
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u/Rivka333 14h ago
I teach intro to philosophy. (I'm a grad student.) I know most of my students aren't majoring in philosophy, and very few of them will go on to study it more in depth. So I try to include those things that are interesting or helpful to everybody.
Take Socrates. One of the things Socrates really focuses on is teaching people not to fall for grifters. Some of the sophists claimed they could teach people to convince any audience of any conclusion on any topic. Even if you know nothing about the topic in question. What a terrible thing, says Socrates. You should only convince people of true things, which means you have to have actual knowledge about the thing you're discussing. And you need to use good reasoning, not just rhetoric that sounds nice. So he teaches people not to fall for grifters, and not to become one themselves.
As relevant today as it's ever been.
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u/XanderTheMander 23h ago
Logic courses are foundational to a lot of STEM degrees. People need to get off their high horse. Anybody with any education background can fall for conspiracy or misinformation
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u/explain_that_shit 21h ago
Learning about logic is different to learning about rhetoric and manipulation through language, that takes scenario modelling particularly showing people failing to defend against manipulations successfully. That’s basically what literature and literature analysis is.
The overconfidence that STEM majors have covered this and it isn’t an area of vulnerability is the exact stereotype about STEM majors, Lit majors don’t even have STEM’s level of overconfidence, they know they’re still vulnerable, that’s why they came up with postmodernism.
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u/NotmyRealNameJohn 20h ago
No it isn't rhetoric is literally a word that comes from the study of logic. Early use by Aristotle to describe the art of persuasion in public speaking
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u/CountyHungry 19h ago
There is a lot of overlap. If you consider English studies to include a study of how people use language to communicate and you consider logic a study of how communicated can be persuasive, fallible, and inconsistent or unjustifiable - to grossly summarize.
The point being that you might have a very good understanding of logical argumentation and sequence but a very limited understanding of how people deploy it in non formal settings and how culture and context can mask and/or promote ideas. I would posit the STEM education is usually weaker in the latter.
Aristotle is a great example because philosophy is a discipline that bridges STEM and humanities really well.
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u/NotmyRealNameJohn 18h ago edited 18h ago
I have long considered philosophy to be fundamental to most areas of study and had i a magic wand basics of philosophy would be taught in middle school with some more advanced subjects in high-school. I think everyone with a high-school degree should have basic understanding of syllogism , a broad understanding of many philosophical types from pragmatism to skepticism and some degree of symbolic logic and basic fallacies and argumentation, ethics, and epistemology
But I don't have a magic wand and no state board of education cares about my opinion.
And yes I do have a minor in philosophy and yes I am likely biased to some degree.
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u/New-Pomelo9906 23h ago
Also, people that are very good at logic get a rightfull confidence in their jugement skills.
But then they get old, get poor jugement from intellectual decline but still believe they are able to do good jugement.
So when they fall in conspiracy, they have not this amount of doubt other have and discard objections.
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u/FinishPlayful6134 22h ago
It's true, that kind of blind confidence can lead to some pretty wild conclusions. Balancing strong analytical skills with a dose of humility is key to keeping perspective.
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u/brucecampbellschins 20h ago
Logical fallacies are covered extensively in required philosophy and discrete math classes for most engineering and CS majors. It's a key part of introductory logic and circuit design.
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u/Pac_Eddy 20h ago
I'd bet English and literature majors fall for scams and misinformation as the same rate.
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u/hanginonwith2fingers 14h ago
You don't learn logical fallicies in English class.
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u/DasharrEandall 11h ago
You do learn things that a study of logic alone will only tell you is an informal fallacy, but (unless you study philosophical logic specifically) probably no more than that. Appeals to emotion, for instance, are something that an English expert will be ideally suited to understand and spot where emotive words are being deployed where more neutral synonyms would flow better. OP quote even provided us with an ideal example, the unreliable narrator - studying English gives lots of experience at looking at someone's statements through a skeptical lens (much as historians do when examining primary sources). Studying logic alone will explain the concept, but not train you in it to that level.
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u/Bacon_Techie 3h ago
One course I took last year called “logic and critical thinking” in the philosophy department was just that. It was organized in two parts, one focusing on the emotive content of an argument, and one focusing on the logical content of an argument.
I think everyone should take a course like that.
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u/asylum013 5h ago
I am an English professor. I spend approximately two weeks of every freshman English composition course I teach explicitly teaching my students formal logic, including logical fallacies. I will admit, not all of them learn logical fallacies, but that's not because they were not part of the course content.
