One gets the sense sometimes that hard scientists (e.g. folks like Coyne) view humanities/social science scholars as interlopers in their realm, despoiling their austere and rigorous empiricism with our frippery.
They are being too modest.
They are being too modest.
To be a scientist means wearing many hats: lab tech, computer programmer, data visualizer, and engineer. For those who do fieldwork, it can mean anthropologist, linguist, diplomat, and politician. For all, it takes knowledge of how to engage with the public and granting agencies.
In short, it’s an impossible task, which makes the fact that so many do it so well all the more admirable.
But given the sizeable overlap between what scientists do and what those laboring in the humanities and social sciences do, the hostility isn’t just odd - it’s damaging.
But given the sizeable overlap between what scientists do and what those laboring in the humanities and social sciences do, the hostility isn’t just odd - it’s damaging.
None of that means that every suggestion from my end of the campus quad is going to be helpful. I’m not so arrogant. But to greet those suggestions with hostility or contempt isn’t how you safeguard the scientific enterprise. It’s how you sell it short.
