{"id":40891,"date":"2019-01-14T09:23:16","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T13:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=40891"},"modified":"2019-01-14T09:23:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T13:23:16","slug":"why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html","title":{"rendered":"Why We Need the Humanities in the Sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

We live in a world that seems more and more in awe of the hard sciences. We encourage our children to pursue careers in STEM. We put tech giants on pedestals and give them large amounts of power over our society. We see technology as the key to future success. We\u2019ll science<\/em> our way out of climate change.<\/p>\n

The fault lines have been evident for some time\u2014think of the problems over censorship, hate groups, and toxic social formations that have plagued Facebook\u2014and they\u2019re not going away. The truth is that, much like in the pre-WWI period, we\u2019ve let technology get an edge over the humanities.<\/p>\n

See this recent\u00a0story on CNN<\/a>\u00a0for example:<\/p>\n

A Nobel Prize-winning American scientist who co-discovered DNA has been stripped of his honorary titles at the laboratory he once led after repeating racist comments in a documentary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just what were his comments?<\/p>\n

James Watson, who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA alongside Francis Crick in the 1950s based on the work of British chemist Rosalind Franklin<\/a>, said in a PBS film that genes cause a difference in intelligence between white and black people in IQ tests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the CNN piece makes clear, Watson has at times gone into detail on this point, even stating that anyone who has ever had a black employee knows that they have lower IQs.<\/p>\n

Watson, of course, is not the first to promote this idea. In 1994, Charles A. Murray and Richard Hernstein published The Bell Curve<\/a>, <\/em>in which they argued\u00a0that black people have lower IQs than white people. \u00a0The problem with such assertions is not only that they lead to bad outcomes\u2014emboldening bias against people of color\u2014but also that they\u2019re based on faulty assumptions. For one thing, they assume that all else is equal\u2014level of nutrition, amount of stress in one\u2019s life, etc. They also assume that there are no inherent biases in the way IQ is measured. These assumptions are not warranted.<\/p>\n

Doing science involves asking questions. If you don\u2019t know how to formulate the good questions, you\u2019re going to end up flubbing it all up. Knowing the questions to ask is half of the process.<\/p>\n

Watson has made other racist comments as well, also invoking science:<\/p>\n

During a lecture tour in 2000, he suggested there might be links between a person\u2019s weight and their level of ambition and between skin color and sexual prowess.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why you have Latin lovers,\u201d he said, according to The Associated Press<\/a>, which cited people who attended the lecture. \u201cYou\u2019ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Science does not take place in a vacuum. Scientists like Watson import racist stereotypes. A crash-course on the history of the \u201cLatin lover\u201d trope might have helped diffuse the stereotypes underlying the assumptions Watson makes. But that would mean taking a course in\u2014gasp\u2014<\/em>the humanities.<\/p>\n

When science is applied to people and social structures, the potential fallout for going badly wrong becomes elevated. And it\u2019s not like we haven\u2019t seen this happen before. We have. From eugenics in the U.S. in the early part of the nineteenth century to Nazi claims of scientific race superiority, when science muddles in people things can go very wrong, very quickly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to stop dismissing the importance of the humanities. Sending a generation into STEM careers without requiring (or at least heavily promoting) classes or outside minors in the humanities is a recipe for disaster. The humanities aren\u2019t a waste of time. They\u2019re absolutely critical.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fault lines have been evident for some time—think of the problems over censorship, hate groups, and toxic social formations that have plagued Facebook—and they’re not going away. The truth is that, much like in the pre-WWI period, we’ve let technology get an edge over the humanities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":40894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[183],"class_list":["post-40891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-justice","tag-history"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy We Need the Humanities in the Sciences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Much like in the pre-WWI period, we've let technology get an edge over the humanities.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why We Need the Humanities in the Sciences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Much like in the pre-WWI period, we've let technology get an edge over the humanities.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-01-14T13:23:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2019\/01\/library-1400313_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html\",\"name\":\"Why We Need the Humanities in the Sciences\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-01-14T13:23:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-01-14T13:23:16+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"Much like in the pre-WWI period, we've let technology get an edge over the humanities.\u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/01\/why-we-need-the-humanities-in-the-sciences.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why We Need the Humanities in the Sciences\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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