Posted on 10/30/2002 8:03:45 PM PST by cornelis
It is not so obvious that physical scientists need a liberal arts education, rooted in the study of language. They themselves assert that they have no time for it. They have insisted on the abolition of language requirements in almost every university graduate program in America. This development is directly related to the massive amount of fraud which now typifies scientific publication in this country. This scientific community has lost track of the historical and ethical roots of our civilization, the only civilization which has fostered the scientific ethic and considerable scientific research and discovery. Increasingly young men enter the sciences who do not understand that science is not a given, but an achievement, a tradition of research and discovery which si the hard-won accomplishment of one culture, fostered carefully and slowly for millenia until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Scientists have lost touch with their own culture. They live without a narrative structure which frames and makes moral sense of their lives. They seem to belong to no culture and feel the claims of no cultural norms, claims that would be introduced and reinforced by a rigorous study of their own cultural traditions over the past twenty-five hundred years. For such people the borderline between fudging, misreporting of results, and outright fraud becomes as unclear as their own cultural heritage. All too often it is those who report or investigate such fraud who find themselves de-funded by the "profession." The attainment of truth is possible only within a tradition, as Alasdair MacIntyre has suggested. A rootless, traditionless, monoglot scientific elite has lost the basis of discovery, in science or any other area. Since they cannot discover truth and will not live without grants, they must lie.Recently conservatives have talked much of valuing creativity and an openness to the real world. If such an attitude is to be more than talk, we must face the fact that creativity is not found in every tradition. Ours is one of the few creative ones and we must work to re-establish our children's direct contact with that tradition, which is their own, after all. Despite all the changes recent decades have seen, culture is still transmitted primarily through language. The essential works necessary for understanding and transmitting our culture were written in Greek and Latin. Translations are marvelous tools, but no translation can be safely used or taught except by one who knows the original tongue. An educational curriculum founded on Greek and Latin gave us Jefferson and Adams, Burke and Samuel Johnson, not to mention Copernicus and Newton, Luther and Calvin, Michaelangelo and Bach. Educators have developed curricula and texts which can teach these languages on any level from pre-school through college. Most subjects that are important for formative education can be be taught through and with these languages. The materials are out there, lying in the warehouses of the Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. We have in our hands the making of a reactionary revolution of excellence. The questions we must ask ourselves are the following: Do we have the will to give our children their own culture back again? Do we have the courage to restore meaning and creativity to our nation?
I see you didn't sign up for Greek.
In a democracy, crap is King.
That's what we have FR for, like, DUH! ;o)
Excellent book. It should be a required reading.
Consider that the proof with a "hole" is several hundred pages long, with mathematical "density" of thought. Consider also that it took the author several years of exclusive devotion. Under these circumstances, the "hole" is not bad scholarship: to the contrary, this story is an example of true, self-sacrificing scholarhip; it is simply an error, which was corrected honestly and swiftly, as you pointed out.
Anyone worth their salt posting on FR would want to read it.
Of course, scientists have themselves fooled to think that their science is objectively free from the function of the observer.
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Note: this topic is from October 2002. |
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A classical Liberal Arts education is invaluable in any career. Unfortunately such an education is available only at a very small number of small private colleges such as Thomas More in New Hampshire. Most of what passes for Liberal Arts in American higher education is very shallow politically liberal indoctrination and more concerned with social engineering than educating students in their cultural heritage.
Science Majors should stick to ... (drum roll please)... SCIENCE.
Touchy-feely 'social justice' crap classes have nothing to do with the Sheer Point of a Structural Steel Bolt Connection, or the Heating and/or Cooling Load for a new Building.
And IMO any BS degree is 105 better than any BA degree - whatever the major, including Education. (back off fellow FReepers, my daughter has a BSED).
Case in point:
The University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, has one of THE BEST Engineering Schools in the USA, as they concentrate on .. 'Science'. Yet its 'sister' campus, the UIC (Univ IL Chi) of Bill Ayers 'fame' makes all students, in all Majors, including Engineering, study that 'social justice' junk.Every BSME grad from the UofI I ever knew/worked with has passed his PE exam (to become a Licensed Professional Engineer) on the first try. While UIC grads still live in momma's basement and post on DU. /sAs such, U of I grads with a BSME are off to fame and riches in a few years, (riches anyway), while UIC grads wind up with a job controlling the Oil Temperature for French Fries at McDonald's.
Don’t confuse social justice with liberal arts. That’s what the humanities departments have done. The good news is that you don’t have to make the same mistake.
Nice example of the sweeping generalization ...
I’ll make a deal with them. They get to ram “Social Problems” (yes, that was the name of the course I was forced to take) down my throat if I can ram Quantum Mechanics down theirs.
Liberal Arts might have been valuable at one time. Now it’s just a cover for Marxist indoctrination.
On the other hand, as I read the thread I see some of my less “well-rounded” fellow engineers and scientists illustrate his point.
You get a better “Liberal Arts” education (in the original sense of the word) here on FR.
There's your problem, right there. You're trying to cram your MS and Ph.D. in with your BS. I've seen that done (even in my day) and it's a bad idea. IMO. You'll not likely learn any of that if you try to learn all of it at once. IMO.
Me = B.S. Physics, M.S Electrical Engineering, 20+ years working as an engineer. Or scientist. (Sometimes it's hard to tell which I'm doing.) And I greatly appreciate (now) the philosophy, theology, history, and language courses I was required to take as an undergrad.
Why do you behave like the Marxist, conflating liberal arts with things like social justice?
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