From: umkeahey@ccu.umanitoba.ca (YOUR NAME HERE)
Subject: Re: Any Humanities Grads out there?
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 18:02:26 GMT

In <1992Apr15.193323.36534@yuma.acns.colostate.edu> peterson@CS.ColoState.EDU (james peterson) writes:

>In article <1992Apr14.213429.11240@eng.umd.edu> clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin) writes:
>>
>>   I personally wouldn't use the word easier.  Maybe more certain.  One
>>advantage and drawback of LA courses is that there is no right answer.
>>Often, it's how well you argue the point.  I would hope that is the
>>main judging point, but it sometimes isn't.  
>> [stuff deleted]

>While it may not have been intended, this observation leads to the
>erroneous relativistic notion that all answers in the humanities are
>of equal value because, as you put it, "there is no right answer."  
>This is far too simplistic:  there are answers that are better,
>and answers that are worse. Many students of technology come to be
>convinced that any subject matter whose questions cannot be answered finally,
>and with certainty, are valueless; but this is mere prejudice.  To be
>sure, knowing that one cannot play the piano with perfection is not
>reason not to try to play better, or not to play at all.  Some infinite
>tasks are worth pursuing.....

I agree, but there seems to be an unstated assumption running throughout
this thread which disturbs me somewhat. What bothers me is the idea
that Engineering and Science only involves the search for the "right
answer". On the other hand, humanities are seen as differing in that
they require a greater degree of creativity. (Those ideas have been vaguely
alluded to in various messages, I'm not accusing you of holding them,
I just had to choose a message to hit the 'f' key on.)

It is understandable how this view could come to be held, take any
freshman Calculus course and notice all of the rote memorization
going on. It is erroneous to use that experience to color one's views
of the entire Engineering/Science experience however. (OK, maybe not for 
the Engineering. ;) Unfortunately (but perhaps necessarily), much of a
science education involves learning what others have discovered and
how to apply it. Such a situation is analagous to getting the facts
straight about what happened in Hamlet.

There is however, a great deal of creativity involved with scientific
research, and the fact that much of the work is quantifiable does not
in any way diminish that. Dijkstra didn't look up his algorithm
in a text book, it was a child of his own imagination. To use another 
simple example which is likely to ring a bell with the CS people here,
what is the best way to sort a file? 30 years ago, you would have
gotten a near unanimous answer of "radix sort". Today a programmer
has a dozen or more sorting routines to choose from, and demonstrating 
which is best for any particular case is not always a trivial (or
even feasible) task. In fact there are many such situations where 
there is no "right answer", leaving the scientist to choose the one 
he/she thinks is best, and then defend that choice. Such a process
seems to my mind to be equivalent to interpreting Hamlet, perhaps
(but not necessarily) replacing the mathematical and empirical 
defense with rhetoric and persuasion. (BTW, does anybody in grad
English still study the bard, or are they all on to more esoteric
topics like decentering texts and deconstructionism?)

My two cents worth. Now if you'll excuse me, I've a psychology exam to
study for, the art that wants to be a science. (No flames please, 
that's a quote from the psych prof.)
-- 
  Alan Keahey     umkeahey@ccu.umanitoba.ca     (0x42<<1) || !(0x42<<1)
Newsgroups: soc.college.grad