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The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

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Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#41

Post by mr_toad »

asdfman123 wrote: post #24
javajosh wrote: post #16

Another quote which gets to the heart of it, I think: >I remember G.H. Hardy remarking to me in the 30's with some mild puzzlement: 'Have you noticed how the word "intellectual" is used nowadays? There seems to be a new definition that doesn't include Rutherford or Eddington or Dirac or Adrian or me.' Its scientists complaining about not being accepted by the "cool kids". A tale as old as time.

That’s because studying the humanities is quite a bit different than studying a technical field. The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?” Sure, physics provides the occasional relevant answer, but less directly. It discovers facts about nature, and sometimes those facts give the discussion more context.

Science teaches us that being human is not particularly special.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#42

Post by asdfman123 »

javajosh wrote: post #29
asdfman123 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because studying the humanities is quite a bit different than studying a technical field. The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?” Sure, physics provides the occasional relevant answer, but less directly. It discovers facts about nature, and sometimes those facts give the discussion more context.

>The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?” That's quite condescending. Scientists must not know how to live, or what it means to be human, since they don't have an English degree. Look, the humanities is where people who say things like "I'm not good with numbers" go. That's it.

I never said any of that.

Perhaps you could benefit from a humanities education to learn how to respond an argument and construct your own.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#43

Post by asdfman123 »

mr_toad wrote: post #41
asdfman123 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because studying the humanities is quite a bit different than studying a technical field. The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?” Sure, physics provides the occasional relevant answer, but less directly. It discovers facts about nature, and sometimes those facts give the discussion more context.

Science teaches us that being human is not particularly special.

Does it?

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#44

Post by lcuff »

ajross wrote: post #32
d0mine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that hard to understand that a broken glass won't mend itself spontaneously

No, but understanding that fact is at most a naive and useless understanding the second law of thermodynamics. It's the numbers in there that make it a scientific "law". And a numeric understanding of entropy is totally bananas.

For some definition of useless, I suppose. Without trying to be contrary, most of what I (we) know is 'useless' in terms of whether my knowing it has a "useful" impact on my life. Knowing that there's an equation governing gravitational attraction doesn't really impact my life experientially. It's true that if you're trying to design any system that involves a Carnot cycle, it becomes useful, but given no such job description, it's not 'useful' information. Much of science _is_ useful in our STEM-oriented world, to those using it.

I think some of the reality is that regardless of most other factors in our lives, love and relationships are a Big Deal, so stories in that realm have in some small way more usefulness. Thus, I know the plot of Romeo and Juliet better than I can give a summary of the Second Law.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#45

Post by agnosticmantis »

Related articles in math and stats communities:

- The Two Cultures of Mathematics by Tim Gowers: https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/2cultures.pdf

Discusses theory builders (think algebra) vs. problem solvers (think combinatorics) in mathematics, and how the latter have been sort of marginalized and under-appreciated in the community.

- Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures by the legendary Leo Breiman

https://projecteuclid.org/journals/statistical-science/volum...

Discusses predictive modeling (think random forests and NNs) vs. statistical inference (think null hypothesis significance testing), and how the former have been under-appreciated in the stats community, to the detriment of statisticians.

Both very fun reads by two giants.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#46

Post by MichaelZuo »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22
pessimizer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy that. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is not only basic, but can be stated in a sentence. Being able to generally recall the plot of Romeo & Juliet (or any Shakespeare play) is objectively harder than being able to spit out that sentence. I'll make the bold claim that Second Law of Thermodynamics would be recalled by far more scientists than the plot of Coriolanus would be by MFAs. The worst thing we do…

I would bet you money if you asked a random sampling of college grads, 10x the number of people could roughly summarize Romeo and Juliet than the second law of thermodynamics.

Which is a bit of shame since the two cultures are of roughly equal importance to the future prospects of college grads.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#47

Post by harimau777 »

asdfman123 wrote: post #23
ajross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also picking on a particularly difficult area. The "second law of thermodynamics" is actually extremely subtle. In its original formulation it's basically a big mess talking about energy flows. In its simple/elegant/modern form, it relies on an understanding of this crazy thing called "entropy" which is measured like energy but isn't, and which gets pushed with an "intuitive" interpretation that is anything but…

Lots of people just don’t have the brainpower to be comfortable with abstract physical or mathematical concepts. Nearly everyone can understand a love story.

Isn't part of the point of Romeo and Juliet that it's not a love story? Romeo and Juliet thought they were in love but they really were hormonal teens who knew each other for only two days. My understanding is that's the purpose of Romeo's initial infatuation with Rosaline; it shows that he's really just someone in love with the idea of being in love.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#48

Post by javajosh »

asdfman123 wrote: post #42
javajosh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The humanities are broadly trying to answer “what does it mean to be a human, and how should we live?” That's quite condescending. Scientists must not know how to live, or what it means to be human, since they don't have an English degree. Look, the humanities is where people who say things like "I'm not good with numbers" go. That's it.

I never said any of that. Perhaps you could benefit from a humanities education to learn how to respond an argument and construct your own.

>I never said any of that.

Ah, but you did, and you stepped in something that a lot of scientists (and devs) resent, having others assume that they are robots, without heart or passion or insight. What you said was even worse, one group of people are trying to understand "what it means to be human", implying that the other group of people is not. It's literally dehumanizing, and I called you out, and now you're responding with a puerile "is to".

I have two degrees, one in physics, one in philosophy, and with this response I realize I need to review the literature on expected value.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#49

Post by DiggyJohnson »

ajross wrote: post #15
karaterobot wrote: post #6

> Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's? But that's not quite true, is it. In the one case, he's asking someone to explain a very specific thing (one particular physical law), and i…

It's also picking on a particularly difficult area. The "second law of thermodynamics" is actually extremely subtle. In its original formulation it's basically a big mess talking about energy flows. In its simple/elegant/modern form, it relies on an understanding of this crazy thing called "entropy" which is measured like energy but isn't, and which gets pushed with an "intuitive" interpretation that is anything but…

Is the plot of Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet not as subtle or layered as to provoke the exact same analysis?

You could describe it in a sentence or two, or you could write a book explaining why the typical summary misses out on the subtle details that really make it so interesting.

Re: The Two Cultures (1959) [pdf]

#50

Post by asdfman123 »

javajosh wrote: post #48
asdfman123 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said any of that. Perhaps you could benefit from a humanities education to learn how to respond an argument and construct your own.

>I never said any of that. Ah, but you did, and you stepped in something that a lot of scientists (and devs) resent, having others assume that they are robots, without heart or passion or insight. What you said was even worse, one group of people are trying to understand "what it means to be human", implying that the other group of people is not. It's literally dehumanizing, and I called you out, and now you're respo…

I still did not say any of that
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