Science vs. Humanities
They say old habits die hard. Society is full of prejudice wherever anyone looks, and many have to struggle constantly to fit in. There are plenty of things that may be signaled out from society for giving space to criticism and segregation. One of these conceptions regards the arts and humanities. People struggle with different kinds of prejudice every day, and one of the most widespread preconceptions is that people who study science are smarter or more "intelligent" than people who go for the arts.
In general, it is essential to know about history and literature, since it is a very important part of what humankind is now. History talks about the evolution of men and even contributes to an important part of economics or international relationships. It is essential to know about the allies of a country and the relationships with other countries when it comes to commerce. Literature gives an insight to the complete thoughts of a culture, a greater understanding of diversity in mankind and the collective thoughts of it.
It is quite ironic the situation held now a days, since in the highest "classes" it is expected, if not an obligation, to be well educated in the arts and culture in general. Ironically, many of these people are the CEO's of big companies, which work with mathematics, statistics and calculus, and whose carreer was based on science. Of course, we may not generalize, but it is taken as a fact that it is harder in the field of humanities to find a stable job or that which is "well-paid". The conservative part of society takes a different approach, though; the easy way. Analyzing the facts, the easy but long road is studying an engineering carrer or medicine or law; but many times it isn't considered this way. Society fits these carreers with hard working people; when sometimes this is a forced decision and cowardy runs the engine of this vehicle. It is very unlikely that someone in the field of humanities will have chosen his/her carrer because they "Had no other option left", when this phrase may be commonly found amongst scientists. Within the college society, we can constantly see how those who study design, literature or anthropology are undermined by people form other carreers like medicine or law students when in reality there are med schools that don't even apply the requirements to some students and accept those who come directly form a humanities degree.
"The study found that, by some measures, the humanities students made more sensitive doctors: they were more than twice as likely to train as psychiatrists (14 percent compared with 5.6 percent of their classmates) and somewhat more likely — though less so than Dr. Kase had expected — to go into primary care fields, like pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology (49 percent compared with 39 percent). Conversely, they avoid some fields, like surgical subspecialties and anesthesiology."
"But what surprised the authors the most, they said, was that humanities students were significantly more likely than their peers to devote a year to scholarly research (28 percent compared with 14 percent). They scored lower on Step 1 of the Medical Licensing Examination, taken after the second year of medical school, which generally correlates with scientific knowledge. But over all, they ranked about the same in honors grades and in the percentage in the top quarter of the class."
The goal is not to bring up or make one area the most important, but to make notice that art, history, music, psychology, anthropology or literature are as important as knowing about biology, physics, chemistry, biomedicine and any pure science there is. Personally, I believe the first on this list are the very essence of humankind. Here's another irony as we may observe. It is illogical humanities are undermined considering how big religion and faith are to human beings if these are pure humanistic areas of study like theology. In fact, if the world were based on science strictly, religion will have no place in anyone's life being scientifically unexplainable in nature.
All of these are factors to consider which society doesn't always think about. The sense of being superior, finding success or being better than others is something prevalent and hardly breakeable today. Selfishness will push men to bring others down in any way they can. If not physcially it may be mentally or psychologically by trying to proove their superiority knowing more about "science" which will get them a fancy name and job psoition than including in their lives something that will teach them how to grow from the inside: spirit, self identity, anthropology and history are what makes us (our soul, for those who believe there's one) who we are.
References
Science vs Humanities « A wide angle view of India. (n.d.). A wide angle view of India. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/science-vs-humanities/
Basu, J., Cao, K., Hertz, G., Kusnadi, J., Osgood, M., & Romanczuk, A. (n.d.). The Value of a Humanities Degree: Six Students' Views - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education. Home - The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from http://chronicle.com/article/The-Value-of-a-Humanities/127758/
HARTOCOLLIS, A. (n.d.). Getting Into Med School Without Hard Sciences - NYTimes.com. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30medschools.html?pagewanted=all