>Some people wind up majoring in the humanities and social sciences because they can't cut it in highly mathematical disciplines, sure. But it's also true that many of the mathematically adept are also weak in the humanities and social sciences.
Well, in the sense that those with hard majors tend not to have learned the body of knowledge associated with any one discipline, sure. But in terms of the ability to write—which is pretty clearly the most important skill in the humanities—I'd put money on a technical major's skills over those of a non-technical major.
>Incidentally, the number of sci/math types who cling to the Sokal Affair as an excuse for believing much of contemporary humanities theory is gibberish suggests that an understanding of things like deconstruction probably don't come as easily to them as you might think.
"Cling"? The Sokal Affair showed pretty clearly that there's no easy way to tell the difference between honest literary criticism and bullshit. And the reason is that the entire institution of "literary criticism" consists essentially of people coming up with really trivial ideas and wrapping them in layers and layers of obfuscation. I understand deconstruction. And my reaction to it is, "People think that these ideas are profound enough to be given names?"
>I really don't understand what disciplinary elitism gets you.
Elitism isn't the driving force here. The driving force is that roughly 50% of academic disciplines are complete bullshit, and I (and presumably other logical, unbiased people) quite simply feel compelled to call that kind of stuff out. It might look like elitism if I happen to be working in a discipline that's NOT bullshit when I make that accusation, but rest assured that I would act in the same way even if I were doing nothing at the time.
Well, in the sense that those with hard majors tend not to have learned the body of knowledge associated with any one discipline, sure. But in terms of the ability to write—which is pretty clearly the most important skill in the humanities—I'd put money on a technical major's skills over those of a non-technical major.
>Incidentally, the number of sci/math types who cling to the Sokal Affair as an excuse for believing much of contemporary humanities theory is gibberish suggests that an understanding of things like deconstruction probably don't come as easily to them as you might think.
"Cling"? The Sokal Affair showed pretty clearly that there's no easy way to tell the difference between honest literary criticism and bullshit. And the reason is that the entire institution of "literary criticism" consists essentially of people coming up with really trivial ideas and wrapping them in layers and layers of obfuscation. I understand deconstruction. And my reaction to it is, "People think that these ideas are profound enough to be given names?"
>I really don't understand what disciplinary elitism gets you.
Elitism isn't the driving force here. The driving force is that roughly 50% of academic disciplines are complete bullshit, and I (and presumably other logical, unbiased people) quite simply feel compelled to call that kind of stuff out. It might look like elitism if I happen to be working in a discipline that's NOT bullshit when I make that accusation, but rest assured that I would act in the same way even if I were doing nothing at the time.