The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education proper to a free man (Latin: liberus, “free”), unlike the education proper to a slave.
The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#32The irony is that usually there are no asteroids headed for earth, so it is debatable how useful the astronauts and nuclear warhead constructors are.
Keep in mind we seldom really need them, but, when we do, we need them really, really bad.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#33I'd just like to point out that Harvey Mudd College is a liberal arts college. As is Pomona College, where I got my (BA) degree in Computer Science.
So, yeah, the post is funny, but some of us have both a liberal arts degree and an ability to do utilitarian things.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#34Do we really need physicists? What have they done apart from give us ever increasing ways of destroying ourselves. Has quantum theory brought happiness to the world? Love? Peace? Has it helped you feel more connected to your neighbours, to the person on the bus or tube? Has it had any meaningful positive effect at all on the human condition? Or is it and its ilk of science degrees merely a relentless march to the day…
Heh, nice troll.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#35The irony is that usually there are no asteroids headed for earth, so it is debatable how useful the astronauts and nuclear warhead constructors are.
Keep in mind we seldom really need them, but, when we do, we need them really, really bad.
Actually, by most accounts we did fine without them for 200,000 years.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#36What are the odds of actually stopping an asteroid? I suspect that asteroids small enough to be escaped by evacuation wouldn't be detected soon enough, and I highly doubt if we could do anything to divert or destroy a larger asteroid.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind we seldom really need them, but, when we do, we need them really, really bad.
Actually, by most accounts we did fine without them for 200,000 years.
We did just fine without them for a good couple dozen million years.
It's just that we won't be able to do without them forever ;-)
In fact, I like to tall my son the dinosaurs only died because they had neither rockets nor nukes.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#38Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#39Do we really need physicists? What have they done apart from give us ever increasing ways of destroying ourselves. Has quantum theory brought happiness to the world? Love? Peace? Has it helped you feel more connected to your neighbours, to the person on the bus or tube? Has it had any meaningful positive effect at all on the human condition? Or is it and its ilk of science degrees merely a relentless march to the day…
Science is neither good nor evil in and of itself. It just increases the capacity for doing more of either.
Although it is as easy to brush the above post off as it is to say 'polio vaccine', it IS important to consider that a large portion of scientific research is funded directly for military applications. In the US FY2010 budget, military R&D spending is $20 billion greater than non-military R&D spending.
Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still true.
What's true about it? That, within certain contrived scenarios involving existential threats to humankind, humanities knowledge becomes useless? Science and technology are important, and deserve more respect and funding than they get in this society, but not to the detriment of all else.
I think the standard (and weak) joke about the uselessness of humanities degrees is to some extent a red herring. The real subject of satire here are technophilic power fantasies, such as _The Core_, _Impact_, _Asteroid_, etc., etc.