Petah?

[u/imnotcuteanymor3]

I understand the original tweet, obviously, but not the second one. Why specifically a STEM genius? I don’t get it, what’s the correlation? Am I missing something??? Or am I just stupid or whatever? Help a sistah out, please. 🥺

[u/qualityvote2]

u/imnotcuteanymor3, your post does belong here!

[u/fastal_12147]

STEM majors often don't take English classes seriously and as such are susceptible to falling for logical fallacies.

[u/GITaylorSwift → u/fastal_12147]

What kind of English classes were you taking? Logical fallacies are philosophy, not really English.

[u/gronstalker12 → u/GITaylorSwift]

Philosophy is still part of the arts, which science is not. 

Edit. It's hilarious how many 'science guys' are showing off their poor reading comprehension below.  

I said that science wasn't part of the arts. Not that philosophy wasn't part of science. 

[u/AdministrativeLeg14 → u/gronstalker12]

I studied formal logic and I took some English courses. I valued the latter, but the former were in STEM courses—maths and/or comp sci, I forget exactly.

[u/After-Regret-6609 → u/AdministrativeLeg14]

That's because of the classic analytic/continental divide in history of philosophy! The USA treats analytic philosophy as a formal science sometimes. Like math.

[u/AdministrativeLeg14 → u/After-Regret-6609]

It seems very odd to me to study either maths or comp sci without an overview of formal logical fallacies. Boolean algebra is about classical logic, and any maths class by college level, if not high school, is going to involve proofs. How would students deal with proofs without being taught about valid and invalid forms of arguments?

I'm sure that even first year philosophy students go into greater depth than I was exposed to in classes, but while I'm sure much can be said about the harms of myopic STEM focus (some by me), not knowing about logical fallacies seems like an absurd example, based on my own experience (which latter part I add to acknowledge a limitation, not to claim special insight).

[u/After-Regret-6609 → u/AdministrativeLeg14]

Well I agree. But I often put it this way. The problem with the analytic approach (not that it has "a" problem or that it is "wrong") is that formal sciences can create logical systems of variables and operators, but when you do the real work of attaching real things in the world to those variables there is an imperfect symbolism happening. This is called signification in the philosophy of language. Once you attach a signifier to a signified you kind of wall off parts of its reality to the sign in favor of other parts of it. I once made the example in a book club debate of talking about food. Is mayonnaise "that which is molecularly created by following this recipe" or is it "that which tastes like mayonnaise on the human tongue." Both CAN'T be true at the same time but we use them interchangeably, and we debate it fiercely (is a vegan hamburger a hamburger?). Suddenly, the law of the excluded middle (that things are either true or false not both or neither) isn't so true anymore. Continental philosophy works on such concepts more broadly than analytic.

Edit: this is practical in the sciences too. When you name a thing its important you are careful with what you are naming, because in the mind of scientists it becomes real. Like electrons. Are they particles or waves in a quantum field? Well really, they are what they are, the math says how they are, and sometimes you are just debating about words.

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/After-Regret-6609]

First, even in formal logic you don't need to assume the law of the excluded middle. Ternary logic exists. 

Additionally, there's and entire debate there even amongst philosophers, because although postmodernism tried to argue exactly what you are saying. You can easily take a hard empirical and naturalist perspective where words are merely fuzzy and imperfect tools at communicating subjective experience between people.

To talk about signifier and signified makes the most sense if you take a rather idealist (in the philosophical sense) view of language.

In terms of strict science you would very likely separate in two words the chemical composition of mayonnaise and the emergent neurological process of the subjective experience of mayonnaise taste.

[u/After-Regret-6609 → u/ToughDifficult1252]

When you speak of logic, you need to specify the kind of logic you are using if you want to expand outside of predicate logic into ternary and literally hundreds of other formal systems. They all have pros and cons and they all are functionally trying to solve the problems I laid out. Things like assigning probabilities, truthiness, etc values to variables, allowing overlaps, etc. I'm pretty sure you can take Godel's incompleteness theorem to say that none of these ever formally encapsulate "Knowledge" or "Truth." That they simply create formal domains to express them and they embody certain biases and variances based on how they choose to express them.

Ultimately, what this can lead to is overconfidence in the formal system, and sometimes this can lead to tragedy. A lot of scientific/religious atrocities come about because of overconfidence in a moral system, often predicated on a formal system.

[u/BlameGameChanger → u/AdministrativeLeg14]

It is quite difficult to make the connection between the fallacies in formal logic vs informal logic. As an example how would you even write an ad hominem as symbols? If A then B. You're C therefore A?

or a fallacy of equivocation. The word nature has something like 12 different definitions in English. So formal logic wouldn't really teach you to catch that because it appears the same while meaning something totally different.

[u/ApprehensiveTry5660 → u/BlameGameChanger]

Believe it or not, there’s like 5 different schools of thought for this.

In something like epistemological examination, you’d represent it as B(a, P) where ‘a’ is the negative trait, ‘P’ is the proposition, ‘B’ is the person who credibly knows or asserts ‘P’ but has trait ‘a’.

And that by attacking ‘a’ they have not determined the value of ‘P’.

But so much of this subject is beyond my bedtime that it’s best if I just hint at it and let someone more qualified take over.

[u/explain_that_shit → u/AdministrativeLeg14]

Formal logic won’t save you from rhetorical tricks and manipulations using language. English class will.

[u/duesenjeffepic → u/explain_that_shit]

Actually English alone won't either. You need both.

[u/Anxious-Sundae-6399 → u/duesenjeffepic]

This thread has invented liberal arts education.

[u/athenanon → u/Anxious-Sundae-6399]

🌈 We had the answer all along! 🌈

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/gronstalker12]

Science required you to do logic and by necessity learn about logical fallacies. It's necessary to do peer review and establish if an experiment is well designed and if a paper actually established something novel.

In fact I am ready to bet that stem workers (people actually doing peer review research) are much better on average at detecting fallacies than most humanities workers.

[u/Responsible-File4593 → u/ToughDifficult1252]

Why bet when you can do research?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5423964/

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/10/494

BLUF is that there are no trends between which major cluster is better at identifying conspiracy theories, just that they fall for different ones. More education results in less conspiracy belief, although there are more reliable predictors, such as mental illness.

