3 ms·

Have you, or is this a very uncharitable gloss on what they actually were saying?

WalterBright 4y ago
Yes, many times, from many of them. Google "stem majors lack critical thinking skills". To drive the point home, google will autocomplete it for you.
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  This is where The Algorithms have a fun hidden place in our daily lives. I tried a number of variations of that phrase and couldn't get Google to autocomplete it for me without getting to "stem majors lack crit". Before that it was suggesting math/calculus and chemistry skills without any mention of critical thinking.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  Google will autocomplete it for me but then pretty much all the results I see are STEM proponents refuting this supposedly common criticism.
  - stametseater 4y ago
    Completions for "stem majors lack cr": crossword, crossword clue, critical thinking skills, creative Completions for "humanity majors lack cr": crossword, crossword clue No humanity majors refuting the claim that they lack critical thinking skills, maybe because that is never claimed in the first place?
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      A bit of a logical leap in my mind to infer from that that there a bunch of of people saying STEM majors "lack critical thinking skills."
      - Natsu 4y ago
        Then who are said STEM majors refuting?
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Straw men?
        emodendroket 4y ago
        Perhaps they read a defense of liberal arts majors as having certain benefits including teaching critical thinking skills and decided to take this as an affront? I don’t know. Lots of groups have strange persecution complexes.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > To drive the point home, google will autocomplete it for you. I'm not sure if the irony here was intended or not. But it is poignant.
- pxc 4y ago
  As someone who did a double degree in philosophy and computer science concurrently, I am here to tell you: STEM majors very often do lack critical thinking skills. I have watched very smart physics majors struggle mightily (with success, in the end!) in a philosophy of science class because (a) they've implicitly absorbed an extremely naive epistemology, usually some Popperian but simplified thing, (b) they don't have a lot of practice reading and writing prose, and (c) their main coursework has focused on using existing models and methodologies to the near total exclusion of evaluating, analyzing, or comparing them. Incidentally, that was in a class taught by someone with a graduate degree in STEM himself, who collaborates with working scientists on some of his work as a philosopher— this was an instructor who could very much speak the language of undergrad STEM students. Critical thinking is also a matter of habit and temperament as much as it is being able to identify (un)sound reasoning itself. If you're not accustomed to seriously examining the structure and functioning of institutions, processes, and social practices, you ain't got it— even if you're extremely sharp with your logical and mathematical intuitions and skills. That said, widespread innumeracy seems to me much more widely condoned socially than STEMlord parochialism, and is just as detrimental. Especially at an undergraduate level, I think we would benefit from rolling back our increasing specialization a bit. Everyone should have some experience with the work of mathematicians— writing proofs— and everyone should have some engagement with the history-of and philosophy-of some of the STEM disciplines, imo. This is probably a good time to remind everyone that the empirical sciences are facing an extremely widespread methodological crisis right now¹. I point that out not to say that scientists are stupid or that the problems that add up to the replication crisis are easy to solve, but because critical thinking is exactly what scientists need to do and are doing when they work to address the replication crisis! It's not wrong to push for more emphasis on developing critical thinking skills and habits in science education. -- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's a good reminder, but in this context you really ought to mention that STEM is the least affected by the replication crisis, while "softer" fields like sociology and psychology are the most affected.

Yes, many times, from many of them. Google "stem majors lack critical thinking skills". To drive the point home, google will autocomplete it for you.

tonyarkles 4y ago
This is where The Algorithms have a fun hidden place in our daily lives. I tried a number of variations of that phrase and couldn't get Google to autocomplete it for me without getting to "stem majors lack crit". Before that it was suggesting math/calculus and chemistry skills without any mention of critical thinking.
emodendroket 4y ago
Google will autocomplete it for me but then pretty much all the results I see are STEM proponents refuting this supposedly common criticism.
- stametseater 4y ago
  Completions for "stem majors lack cr": crossword, crossword clue, critical thinking skills, creative Completions for "humanity majors lack cr": crossword, crossword clue No humanity majors refuting the claim that they lack critical thinking skills, maybe because that is never claimed in the first place?
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    A bit of a logical leap in my mind to infer from that that there a bunch of of people saying STEM majors "lack critical thinking skills."
    - Natsu 4y ago
      Then who are said STEM majors refuting?
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Straw men?
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        Perhaps they read a defense of liberal arts majors as having certain benefits including teaching critical thinking skills and decided to take this as an affront? I don’t know. Lots of groups have strange persecution complexes.
klyrs 4y ago
> To drive the point home, google will autocomplete it for you. I'm not sure if the irony here was intended or not. But it is poignant.
pxc 4y ago
As someone who did a double degree in philosophy and computer science concurrently, I am here to tell you: STEM majors very often do lack critical thinking skills. I have watched very smart physics majors struggle mightily (with success, in the end!) in a philosophy of science class because (a) they've implicitly absorbed an extremely naive epistemology, usually some Popperian but simplified thing, (b) they don't have a lot of practice reading and writing prose, and (c) their main coursework has focused on using existing models and methodologies to the near total exclusion of evaluating, analyzing, or comparing them. Incidentally, that was in a class taught by someone with a graduate degree in STEM himself, who collaborates with working scientists on some of his work as a philosopher— this was an instructor who could very much speak the language of undergrad STEM students. Critical thinking is also a matter of habit and temperament as much as it is being able to identify (un)sound reasoning itself. If you're not accustomed to seriously examining the structure and functioning of institutions, processes, and social practices, you ain't got it— even if you're extremely sharp with your logical and mathematical intuitions and skills. That said, widespread innumeracy seems to me much more widely condoned socially than STEMlord parochialism, and is just as detrimental. Especially at an undergraduate level, I think we would benefit from rolling back our increasing specialization a bit. Everyone should have some experience with the work of mathematicians— writing proofs— and everyone should have some engagement with the history-of and philosophy-of some of the STEM disciplines, imo. This is probably a good time to remind everyone that the empirical sciences are facing an extremely widespread methodological crisis right now¹. I point that out not to say that scientists are stupid or that the problems that add up to the replication crisis are easy to solve, but because critical thinking is exactly what scientists need to do and are doing when they work to address the replication crisis! It's not wrong to push for more emphasis on developing critical thinking skills and habits in science education. -- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's a good reminder, but in this context you really ought to mention that STEM is the least affected by the replication crisis, while "softer" fields like sociology and psychology are the most affected.