Comments on: To Be or…

By: MaryF

MaryF — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:35:04 +0000

I think there are a lot of reasons for taxpayers to support scientific research. Much of it benefits all of us in frequently very unexpected ways. Supporting only what directly benefits you personally always seems short-sighted to me.

And unlike 100 years ago, serious research is much too expensive for individuals to do effectively in their kitchen.

By: robert_piepenbrink

robert_piepenbrink — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:57:22 +0000

Excuse me? Suggesting that it might be interesting to know something isn’t generally regarded as a demand. However, Jefferson desired that in the University of Virginia–I was wrong in thinking it had begun as a college–”all the useful sciences should be taught in their highest degree,” Useful. That included law and medicine, by the way, and nearly the first electives in the United States.

According to the UVA web site, his notion of useful included “modern as well as ancient languages, history, rhetoric, mathematics, chemistry, botany, zoology, government, ethics, and other fields.” I don’t believe I’d quarrel with anything on the list with the possible exception of ethics. (For that matter, I’m happy that ethics be taught: I just think it’s tricky for a secular institution.)

As to the horror with which a 19th Century humanities department would regard practicality, I believe Thorstein Veblen covered the subject far better than I ever will.

By: jd

jd — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:06:09 +0000

“Well, Robert insists that he has use even for the hard sciences only because they sometimes produce practical results, and will tolerate history because it produces practical results, too, or could.”

My limited experience is that the people doing pure science do it because they enjoy it- its fun. A non-science friend once commented “bigger and better crossword puzzles.”

Yes, but we don’t ask tax payers to pay billions of dollars a year to support crossword puzzles. Nor do we force university students to take courses in crossword puzzles. The fact thea I enjoyed Physics is not a good reason to force Robert to pay for it.

Back in the 19th century much of science could be described as “sealing wax and string” – small labs, simple experiments and simple equipment. There was a sense in which science was a hobby. Pure science can still be thought of as a hobby but its a very expensive one.

By: cperkins

cperkins — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:00:34 +0000

Isn’t it probable that the people who want to teach literature as social gospel are attempting to change the culture away from that produced and supported by the study of the humanities? They are trying to create a Brave New World, although perhaps not one which is founded on a coherent over-arching political ideology. It’s a world that seems to be founded on a groupthink and an assortment of isms, but then I’m getting less and less enamoured of it, so my view is unsympathetic. Nevertheless, the practitioners of the-Humanities-as-social-action seem to think that they are using the humanities to forge a culture, only not the one that has been developing all along, and which they hope is uttering its final gasp.

Or are they merely grasping at straws; struggling to find a rationale for the university and its jobs in a world that values practical stuff? I’m sure you’ve come across the university-as-business and student-as-customer ideas.