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I resent the seemingly common belief that STEM and creativity are so disjoint. Every breakthrough in STEM required incredible amounts of creativity. Even averag

by pconner 12y ago

I resent the seemingly common belief that STEM and creativity are so disjoint. Every breakthrough in STEM required incredible amounts of creativity. Even average STEM workers (say, for example, a software developer) usually need to exercise creativity pretty regularly.

kazinator 12y ago
Yes; it's just not the liberal arts kind of creativity where there is no objective criterion for being wrong. You can't teach that creativity. The people with some of the most notable kinds of creativity didn't get it from sitting through some humanities courses.
- pconner 12y ago
  There isn't always an objective criterion for being wrong in STEM either. Obviously, in some cases, like mathematical proofs, you're either correct or not (and your correctness is formally verifiable), but design of scientific experiments or design of software systems can allow as much creativity as composing a song or writing a poem. The results of these designs can sometimes be evaluated in an objective fashion, but not in all cases necessarily.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    There are actually objective measures in evaluating a song or poem. Such concepts are rejected in the modern humanities and fine arts. The only thing wrong is to be "non-creative" (e.g. compose something in the baroque style, or paint realism: any form which has rules.) That is the real sin: to adhere to some obvious form which inherently demands the taboo of an objective evaluation of your work.
subsection1h 12y ago
Similarly, I'm also bothered by the common argument that participation in sports is vital for learning to work as part of a team, as if STEM projects don't facilitate gaining such experience.
- kazinator 12y ago
  The argument is wrong in a different way too: there are non-team-sports in which you can participate by yourself just fine, while reaping all the fitness and health benefits.
- Smoofer 12y ago
  Eh, in a high school setting, there's no better way to learn teamwork than being on a sports team, imo.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    Mainly learning about winning and losing and trying again.
  - pconner 12y ago
    There are other "teams" you could be on: drama departments, school bands, etc.
psychometry 12y ago
You clearly didn't read the article. The success the U.S. has had in being innovating in STEM fields is due to our cultural tradition of comprehensive education rooted in the liberal arts. A focus only on STEM is what gets you modern-day China, Korea, and Japan, where there are many technically skilled workers but a lower inclination to be innovative.
- acadien 12y ago
  >The success the U.S. has had in being innovating in STEM fields is due to our cultural tradition of comprehensive education rooted in the liberal arts. There is no evidence for this. >A focus only on STEM is what gets you modern-day China, Korea, and Japan, where there are many technically skilled workers but a lower inclination to be innovative. More stereotyping with no evidence. As someone who was worked with many Chinese, Koreans and Japanese as a scientist this statement is just outright ridiculous. Guess what, many of the top creative scientists in America are educated in the very countries you deride.
michaelochurch 12y ago
I resent the seemingly common belief that STEM and creativity are so disjoint. They're not, of course, and you explained that well. I do think that there is a problem of (surprising?) STEM anti-intellectualism, especially in industry. Some programmers are literate in history, the arts, and philosophy. Some are not. The latter category seems to get our industry in so much trouble; if they understood aesthetics, they wouldn't be so dismissive of languages that aren't Java, and if they understood human nature (through history and philosophy and literature) they'd have a better understanding of why "Agile" is dishonestly-sold bullshit. My 10x aesthetic sense isn't something I was born with; it comes from being exposed to a large number of seemingly unrelated topics. At heart, I'm a liberal arts guy. I went to a small liberal arts college (Carleton) when I had several big-name schools in the bag (e.g. a contact at Princeton) because, when I was 17, I wanted to be a writer. I was more passionate about poetry than the sciences, at the time. I majored in math, though, and was able to transition into software. I definitely think that a broad-based, liberal education is important. All of that said, a quality liberal-arts education includes math and the sciences. After all, two of the original seven liberal arts were mathematical, a third was astronomy and a fourth was music. There are narrow scientists and programmers, of course, and that's part of why we encounter so much nonsense in our industry, but there are narrow history and English literature people (even at high levels) as well and they're just as bad. Scientific literacy is important, and the creativity comes from exposure to a large number of fields. Like you, I reject the idea that some fields (e.g. the humanities) are more creative than others (e.g. the sciences). However, I think that people who simply refuse to learn a subject, whether it's history or the sciences, generally aren't very creative.