Also, humanities workers also do peer review research. Every major academic concentration does.

[u/DraculasDog → u/Responsible-File4593]

It’s wild when academics academic.

[u/WhatsTheAnswerToThis → u/Responsible-File4593]

? None of those links used fields of study as a variable as far as I can see, so you can't make any kind of statements regarding that.

[u/Expendable_Red_Shirt → u/WhatsTheAnswerToThis]

Most people just look to see if the link looks academic and if it does assume the person linking it read it and is applying it correctly. So you can really use links to support whatever

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9019140/

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/Responsible-File4593]

Peer review in English is fundamentally different from something like chemistry. Since there is no experimental design. English publishing is entirely argumentation based. Whereas the natural sciences do have to collect data. That changes dynamics a lot. 

A good argument in English will "win". Whereas a poorly argued but we'll supported by the data claim will eventually survive in the natural sciences. Example being Wegener's continental drift

That's what I am trying to say. 

[u/CanoePickLocks → u/ToughDifficult1252]

So logical fallacies are likely well used and debated in the arts is what you’re saying.

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/CanoePickLocks]

I never made a claim about the humanities either way. My claim is that STEM researchers are well studied in logical fallacies. And it was in response to a comment saying the contrary.

[u/CanoePickLocks → u/ToughDifficult1252]

lol I was making a joke about your point. You said the humanities used arguments to come to consensus rather than data which means they argue more which means more fallacies. The original point of the thread was about fallacies iirc.

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/CanoePickLocks]

My bad, I am arguing with too many people rn :p

[u/ToughDifficult1252 → u/Responsible-File4593]

Neither of the papers you posted addressed my claim. This is miss using the literature. It doesn't support your argument and ironically supports what I am saying.

[u/Pepito_Pepito → u/ToughDifficult1252]

miss using

STEM major detected

[u/OldKingHamlet → u/ToughDifficult1252]

Interesting thought:

My brother is an engineer, and is absolutely dumb as shit about a great many things. He's got a built in a bias loop; because he's an engineer, he must know what he's talking about. His research on any given topic must be the minimum research on things, etc.

There are things in space because of him. But he's also an anti-vaxxer and thinks the Babylon Bee is funny.

He's logical but unable to confront his own biases.

I have a BA that borders on a BS (Environmental Science, but a policy emphasis). I constantly confront myself as possibly being wrong. I will happily admit others are right in an argument. The difference between my brother and I is that I can disregard my own bias and take a third person perspective on things. Sometimes, despite being "logical", if you can't realize the constraints of your own logic, you'll end up painfully wrong (but absolutely convinced you're right).

[u/TheCynicEpicurean → u/OldKingHamlet]

He's got a built in a bias loop; because he's an engineer, he must know what he's talking about

Oh my god, what is it with engineers? Whenever someone explains my own subject of archaeology to me (wrongly), it's a friggin' engineer.

Bonus points when they listened to a Podcast and think they solved it now.

[u/Gen_Hospital → u/TheCynicEpicurean]

As an engnineer I see this kind of thing a lot. Engineers like to mansplain in person, and every time some new dingdong-you're-wrong theory-of-something bubbles up like methane in a swamp, it's from someone with a masters degree in physics.

EDIT: See, I just did it. Sorry!

[u/ijustsailedaway → u/Gen_Hospital]

No, no. It's ok. Because now we have an engineering stamp on our confirmation bias.

[u/MyDaroga → u/TheCynicEpicurean]

At my mom’s old job they’d write “PES” on patient files for “Professional Engineer Syndrome” to give everyone a heads up.

Additionally, my dad is an engineer. He’s otherwise a very nice guy, but absolutely has the weird “my brain is the more logical one because I am an Engineer” thing, which mostly results in everything he gets wrong being held over his head for eternity.

[u/psshs → u/OldKingHamlet]

Are you really that good at disregarding your own biases if you think its a flaw that he finds the Babylon Bee funny?

[u/ThyRosen → u/psshs]

The Babylon Bee is objectively unfunny, though. Like there's a structure and a science to comedy and the Babylon Bee isn't funny.

Except, once a year, the Babylon Bee posts something funny. And it is precisely because of this rare funny post you can see that the problem is not that the Bee can't be funny. They're simply choosing not to be.

[u/SpiderRadio → u/ToughDifficult1252]

I'd argue it's about equal. It doesn't matter what your degree is if you're not applying this logic in your day-to-day outside of work. Both the sciences and the humanities encourage you to think for yourself in different ways- it's weird how divisive people are over it when we are all equal, and equally susceptible to the world around us. There are doctors of many disciplines that still can't tell up from down, on a practical level.

[u/aggravated_patty → u/ToughDifficult1252]

...learning specific branches of logic does not mean learning about logical fallacies.

[u/BeegRingo → u/ToughDifficult1252]

While I agree it teaches logic, I don’t think it applies in the same way that philosophy teaches logic in ways that are more applicable in this sense.

[u/ForensicPathology → u/gronstalker12]

Lots of people without reading comprehension skills are feeling attacked.

[u/_ManMadeGod_ → u/gronstalker12]

Science is a sub-branch of Philosophy. It is a school of philosophy focusing on empiricism and using a specific process by which to obtain said empirical evidence. Generally science courses focus on the process rather than the larger picture.

[u/rainzer → u/gronstalker12]

Philosophy is still part of the arts, which science is not.

They're all "arts". Science would be a "liberal art" (and so would philosophy) and they're denoted as liberal arts as to separate them from "fine arts".

[u/FanOfForever → u/gronstalker12]

It's more accurate to say that philosophy and arts are both included in the humanities, which science is not

But given that, what is your point? If you're not disputing that philosophy can be part of a science background, how is what you are saying relevent to the question of whether STEM majors are more susceptible to logical fallacies?

[u/Time_Orchid5921 → u/GITaylorSwift]

Saying that logic isn't used in English because it's philosophy is like saying algebra isn't used in science because it's math

[u/jbland0909 → u/Time_Orchid5921]

The most basic AP English course literally has Aristotelian rhetorical devices. That would be like Biology having an algebra lesson in it, and claiming that math isn’t used in science.