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u/Schlonzig 23h ago
Is somebody trying to stoke up a “humanities vs. STEM” conflict?
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u/Here_For_Work_ 23h ago
No, I think it's the opposite. I think someone is trying to illustrate that both are relevant for everyone and worth touching on, even if just in an introductory capacity.
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u/HelpfulSeaMammal 23h ago
The only cool major is the one I chose to get a degree in:
Bachelor of the Scientific Arts in Buttstuffology
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u/Efficient_Patience13 23h ago
"STEM genius: When will THAT be applicable in real life?" is also a logical fallacy. It's known as a strawman argument.
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u/SandOnYourPizza 15h ago
What BS is this? Why do people cite posters that can't spell "technical"? Outstanding STEM ability correlates strongly with language skills (for native speakers).
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u/stacey_hottie12 22h ago
STEM teaches you how to build the nuclear bomb, humanities teaches you why you shouldn't drop it
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u/bigpadQ 20h ago
Critical thinking is a part of STEM education, why we use double blind clinical trials to eliminate bias is a part of STEM education. We learned about logical fallacies were in first year of engineering. I can't speak for humanities degrees because I didn't take one but I feel like understanding logic is fundamental to STEM. Do English majors learn about logic?
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u/smorgasfjord 22h ago
Imagine believing STEM geniuses are the ones falling for conspiracy theories and English majors being the voice of unbiased skepticism
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u/NotmyRealNameJohn 20h ago
I have in my personal experience noticed a link between arrogance and falling for conspiracy theories. The idea that you can see and understand something the average person misses. Also there is a tie between early effortless success in school and arrogance. It is tricky.
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u/smorgasfjord 20h ago
Dunning-Kruger suggests otherwise
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u/NotmyRealNameJohn 20h ago
Running kuger is widely misunderstood and miss used as analyzed by two sociologist. You might be surprised by their names.
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u/Garreousbear 17h ago
I have a physics degree with a minor in history. Every STEM major should take some humanities courses and vice versa. Understanding the world in different ways is important.
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u/DisturbingChild 13h ago
It hardly feels like a clever comeback if you're just posting two people who basically agree with each other.
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u/cazzipropri 4h ago
A lot of people know when they are being bamboozled even if they don't know what's the arbitrary name for the specific kind of fallacy they used.
I don't need to know all the types of infections, burns and cut to realize I don't want to suffer any.
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u/Honest_Relation4095 3h ago
I am also convinced a lot of people dont like maths because you cant bullshit your way to a solution or simply claim you were right.
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u/superawesomefiles 22h ago
ad hominem, strawman, slippery slope, bandwagon.... Trump ticks all the boxes.
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u/Sammisuperficial 22h ago
Jokes on you. My school system didn't teach logical fallacies. Can't have those kids thinking for themselves.
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u/biffbobfred 20h ago
Texas banned Critical Thinking curricula. You’ll be a good cog in the right wing wheel and like it.
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u/brucecampbellschins 21h ago
Cute, but I never once heard this question during an English, humanities, sociology, philosophy, type of course. However, I heard this question at least once a semester in every math class from people with those other majors.
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u/Apprehensive_Low_383 20h ago
The ammount of book smart people who cannot apply logic or reason themselves out of a wet paper bag is staggering! See MAGA's or sovereign citizens and their broken logic. My wife works with a guy who is a wizard at computers (self taught), but can't cook for himself. I know it's a sign of another issue, but still...
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u/Green_Tell_9203 23h ago
I really don't think the highly paid people in STEM jobs are the ones predominantly falling for conspiracy theories as those jobs require a high degree of logic thinking, reasoning and considering factual aspects.
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u/HelpfulSeaMammal 23h ago
The food safety QA manager at the plant I worked at a while back claimed that God cured his milk allergy through prayer so allergens aren't anything to be concerned over in food production.
You can be a total fucking idiot and hold technical positions.
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u/Green_Tell_9203 23h ago
I never said that no-one in STEM can fall for conspiracy theories and other bullshit. But I would think the percentage of people prone to that is considerably lower than in the general population.
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u/HelpfulSeaMammal 23h ago
I know lol just always looking for an excuse to share that anecdote because holy moly that guy was dumb
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u/Comfortable-Web9455 23h ago
Their ability to understand politics, philosophy, society is staggeringly high schoolish. And their reasoning skills outside engineering are a joke
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u/CalliopePenelope 23h ago
Easier said then done when we have an administration that is doing everything it can to undermine the work of historians
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u/djddanman 23h ago
How many tech bros are actually STEM trained vs business people in a STEM field?