[javajosh]

Another quote which gets to the heart of it, I think:

>I remember G.H. Hardy remarking to me in the 30's with some mild puzzlement: 'Have you noticed how the word "intellectual" is used nowadays? There seems to be a new definition that doesn't include Rutherford or Eddington or Dirac or Adrian or me.'

Its scientists complaining about not being accepted by the "cool kids". A tale as old as time.

[asdfman123]

That’s because studying the humanities is quite a bit different than studying a technical field.

The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?”

Sure, physics provides the occasional relevant answer, but less directly. It discovers facts about nature, and sometimes those facts give the discussion more context.

[javajosh]

>The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?”

That's quite condescending. Scientists must not know how to live, or what it means to be human, since they don't have an English degree.

Look, the humanities is where people who say things like "I'm not good with numbers" go. That's it.

[quirkot]

That is incredibly dismissive and doesn't hold up to even the meagerest investigation. Additionally it's offensive.

edit: but since I'm here and fired up. here are some results from the trivial google search "famous humanities majors"

https://time.com/3964415/ceo-degree-liberal-arts/

https://blog.tesu.edu/10-notably-successful-people-with-libe...

https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-liberal-arts-majo...

[asdfman123]

I never said any of that.

Perhaps you could benefit from a humanities education to learn how to respond an argument and construct your own.

[javajosh]

>I never said any of that.

Ah, but you did, and you stepped in something that a lot of scientists (and devs) resent, having others assume that they are robots, without heart or passion or insight. What you said was even worse, one group of people are trying to understand "what it means to be human", implying that the other group of people is not. It's literally dehumanizing, and I called you out, and now you're responding with a puerile "is to".

I have two degrees, one in physics, one in philosophy, and with this response I realize I need to review the literature on expected value.

[eternalban]

That's not how I read his comment. Somewhat puzzled as to how you arrived at your reading.

Humanities are the disciplines that focus on the question of what it is to be human. Sciences are the disciplines that focus on understanding physical reality, and in an indirect way the changes in our understanding of nature and physical reality do impact the discourse in Humanities.

None of that even remotely means anyone not involved in humanities is a "robot". You resent caricature of "devs" as "robots, without heart or passion or insight" and that is a false picture of devs, agreed. But that has nothing to do with the question of the two cultures.

The two cultures (actually the author managed to find a 3rd in "engineering" in his rather rambling rant) are ultimately about "tools". Here the tools in question are 'cognitive tools'.

The cultures are really cultures that grow around distinct cognitive tools.

[asdfman123]

I still did not say any of that

[ftxbro]

> Look, the humanities is where people who say things like "I'm not good with numbers" go. That's it.

When they say that, they don't mean it literally. It's like if they found themselves in a discussion about cleaning public toilets. They might say "Oh I'm not good with mops and liquid cleaning agents" or whatever to be polite, when what they really mean is more like "Oh I have people for that, I'm sorry to hear that you have to sell your time and labor for money, your grandparents should have been wealthier." but that would be rude and unproductively antagonistic.

[mr_toad]

Science teaches us that being human is not particularly special.

[asdfman123]

Does it?

[macrolocal]

G.H. Hardy’s sense of humor was famously self-deprecating.