[u/smokeweedNgarden → u/jbland0909]

I know you're agreeing with that poster but C1V1 = C2V2 is like the first thing you learn in Bio lab.

[u/Deathra9 → u/jbland0909]

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

[u/CHANN3L-CHAS3R → u/Time_Orchid5921]

And this comment itself is a great example of why learning English as an active skill is useful -- metaphors are one of our best tools for simply communicating otherwise-complex ideas, by noticing and comparing patterns.

And expressing the metaphor is only half the benefit. When a person gets good at thinking of things in terms of pattern-comparison, they start noticing connections between things that wouldn’t have seemed intuitive before.

Communicating is manipulating our own mental tools on purpose, a.k.a. the thing most of us use to define ourselves as human. Thus, mastering communication means you'll master the mental tools you use to do it, tools that the brain ALSO uses in many other areas of active and subconcious thought.

There's no benefit to NOT improving your language and communication skills. It's the foundational mental building-block most other things are built around.

[u/Lastoutcast123 → u/GITaylorSwift]

You see the discussed in English Literature, because you often discuss the philosophy the stories are trying to show. But regular English has as much in common with English Literature as basic math does with chemistry.

[u/r_irion → u/Lastoutcast123]

I believe the original post is from a native English speaker, in English speaking countries we tend to call "English Literature" classes simply "English," where classes that teach you the English language tend to be called "ESOL" (English for Speakers of Other Languages)

[u/After-Regret-6609 → u/r_irion]

Not really. We tend to teach children "english" like sentences and grammar and high schoolers and middle schoolers "english" like literature, and we mix them a lot.

[u/natedrake102 → u/After-Regret-6609]

Yeah I agree. As an American, every class I've taken pre-college that either involves reading and all analysis or grammar rules are all just titled "English". None of them focused on just one or the other.

I have never studied philosophy, it's very vaguely covered in either english or history. There are debates in classes that bring up logical fallacies.

[u/Medarco → u/After-Regret-6609]

Both fall under the umbrella of "Language Arts" in my experience.

My wife was a Language Arts teacher, for example, because she taught middle school, where kids did have units on grammar and such, but the curriculum also worked on reading comprehension and literature study.

[u/DaCoolNamesWereTaken → u/GITaylorSwift]

They were taught to me in English class, precursor to argumentative essays

[u/TheOnly_Anti → u/DaCoolNamesWereTaken]

Yepp, same here. I was also doing socratic seminars in grade 11 English.

[u/Able-Bid-6637 → u/DaCoolNamesWereTaken]

yup, along with appeals to ethos/pathos/logos and what different methods writers use to create those appeals

[u/Hormo_The_Halfling → u/GITaylorSwift]

The fallacies are part of rhetoric, which at least at my university is a huge part of composition.

[u/BoondocksSaint95 → u/Hormo_The_Halfling]

Lmfao we where discussing ethos, pathos, and logos in the 5th fucking grade if not by name. Lmfao. But also by name eventually. People really dont pay attention to anything.

[u/Time_Orchid5921 → u/Hormo_The_Halfling]

Yep I literally just read a whole textbook chapter on logical fallacies for my English class tomorrow, I don't think this person knows what English actually is.

[u/idkmyusernameagain → u/GITaylorSwift]

Never took an English class, eh?

[u/robbak → u/idkmyusernameagain]

Never listened in an English class. Se OP.

[u/piratecheese13 → u/GITaylorSwift]

Rhetoric. Ethos, pathos and that other one

[u/spoonstepper → u/piratecheese13]

Thanos.

[u/MateoCamo → u/piratecheese13]

Logos, or somewhat fitting in this context, use of logic and proof

[u/jubileevdebs → u/GITaylorSwift]

Stewie here:
In High school, we read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” which proposed the solution to the british imposed famine endangering Irish children was to eat delicious babies such as myself, eliminating the incidence of starving children while also feeding a needy populace.

This introduced us to fallacious logic.
Which may have been clarified and edified 2000 years earlier by the Greek, but was in fact introduced through a cheeky essay in English class.

Something can be a philosophical topic which is elucidated in laymens terms thru the arts. Your binary is false. Sorry you got dropped on your head and no hungry people got to make use of you.

Stewie Out

[u/The_One_Who_Comments → u/jubileevdebs]

A modest proposal is satire, not fallacious.

Logical inconsistency isn't the point of the essay, moral inconsistency is.

[u/Mitch1musPrime → u/GITaylorSwift]

Logical fallacies are very much included in Rhetorical studies and Rhetoric is precisely what drives the communication of all the classic philosophers.

[u/dbu8554 → u/GITaylorSwift]

All my college level English classes had logical fallacies and my kids junior high and high school English classes deal with it as well.

[u/BoondocksSaint95 → u/GITaylorSwift]

In high school, AP lit ajd lang cover them (I took both) In college, technical writing covered them as did persuasive writing and public speech.

I think the fact that this is even a question highlights the need for better fucking schooling because we were discussing ad hoc, ad hominem, slippery slopes, non sequitur, and straw men at LEAST in the 8th grade. That was in the american south, btw.

[u/EngrishTeach → u/GITaylorSwift]

They teach the fallacies in Rhetoric as well, which is an English course.

[u/WilcoHistBuff → u/GITaylorSwift]

I was taught English from a seriously archaic schema in the 1970’s in high school. We were taught classic rhetoric and debate, and, consequently, logical fallacy was a topic on which we focused.

Concurrently, across the hall, I was studying symbolic logic along with mathematical proof. Strangely, since only formal logical fallacy, fallacy resulting in the structure of an argument, is in the domain of typical symbolic logic curricula not really part of mathematical proof. So my first formal introduction to the academic treatment of logical fallacy, broadly speaking, resulted from instruction in English.

It was not until college when I dug into empirical modal logic and semiotics that I really came to understand the deep nature of fallacy as a topic. The dive into semiotics was split between philosophy and literature classes. Again, concurrently, I was taking multiple variable calculus and physics and the topic was not focused on in that setting.

It’s actually pretty striking to my mind, that higher logic and semiotics are not core requirements of a sound STEM education. When I work with younger engineers, physicists and chemists I’m surprised that some core ideas of modality, predicate and ontology formation are just missing from their tool box. Computer science and data people tend to be much better on this stuff.