by pconner 12y ago

kazinator 12y ago

Yes; it's just not the liberal arts kind of creativity where there is no objective criterion for being wrong. You can't teach that creativity. The people with some of the most notable kinds of creativity didn't get it from sitting through some humanities courses.

pconner 12y ago
There isn't always an objective criterion for being wrong in STEM either. Obviously, in some cases, like mathematical proofs, you're either correct or not (and your correctness is formally verifiable), but design of scientific experiments or design of software systems can allow as much creativity as composing a song or writing a poem. The results of these designs can sometimes be evaluated in an objective fashion, but not in all cases necessarily.
- kazinator 12y ago
  There are actually objective measures in evaluating a song or poem. Such concepts are rejected in the modern humanities and fine arts. The only thing wrong is to be "non-creative" (e.g. compose something in the baroque style, or paint realism: any form which has rules.) That is the real sin: to adhere to some obvious form which inherently demands the taboo of an objective evaluation of your work.

subsection1h 12y ago

Similarly, I'm also bothered by the common argument that participation in sports is vital for learning to work as part of a team, as if STEM projects don't facilitate gaining such experience.

kazinator 12y ago
The argument is wrong in a different way too: there are non-team-sports in which you can participate by yourself just fine, while reaping all the fitness and health benefits.
Smoofer 12y ago
Eh, in a high school setting, there's no better way to learn teamwork than being on a sports team, imo.
- protomyth 12y ago
  Mainly learning about winning and losing and trying again.
- pconner 12y ago
  There are other "teams" you could be on: drama departments, school bands, etc.

psychometry 12y ago

You clearly didn't read the article. The success the U.S. has had in being innovating in STEM fields is due to our cultural tradition of comprehensive education rooted in the liberal arts. A focus only on STEM is what gets you modern-day China, Korea, and Japan, where there are many technically skilled workers but a lower inclination to be innovative.

acadien 12y ago
>The success the U.S. has had in being innovating in STEM fields is due to our cultural tradition of comprehensive education rooted in the liberal arts. There is no evidence for this. >A focus only on STEM is what gets you modern-day China, Korea, and Japan, where there are many technically skilled workers but a lower inclination to be innovative. More stereotyping with no evidence. As someone who was worked with many Chinese, Koreans and Japanese as a scientist this statement is just outright ridiculous. Guess what, many of the top creative scientists in America are educated in the very countries you deride.

michaelochurch 12y ago

I resent the seemingly common belief that STEM and creativity are so disjoint. They're not, of course, and you explained that well. I do think that there is a problem of (surprising?) STEM anti-intellectualism, especially in industry. Some programmers are literate in history, the arts, and philosophy. Some are not. The latter category seems to get our industry in so much trouble; if they understood aesthetics, they wouldn't be so dismissive of languages that aren't Java, and if they understood human nature (through history and philosophy and literature) they'd have a better understanding of why "Agile" is dishonestly-sold bullshit. My 10x aesthetic sense isn't something I was born with; it comes from being exposed to a large number of seemingly unrelated topics. At heart, I'm a liberal arts guy. I went to a small liberal arts college (Carleton) when I had several big-name schools in the bag (e.g. a contact at Princeton) because, when I was 17, I wanted to be a writer. I was more passionate about poetry than the sciences, at the time. I majored in math, though, and was able to transition into software. I definitely think that a broad-based, liberal education is important. All of that said, a quality liberal-arts education includes math and the sciences. After all, two of the original seven liberal arts were mathematical, a third was astronomy and a fourth was music. There are narrow scientists and programmers, of course, and that's part of why we encounter so much nonsense in our industry, but there are narrow history and English literature people (even at high levels) as well and they're just as bad. Scientific literacy is important, and the creativity comes from exposure to a large number of fields. Like you, I reject the idea that some fields (e.g. the humanities) are more creative than others (e.g. the sciences). However, I think that people who simply refuse to learn a subject, whether it's history or the sciences, generally aren't very creative.