Philosophy and the humanities are underrated in education.

Thanks to Pro for a fine debate! The Burden of Proof Despite Pro's explanations, I still cannot imagine why anyone thinks the society would benefit from more lawyers, philosophers, and literary critics and fewer scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. The theory is that at the high level abstract thinkers, being relatively unconstrained by reality, can envision more novel and exciting solutions to the problems of society than those who are burdened by the constraints of reality. I believe that being constrained by reality leads to a better society. Pro defined the resolution. She said, “By underrated, I will be arguing that increasing the focus in humanities and/or philosophy in education, particularly higher education, would be beneficial to society.” “Focus” means emphasis. That means we ought to put more effort into the humanities, because, according to the resolution, those people are now more beneficial to society than doctors, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Resources of time and money are finite, so we cannot focus more on producing lawyers without focusing less on producing something else. There are other meanings to “underrated.” For example, there is the absolute sense in which one might claim “carrots are underrated as a nutritious food.” That is is the sense in which “underrated” means “not fully appreciated.” In defining “underrated” for our debate, Pro excluded that meaning, but often seemed to be to be arguing it. Pro claims, “Con would have had to prove that our education system adequately prepares students to understand these concepts [Law, government, communication, economics, banking, ethics and even art] - NOT merely argue that a more comprehensive understanding of science and technology would be useful ...” No. Pro has the burden of proof, and must prove (a) deemphasizing practical skills in favor of humanities would both improve understanding of the concepts, and (b) any improved understanding would benefit society more than the skills lost. Pro offered no data to support those claims, and only assumes they are true. For example, Pro argues that learning how to do taxes is probably more important to the average high school student that Pythagoras. That is not a safe assumption. “In a national sample, only 26 percent of low-income students who did not take geometry went to college; but 71 percent of low-income students who took geometry went to college.” http://www2.ed.gov... The value of learning geometry is understanding the application of step-by-step logic to arrive at a proof. That's a skill that humanities aspires to teach, but which geometry better teaches. I wouldn't classify “doing taxes” as part of the humanities. Doing taxes is entirely a practical skill. Study of the philosophy and justice of taxation does not make a person more adept at figuring out tax forms. It is accounting in everyday life, one of the practical business skills that Pro argues have too much of our attention. Some students are not suited to taking geometry or chemistry. Nonetheless, focus on practical skills will be better for those students than on further study of the arts. I'm not advocating solely teaching practical skills, we are arguing emphasis at the margins. Unyielding reality best develops the intellect In higher education, my argument favoring science, technology, medicine, business, and other practical skills is that they deal with unyielding reality. The humanities more easily yield to sophisticated rationalization. No political theory is ever put to rest, and few philosophical arguments are ever resolved. If we look at the professions where solid conclusions are reached and real progress is made, we are looking at science and technology and not the humanities. My opponent points to a list of controversies in science. Yes, if there were no unresolved issues, science would be complete. My point is that science and technology has a long list of resolved issues, while the humanities permits rationalizing many bad ideas forever. What political systems have been disposed of as fully as bad scientific theories? Physics tested the existence of the ether and disproved it. Relativity was proved. But advocates of almost every form of government endure, despite history. Pro did not point to a list of firm conclusions in the humanities. Even in philosophy, more concrete progress has come from studying the sciences than working philosophy on it's own. Questions of origins, evolution, determinism, the nature of time, and of cause and effect have been dramatically advanced by science. Not all of philosophy is advanced by science, but shifting educational focus to science is more likely to advance philosophy than to shift focus away from science. Deficiencies and benefits to society I pointed out the enormous beneficial impact on society from science, technology, and business. That is what has fed the world, cured disease, and given us the comforts of the modern world. Technology is the hope of the Third World, not the arts. I think Pro's response amounts to, “Oh sure, now let's talk about something else.” In fact, it's the dominant benefit by far. Pro cites statistics that our present graduates are incompetent at reasoning, and argues that shows we need more study of the humanities because that is how reasoning is learned. Pro argues, “I contend that those [life] skills in particular are fostered in the humanities, while learning technological skills only teaches you that: technological skills, not life skills.” So the model to learn life skills is to study art history, become unemployed, and spend a decade living in your parent's basement? What we ordinarily consider to be the humanities: history, literature, law, and art are not close to “life skills.” Practical skills provide the basis for being independent, for interacting with others, and for getting satisfaction from positive contributions to society. I argued that studying science leads to more philosophical insights that studying philosophy in the abstract. Pro said that philosophy and science are intertwined. I agree. That was my argument for approaching the study of philosophy from the scientific side. Pro gives statistics showing that Americans are, overall, deficient in reading comprehension. Pro takes that as proof that emphasis should shift away from science and technology and towards the humanities. But it's not plausible that students of science, engineering, medicine have characteristically inferior reading comprehension. Check out a text like Magnetohydrodynamics. A comprehensive study placed the blame for lack of comprehension on a loss of academic rigor in universities, “35 percent of students reported studying five hours per week or less, and 50 percent said they didn't have a single course that required 20 pages of writing in their previous semester.” Why the loss of rigor? “the principal evaluation of faculty performance comes from student evaluations at the end of the semester. … There's a huge incentive set up in the system [for] asking students very little, grading them easily, entertaining them, and your course evaluations will be high...” http://www.npr.org... Science, technology, and medicine demand more rigor. Pro claims that a course in civics motivates 3-6% more young people to vote. That's some benefit to society, but having young people employed is a greater benefit both to themselves and society. Pro never disputed practical skills being more employable. Summary I have defended the nerds. Pro and other proponents of the humanities take it as an unquestioned assumption that focusing on the arts produces people that most benefit society. Pro has the burden to prove that, and did not. -------------- I take exception to Pro's linking an external list of references. It's a pain, and it violates the site rule on character limits.