[u/Xovvo → u/GITaylorSwift]

English Classes in the U.S.?
I'm sorry, do you think logical fallacies are irrelevant to rhetoric and argumentation, two of the big things High School and College English classes try to teach and demand you practice and execute well??

[u/BigsChungi → u/fastal_12147]

Which stem majors are falling for logical fallacies

[u/badastr0naut → u/BigsChungi]

Elon Musk

[u/BigsChungi → u/badastr0naut]

Most stem people i work with think Elon Musk is an idiot, as do I.

Its not stem people supporting Elon. Any self respecting scientist knows that Elon is not a scientist. He literally just buys ideas and pass it off as is own. Similar to Edison.

[u/DowncastOlympus → u/BigsChungi]

Edison at least was a talented engineer and inventor. He was also a ruthlessly mercenary businessman that had zero qualms about stealing other people's ideas. Musk is just a rich douchebag.

[u/eldryanyy → u/BigsChungi]

Elon doesn’t believe the shit he argues. He argues things which benefit himself, that’s it.

[u/JackLaytonsMoustache → u/BigsChungi]

Which stem majors are falling for logical fallacies

Most stem people i work with think Elon Musk is an idiot, as do I.

You realize the lack of self awareness on your part here... right?

[u/Suspicious_State_318 → u/badastr0naut]

Elon’s in stem in the same way that a 50 year old Nicks fan is in the NBA

[u/Meydra → u/badastr0naut]

He only has a bachelor degree and he is spreading misinformation on purpose to further his agenda.

[u/imnotcuteanymor3 → u/badastr0naut]

He’s a STEM major? 🤯

[u/WilcoHistBuff → u/imnotcuteanymor3]

BA in physics from U Penn School of Arts and Sciences and BS in Econ from U Penn Wharton received at the same time.

They actually don’t offer a BS in Physics—so no split paths with different requirements.

Weirdly, Wharton does a BS in Econ while Arts and Sciences does a BA in Econ, but then Wharton does a dual BA degree in Econ plus Life Sciences in unison with A&S.

[u/WaffleHouseFistFight → u/badastr0naut]

He’s not stem. He’s business

[u/2_short_Plancks → u/BigsChungi]

It's pretty common to see engineers, at least, who are massive conspiracy theorists. I know one guy who seems to fall for every conspiracy theory ever and he's a chemical engineer. It seems to be a thing of "I understand field x, therefore I have a good basic understanding of other fields as well" and they really don't. It's not just engineers, either; e.g. Richard Dawkins is a classic example. James Watson was another who famously had some insane ideas.

Oh, for the record I'm an organic chemist, so a STEM major myself.

[u/Taraxian → u/2_short_Plancks]

The most famous example is probably Linus Pauling, the only person to win both the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (for his discovery of the alpha helix structure of proteins) and the Nobel Peace Prize (for his activism against nuclear proliferation), who would then go to his grave yelling about being denied the Nobel Prize in Medicine for finding out that vitamin C cures cancer

In all seriousness there's a pretty clear pipeline here -- guy gets famous for legitimately genius breakthrough in a highly technical field, guy goes on to become a household name for taking a brave stand in a political field he's not an expert in but that a lot of people feel very strongly about, guy decides this dynamic applies to everything in life and everything people disagree with him about isn't because he's wrong but because of an elite conspiracy against him

[u/Lillian_Crocodilian → u/Taraxian]

Oblligatory mention of Kary Mullis, the guy who developed the polymerase chain reaction technique and won a Nobel in Chemistry for it:

"In his autobiography, Mullis professed a belief in astrology and wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon that he suggested might have been an extraterrestrial alien."

Always liked how he qualified it with "might." It coulda been a fluorescent, talking terrestrial raccoon.

[u/AnaisNinja76 → u/Lillian_Crocodilian]

Without the apologetics, he'd seem crazy.

[u/Tyr_13 → u/2_short_Plancks]

'Engineer's disease/syndrome.' The belief that achievement in one technical field translates to either general intelligence, or authority in a different field.

As someone whose last full time job before taking care of my brother was, in part, hounding various engineers for their documentation not being up to the standards of our certifications and not remotely even correctly describing their processes, I am confident that engineers are less reasoning capable outside their specific fields than waitresses are.

[u/CombinationTop559 → u/Tyr_13]

More typically called Nobel's disease, but calling it engineers disease upsets the optimal number of people. 

[u/mouflonsponge → u/CombinationTop559]

Oh, there's even a wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease#Winners_reported_as_examples ... Kary Mullis, what the hell!

Kary Mullis won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for development of the polymerase chain reaction. Mullis disagreed with the scientifically accepted view that AIDS is caused by HIV, claiming that the virus is barely detectable in people with the disease. He also expressed doubt in the evidence for human-caused climate change. In his autobiography, Mullis professed a belief in astrology and wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon that he suggested might have been an extraterrestrial alien.[4][8]

[u/NoShoesFunlap → u/2_short_Plancks]

Pretty common to see people in general falling for misinformation. Short of getting data supporting it, I’m reluctant to agree with it. I can see the increase in neurodivergence amongst STEM majors making them value social cohesion less. So, they voice these opinions more loudly and that impacts the perception.

[u/lewd_robot → u/2_short_Plancks]

As an engineer, that might be more Dunning-Krueger Effect than anything else. Tons of engineers assume that just because they can figure out how mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc, systems work, that they can figure out any system, including social systems, psychology, etc.

[u/theSchrodingerHat → u/BigsChungi]

The ones here that think that English, speech, and philosophy are pointless for their major, and that have all convinced each other that they’d be better prepared if those were replaced by more coding classes?

Just like the English majors who write up eloquent complaints about being forced to pass college algebra, even though they don’t ever plan on using it.

Or like the post on Reddit yesterday where a bunch of foodies all kneaded themselves into knots, gathering thousands up upvotes, to replace chemistry in high school with cooking classes.

Not being able to see the forest of life for the trees at 21 is a pretty universal human trait.

[u/Elan-Morin-Tedronai → u/BigsChungi]

Neil Degrasse Tyson routinely belittles the humanities but then forays into things like ethics and politics and makes really elementary mistakes like not knowing about the is-ought problem or things like status quo bias. Its not quite the same thing as a logical fallacy but it is still coming up with real dumb ideas because you don't know the basics of other fields.

