[claudiawerner]

Basic numerical literacy is important for everyone, but it is no exaggeration to say that moral, political and philosophical (and that includes the philosophy of science) development also separates us from far more primitive creatures over centuries. To me it makes equally as much sense to say that all that development is closed off to engineers (and I say this as someone finishing up an engineering degree myself).

[corodra]

I do disagree. Many other creatures play politics and morality. Wolves and chimps have power and political struggles all the time. Along with taking care of those injured. But an individual that has a history of taking more than their share and not helping the group doesn't get as much help when injured. They do have their own morality. Whether we agree with it or not, is not really our place. The same type of discussion that brought up when discussing how one country should conduct business as that's an infringement of sovereignty. Even paleolithic hominids (a recent fascination of mine) show culture and morality because of bones with massive fractures that healed over time. Said hominid then lived for many more years. A sign they were taken care of. The more philosophy you learn, the more you realize that we're really not that different. We're just smart enough to see how different we are, but too stupid to realize how similar we are.

So, how is morality, politics and philosophy closed off to engineers? You make it seem that an engineer is pure cold and calculating. That's just a terrible stereotype that, I thought died off quite a while ago. Then again, that stupid ass show The Big Bang Theory kind of brought that idea back.

Engineering teachings teach you to constantly learn. Essential, an engineer is never done learning until they die. This spills over to other topics just fine. The difference is, there's already a skillset of finding accurate and reliable sources, creating your own lesson plans (in a way) and diving into said subject.

[claudiawerner]

>Wolves and chimps have power and political struggles all the time. Along with taking care of those injured. But an individual that has a history of taking more than their share and not helping the group doesn't get as much help when injured.

This is not politics. I feel as though this discussion is stupid, since I think it's reasonable to say that the degree to which animals have "politics" is lesser than those animals which have tool use. You cannot forget that technology is always coupled to a certain stage of historical development, it does not happen in a vacuum. There is no such thing as production in general.

>Said hominid then lived for many more years. A sign they were taken care of.

A lot of animals take care of each other, it doesn't mean much in the way of how humans do it.

>So, how is morality, politics and philosophy closed off to engineers?

It is closed off in the same way that engineering is closed off to liberal arts majors, as the parent commenter claimed. That is to say, you must learn it, and learn how to argue about it. Of course I don't claim that you need to be a liberal arts major to be moral or even have cogent ideas about morality, but you still need to learn how to argue your point if you're talking about it, and you can only do that by learning about what's been argued before.

[6thaccount2]

First of all, congrats on finishing up your degree!

As a counterpoint to the above, I believe most highschool students can read the publications of many professors in the liberal arts and understand what they're saying (Ex: literary criticism) although it helps to have some background knowledge of the period in question. How many highschool students or even liberal arts professors can read and comprehend practically anything that someone in the engineering department published? My point is that it takes a lot more effort to get a working knowledge of something like physics. Although not everyone can and should be able to read a quantum mechanics textbook, I think the average adult should know about things like entropy. If you don't agree with STEM, at least change the course requirements so that the technically inclined can get more math and science courses under their belt. Your country may already do that, but it isn't super common in the US (public or private schools). My parents forced me to go to Catholic school growing up (public schools were terrible in my area) and this resulted in mandatory 1-hour of daily religion class for 13 years that I could have used for something else I would've preferred (math, science, engineering, programming, philosophy). Regardless of one's views, I question the sheer breadth of the US system over depth.