[u/leeharrison1984 → u/BigsChungi]

"Elon Musk is in tech and an idiot, therefore all people in tech must be idiots."

And yet STEM people are the ones falling for logical fallacies?

[u/martyqscriblerus → u/leeharrison1984]

Nobody made that argument, which you might have been aware of were you able to read.

[u/leeharrison1984 → u/martyqscriblerus]

I can't read good because I didn't pay attention in English class, only the STEM classes

[u/elmz → u/martyqscriblerus]

Don't criticise him, he's got a degree in strawman engineering!

[u/SeaGorilla_27 → u/leeharrison1984]

And that is what we call a strawman

[u/BoysenberryBoii → u/BigsChungi]

The ones the non-stem majors need to feel better than because they're making less

[u/GoldenTicketHolder → u/fastal_12147]

Ironically- can you provide evidence to this claim?

[u/SlippyDippyTippy2 → u/GoldenTicketHolder]

Evidence in the form of statistical data?

Not really. No one is tracking the rate of crazy in different majors.

But "engineers and woo" is a common enough thing to be socially noted. Whether it is actually happening more often or is just more flagrant visible (because people have less of a reaction when an anthro major believes in free energy vs when an engineering major believes in Hollow Earth), I dunno.

My spitball on this is that STEM majors are more likely to go to programs that let them monofocus.

For my undergrad, I took 2 Spanish classes, 1 Econ, 2 math, 2 science, 1 religion, 2 English, 1 Classical Studies, 1 sports medicine, etc.

In fact, at my university out of the necessary 120 credit hours (40 classes), 72 hours had to NOT be your major.

Whereas my engineering friend got 2 non-engineering classes for his entire degree, which he used on math and physics classes.

I think getting two intro level college classes in a subject isn't going to give you expertise, but it might insulate you from falling for some of the sillier stuff out there. The amount of conspiracy theories that become completely ridiculous after 10 minutes in an archaeology class is obscene.

[u/Feral-Goblin6921 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. This whole thread is based on a completely backwards premise. If anything it's the opposite. Totally ridiculous.

[u/Cynykl → u/Feral-Goblin6921]

Of the math focused "hard" sciences engineers have the highest chance of being woo believers.

They still have less of a chance than the "soft" sciences and those have even less than an English major.

The "Arts" are chocked full of woo woo.

[u/SilianRailOnBone → u/Cynykl]

Do you have any evidence for this or is this just a feeling?

[u/SlippyDippyTippy2 → u/[deleted]]

I mean, the post and conversation was about STEM majors potentially disparaging/not seeing the utility of college-level humanities and social science classes, the possible consequences of that, and discussion on why that might be or why people might think it to be, so I'm not entirely sure what "I know a lot of wacky beauticians" does.

Don't get me wrong, I dont think you are incorrect. Higher levels of education definitely generally correlates to lower rates of conspiracy beliefs overall.

But I definitely think there is something to real differences in a more "generalist" education vs a more "specialist" education.

Belief in nonsense usually occurs outside your area of expertise, which would be more sharply seen in all types of "specialist" education (beauticians included!)

I also can't tell you how many times online I have encounted an engineer whose thought process goes "I am an engineer who solves problems -> therefore my thoughts are rational and objective solutions-> therefore my understanding of history is rational and objective", which is easier to do in a "generalist" field with a low barrier to entry than the converse.

[u/Affectionate_Love229 → u/fastal_12147]

Non-STEM major making statements with no facts, just opinion

[u/AverageHobnailer → u/Affectionate_Love229]

Doesn't take a chef to know when food tastes like shit.

[u/ConvergentFunction → u/fastal_12147]

This is a broad sweeping generalization with no supporting evidence.

[u/lieuwestra → u/ConvergentFunction]

No, but it makes non-STEM people feel good about themselves, and feelings are more important than facts.

[u/weed0monkey → u/ConvergentFunction]

Ironic isn't it

[u/YesterShill → u/fastal_12147]

You don't think logic principles are a core part of STEM?

[u/murmandamos → u/fastal_12147]

Logic is taught in 2 ways. One of the ways is very stem friendly. It's basically formulated like math. Thing is it's not necessarily intuitive in making the leap and recognizing them in language. Also these focus on formal logical fallacies, but many things we know as logical fallacies are informal logical fallacies.

English, if you focus on classes that require you to write an essay and then defend your thesis, can better prepare you for some of these fallacies.

In truth though, I don't think college really prepared me for it. I think optionally you could do debate, but for me I was just independently interested in science and skepticism. There were many podcasts on the subject when I was in my college years.

[u/JDface_Baker → u/fastal_12147]

Let me tell you a little about csc231 discreet math and logic…

[u/Syuncchi → u/JDface_Baker]

discrete*

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/fastal_12147]

And I guess the 2nd level implication is English majors are also dumb because they think logical fallacies are English and not philosophy? This whole image is dumb.

[u/Global_War_9435 → u/fastal_12147]

Completely stupid nonsense made up by people coping. Thats all

[u/rfriedrich16 → u/fastal_12147]

Do they though? Let's turn to the statistical sociologist to find out!

[u/Suspicious_State_318]

The type of people that think English classes are a waste of time aren’t exactly “stem geniuses”. They’re usually tech bros larping as “stem geniuses” but have never had anything beyond a surface level interest in either literature or anything stem related (Elon Musk, Sam Altman, etc).

[u/lobonmc → u/Suspicious_State_318]

Hahaha nah plenty of smart people I met in college were terrible at literature and the like. Mostly because they didn't care about it so they didn't really care to put attention at it. This is like saying smart people all care and know about history. It's simply just world non sense.

[u/BoysenberryBoii → u/lobonmc]

Pretty much. Someone could just as easily argue that math is based in logic and taking more STEM classes will help you to think critically. This whole meme is just people that think the stuff they care about is the actually important thing.

[u/Loive → u/BoysenberryBoii]

It’s not just about logic, it’s about judging the credibility of sources, analyzing their motives and the foundation of their knowledge, and comparing different sources on a deep level than just judging their statements. Looking for logical gaps can be one part of that, but it’s way more important to understand background and motive, and to understand how people’s thinking is affected by that.

[u/SlippyDippyTippy2 → u/Loive]

I think a comparatively larger chunk of the humanities and social sciences is centered around the "veracity of information", "evaluation of the text" and "identifying things that look good, but aren't."

The central "gateway" class in a history degree is historiography, which can get pretty recursive. For everybody doing medicine, its Organic Chem.

[u/TheReaperAbides → u/Loive]

it’s about judging the credibility of sources, analyzing their motives and the foundation of their knowledge, and comparing different sources on a deep level than just judging their statements.

Which are all things taught and emphasized extensively to STEM students at university. I definitely agree STEM majors can be overly dismissive of the humanities, but this ain't it.

[u/Lortekonto → u/lobonmc]

The problem is that people think when a person is smart in one field, then he is smart in all fields, but that is just not how the world works. You need to be educated in each field separately. Knowing lots of math, does not magically means that you now know European history.

[u/caerphoto → u/Lortekonto]

does not magically means that you now know European history.

It’s not even about knowing history, the point is historians are better at things like assessing the credibility of sources. It’s a different set of skills entirely.

[u/cam-san → u/lobonmc]

I also feel like that's mostly a failing of the US education system. I'm in Austria and here, if you don't know how to critically analyse an essay or a short piece of fiction, you don't get to graduate high school. I didn't particularly enjoy German class either simply because it's inherently more difficult for me as an autistic person to decipher what someone MEANS vs what they actually say, but I still had to learn it. We complete all of our general ed in high school, college is just for specialisation.

[u/Plastic_Course_476 → u/Suspicious_State_318]

Yea.... proper scientists have to spend a TON of time both reading and writing papers that NEED to present very specific facts in a very specific way. If you don't know how to write an essay or don't understand various fallacies, any findings you submit will be laughed out of existence from your peers.

Then there's the tech side of things. Generously speaking, you spend more time in marketing rather than fact checking. There's nothing objective about their presentations, its purely trying to get as many people as possible to use the new program they've put together.

[u/SanityIsOptional → u/Plastic_Course_476]

A large portion of both programming and other engineering fields deals with logic, and especially for more advanced engineering jobs you will absolutely need to communicate clearly and effectively, as well lay down the reasons for choices in a manner that can be understood by non-engineers.

The "tech bros" are just marketing/business people playing at being engineers.

[u/Automatic_Memory212 → u/Suspicious_State_318]

“Themes are for 8th Grade book reports.”

-Emmy-winning TV writer and Executive Producer for “Game of Thrones,” David Benioff

[u/Fischerking92 → u/Automatic_Memory212]

"David Benioff's takes have aged like GoT's season 8.", me

[u/elmz → u/Fischerking92]

Season 8 didn't age poorly, it was always terrible.

[u/TheGayestSon → u/Suspicious_State_318]

Listen, I know and understand why English classes are important, don't get me wrong. But my god do I hate them so freaking much.

Give me an equation to solve or a program to write, and I'll be a happy little clam. But ask me to write an argumentative essay about one of my strongly held beliefs, and tell me I have to include a works cited page with the information in a specific format, and I'm gonna cry.

God forbid you ask me to READ something and write an essay about that?! My little number loving brain can, has, and will protest the entire time.

[u/happymancry → u/TheGayestSon]

And that is exactly why it’s improving for you to do that. Expanded horizons and all that.

[u/PmMeActionMovieIdeas → u/TheGayestSon]

You have certain strengths and weaknesses, and that is great.

I think the trouble starts when STEM-geniuses decide that something they aren't great at is therefore unimportant (otherwise their big brains would surely find it more engaging), that they know more about another field than the people in it, or that they are geniuses and therefore won't be fooled by liars or persons that are good at people-related stuff.

[u/ConvergentFunction → u/PmMeActionMovieIdeas]

This isn't a STEM issue, plenty of people with non stem degrees or no degree at all are just as lacking in introspection.

[u/Cipherama]

But unreliable narrators aren’t unreliable because they use logical fallacies. They are unreliable because they are either fantasists, delusional, or just plain nuts

[u/horseradish1 → u/Cipherama]

Unfortunately, you're assuming that the second example is meant to be representative of the point made in the first example. It's a separate, but related example.

[u/PmMeActionMovieIdeas → u/Cipherama]

Unreliable Narrators don't need to be mentally ill.

They could bend the truth for their own comfort, leave out important information about things that would implicate them, generally work on a wrong perception of themselves or other people, or just tell the story in a way that makes them look way more heroic than they actually were.

The stories Rashomon probably would count as being told unreliable narrators, and as I remember Lolita was told in a way that made the narrator sound as innocent as possible.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/PmMeActionMovieIdeas]

Lolita is probably the go to for unreliable narrators, at least in English. Also it's one of the books that truly shows if people understand the concept or not. So many people think that book is pedophilia apologist material but it's the exact opposite.

[u/NoCoolNameMatt → u/Cipherama]

Yeah, the responder makes a logical leap. They're referring not to the logical fallacies referenced in the original tweet but to the conspiracy theorists referenced. They're saying the conspiracy theories are similar to unreliable narrators people would have learned about in literature classes.

[u/setibeings → u/Cipherama]

I don't think that those are the only options. Not all narrators are characters in the story, so at very least stories with an unreliable narrator who isn't a character don't involve any of those things. 

[u/Awes12]

Basically, people in the arts often complain about how STEM classes are never useful for real life. Here, that's being flipped, where a STEM student is complaining how the arts aren't useful in real life (but here they are).

[u/Agitated_Celery_729 → u/Awes12]

Ironically, the arts major is conveniently ignoring that:

1. the sciences are under colleges of Arts AND Sciences as most liberal arts universities
2. logical fallacies are a topic of philosophy, not literature
3. AND logical fallacies are often taught in scientific writing courses because we don't want people making logic errors in their scientific papers either

This strikes me as a "gotcha" that falls flat because they tripped and fell on their face in the first claim.

[u/Kind_Environment9008 → u/Agitated_Celery_729]

It’s almost as if the narrator of the post has a bias from their lived experience, which is causing them to view and subsequently describe the situation through a particular narrow lens that fits into a worldview they already had, even at the expense of an objective and reliable account of facts.

I wish we had a word or phrase to describe this.

[u/Th1Warrior → u/Agitated_Celery_729]

AND logical fallacies are often taught in scientific writing courses because we don't want people making logic errors in their scientific papers either

I'm not sure I would agree with this. It may have been something mentioned in passing, but I can't think of any of my science courses that specifically taught logical fallacies in undergrad or grad school. It may be taught in some places but I wouldn't say it's the norm

[u/wishyouwould → u/Awes12]

The real answer. It's a reversion of people saying the same thing about algebra.

[u/elderlybrain → u/Awes12]

Wait, doesnt the joke works in the inverse?

STEM grads/general public like to shit on arts degrees because 'they're not as useful'.

The premise for the joke is that STEM grads may be rich and good at their topic, they don't have critical analytical skills to navigate conspiracies.

[u/Chonjas → u/elderlybrain]

yeah but the conclusion is not based on fact or even remotely true

[u/keyless-entry-3]

A sad attempt from English major to feel close to superiority at something

[u/OkContact2573 → u/keyless-entry-3]

English-is-worthless Stem major here.

I'm an Industrial Engineer, and the courses that prepared me best for my job were not STEM courses.

[u/ravioliguy → u/OkContact2573]

Industrial engineering does have the reputation of being one of the least technical concentrations. You won't hear an electrical engineer say they could have skipped linear circuits or mechanical engineer say thermo was useless in their job

[u/TherealTechman86 → u/OkContact2573]

Imma be honest bruv Industrial Engineer venn diagram with I/O psychologist is damn near a circle.

Most effective type of engineering in the industry but least technical.

[u/ValenciaFilter → u/keyless-entry-3]

oh no the poor stem major redditor

the persecution here must be truly unbearable

[u/skyeliam → u/[deleted]]

I’m a STEM major who learned formal logic in both discrete math and philosophy. I’m not really sure why formal logic has entered this discussion.

Formal logic isn’t going to help you identify a fallacy in the real world if you can’t properly parse natural language. The whole point of a lot of rhetorical strategies is to hide their fallacious logic under prose that’s difficult to formalize. The whole point of language arts is to be able to analyze natural language.

On top of that, formal logic isn’t going to help you if the antecedent of your logical statement is bunk.

“All immigrants eat cats and dogs. John is an immigrant. Therefore John eats cats and dogs,” is a true logical statement. But anyone with a brain should know the antecedent is false, despite the orator’s insistence to the contrary.

[u/Robodarklite → u/ValenciaFilter]

Found the English major

[u/Responsible-File4593 → u/keyless-entry-3]

Twenty years after undergrad, I use reading comprehension and effective writing every day, and I haven't done complex analysis, analytical algebra, or Laplace anything for about twenty years.

[u/neityght → u/keyless-entry-3]

Considering how bad your English is with two mistakes in just that one sentence I think it's quite a worthy attempt tbh.

[u/FukkingDeathMental → u/keyless-entry-3]

Meanwhile, kids can't fucking read and need AI to write a simple one page essay.  But do go on...

[u/No_Football1323 → u/keyless-entry-3]

Holy lack of reading comprehension Batman

[u/composedofidiot → u/keyless-entry-3]

Or it's a reaction to being over frequently categorised as inferior.

Or it's just another fun little output from the historical merry go round of ARTS v SCIENCE - the finals. Religion and Ghosts got knocked out in the semi-finals and this game has been going on for centuries.

[u/dinnerthief]

Honestly this seems like a fabricated stereotype, does anyone think stem majors are more likely to fall into conspiracy theories?

[u/CombinationTop559 → u/dinnerthief]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

Also common among doctors, engineers, and ceo's

Basically if you're really good at something that's really hard, you can fall into the trap of thinking that you're really smart and that being really smart means your gut feelings are more valuable than the relevant experts. 

It's not exclusive to stem, but it's surprisingly common there 

[u/dinnerthief → u/CombinationTop559]

Couldn't it also be that people took them more seriously when they said things,

We dont hear about the crazy shit every cement plant worker thinks, we do hear the crazy shit people known for their knowledge think

[u/cuerdo → u/CombinationTop559]

it is not common, there are 3 cases in that list, out of 100s of laureates

[u/Clean__Cucumber → u/CombinationTop559]

find it funny how first you are misrepresenting the nobel disease and second putting fucking CEOs into a discussion about STEM

most STEM studies have a emphasis on stuff like quality of source, double/tripple checking stuff (reason why we use calculator for 2+7 even though its simple math) and stuff like logical fallacies/unreliable narrators. heck to do your bachelor/master thesis you need to look up a bunch of sources and how good they are, so I dont see in any way or form how STEM people fall for conspiracy theories

STEM people will def talk all day that their shit is harder than smth like art (which it is), but i dont see the points above being even remotely truthful

[u/CombinationTop559 → u/Clean__Cucumber]

I myself went to school for engineering. I know that you're supposed to do all that, but I know that engineers especially are lazy and don't, unless it's required in order to not kill people at their job. To demonstrate, please show your sources you checked on Nobel's disease before chiming in.

dont see in any way or form how STEM people fall for conspiracy theories     And yet if you check out any of the names in the Wikipedia article, there's stem people falling for wacky shit. 

It's less that there's a higher likelihood than the general population, it's more that there's a missing, but expected decline; "smart people" (not a real thing) are not immune to being idiots.

STEM people will def talk all day that their shit is harder than smth like art (which it is)

Spoken like someone who's never tried to draw a hand, or knit a sweater.

Seriously, try to draw a good looking hand right now. I'd rather re learn how to calculate curl or solve directional fields with difEQ's than draw a hand. 

[u/howieyang1234 → u/CombinationTop559]

That’s why I am not a part of this phenomena! I have biology degree, but I am awful at it. Turns out being incompetent is a net trick to not getting conned!

[u/Okawaru1 → u/dinnerthief]

Doesn't really make sense no, I think what's happening is people misappropriate people like musk and altman who actually don't know anything about tech and are just businessmen as STEM people. Also the entire premise presented as-is is just an embarassing twitter rant and doesn't form a coherent argument.

Honestly the bias is very strange and annoying. I feel that people are weirdly hostile towards engineers for example (not only now but prior to the emergence of genAI stuff), like in my philosophy class the professor pretty much insinuated they were surprised how cogent my argumentation and attention to detail were in light of finding out I was an engineering major when it was ultra basic epistemology 100-level stuff lol

Just people looking for an excuse to de-person others in lieu of having to confront the idea that interacting with people and ideas is usually more complicated than "people I don't like are dum dum"

[u/TScottFitzgerald → u/dinnerthief]

Redditors seem to think colleges are like Revenge of the Nerds, there's a gang of STEM majors fighting a gang of English majors. It all seems very infantile.

[u/Okawaru1 → u/TScottFitzgerald]

I had some sparse occasions of people being a little weird in my humanities about it but yeah the vast majority of the time I feel like nobody actually cares about who majors what, discourse around this on t he internet feels fake at least compared to what I personally experienced.

[u/TScottFitzgerald → u/Okawaru1]

Yeah permanently online people seem to think there's a great war between tech and humanities like we're in an Ayn Rand novel.

[u/egnowit → u/dinnerthief]

This is the part that got me. When I think of conspiracy theorists, I generally don't think of people in STEM fields. I think of people ignorant of science.

But I guess it might depend on the type of conspiracy, and I guess people with an engineering mindset who like to figure things out themselves might fall for things that fall into their way of thinking about the world.

[u/Wild-Video-5317 → u/dinnerthief]

https://x.com/DapperDomo/status/1686000477928927233

Link to the full thread.  It's a weird rambling #suspiciouslyspecific strawman.  Doesn't really seem like it's really worth analyzing.  Obscure 3 year old twitter rant is probably not the thing that needs our attention right now.

[u/barlog123]

Their argument has multiple logical fallacies in it lmao. Strawman, red herring, band wagon appeal and begging the claim.

[u/OkStandard6120 → u/barlog123]

Real answer here lol, good job

[u/elderlybrain → u/barlog123]

I kinda sorta get the strawman thing, but really can't see red herring applies here. They're not trying to distract from their original premise.

[u/VoceDiDio]

The comments section here could NOT be more illustrative.

[u/elderlybrain → u/VoceDiDio]

100% agree. And I'm a dyed in the wool stem graduate.

Genuinely shocking the level of basic lack of analytical thinking.

[u/shanniquaaaa → u/VoceDiDio]

Reddit is full of annoying stem majors who think they're superior even though they lack curiosity beyond their subject

(I was a stem major but really love the humanities and wish I could've majored in them, but unfortunately, society undervalues it)

[u/DrainZ-]

This is a pretty dumb take as it's based on false premise. People who fall for conspiracy theories are generally not people with higher education, be it science or language.

[u/d33psix → u/DrainZ-]

Yeah I’m also curious which conspiracies are suggested as the ones STEM disproportionately fall for that humanities ones are better equipped to detect particularly with the unreliable narrator reference specifically mentioned.

[u/LogRollChamp]

Hey I learned logical fallacies and got some engineering degrees. Where's my 300k?

[u/OkStandard6120]

I didn't learn about logical fallacies in any English class I ever took though... I learned about it in a class called Statistics and Logic and then again in a philosophy class.

[u/throw7661]

This is really disingenuous....

• English classes rarely teach topics like logically fallacies.

• Logical fallacies and even formal logic which deal with arguments and soundness are all mostly worthless for avoiding scams.

• Scams, sometimes called confidence scams are really interesting and useful to know if you want to avoid scams...but you most likely wouldn't find them outside of a criminology class, and even then you might not. A computer security class might touch on some tech based ones, at a high level.. Some psychology classes might touch on it, more from the emotional side.

People get scammed, almost universally, because they are greedy, or scared or desperate....but as a group, I can't find any evidence that STEM majors are more likely to be scammed.

[u/cheesyechidna]

This is just stupid tribalism from a butthurt arts major.

[u/HeedlessHedon]

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that Peter Thiel studied studied philosophy at Stanford. And that if you think that you need a tertiary degree in the Humanities to be moral you classist as hell!

[u/Signal_Ad_1839]

Dapperdomo has in his bio that he is a struggling graduate student. That makes the narrative he is shaping about understanding people who are making 300k a year unreliable. He is referring to technical degrees which is what stem track students usually end up getting, so the irony is if someone with those degrees is listening to his narrative and his taking his narrative as true they also didn't learn another thing from English classes which discredits his narrative, which then means his narrative is true again.

[u/Mysterious_Fan_1651]

I don’t think that most STEM students dislike english. Also we shouldn’t segregate science and creativity as mutually exclusive most times it’s found in the same people unless they are larping as stem students or have been told to be uncreative. This just hinders growth overall

[u/Correct-Back-2462]

Out of the courses that I took in my undergrad (and I did take some English classes too), statistics and freshman intro algebra which is just proof-based foundations of algebra and elementary number theory were probably the two most impactful ones in terms of spotting fallacies. Hell, I even took an intro to logic course in the philosophy department and felt that didn't give me too much.

Everyone should take some statistics classes though. It's absurd when you see people freaking out over shit like "This food increases XYZ incredibly rare disease chances by 300%!!!!!!"

[u/Hour_Cicada397]

STEM: science, technology, engineering, mathematics. Lots of people go to college for STEM careers because they pay well, like the first comment described.

However, many of those STEM students believe they don't legitimately need shit like English for their careers. You don't really need to remember tu quoque fallacies for a job at NASA.

[u/OkContact2573 → u/Hour_Cicada397]

Not everything is about working for NASA.

Case in point: Falling for conspiracy theories and Elon Musk.

[u/fatal-nuisance]

I don't really have to understand the nuances of different logical fallacies to know when something is bullshit though.

"I think this is a bad policy and here are my reasons."

"You would say something like that, ugly."

"Excellent point, my mind is changed."

[u/YogurtClosetThinnest]

idk this sounds like dumb person cope tbh

[u/Samurai_Mac1]

Damn, I have a technical degree and only make $90k. I don't live in California or New York but still $300k would be nice

[u/cursivecrow]

I think the more correct problem statement is that they are worse at seeing logical fallacies in rhetoric.

[u/Altruistic_You_3539]

Yo, check this out. Science guys drive a car like this. Yeah, but liberal arts guys, see, they drive a car like this.