From the last page:

"Examples 1 and 4 clearly show Engineers and Scientists who value the opinion of educators outside their field.

Example 3 clearly shows Engineers who value working with Liberal Artists.

What exactly are you unclear on?"

I have no idea what the MIT lab is supposed to prove. I can't find a single social scientist who works for it. Where is this merger?

As for people who in the field of science education, why yes there are people in the scientific fields who are studying how to teach hard science. How this means they're interdisciplinary, I don't know. I couldn't find a single article written by the guy from UMass that wasn't related to teaching physics.

Did you even look at the Media lab directory? Not social scientists, per se, although they do a lot of work in that area. Plus look at the performing artists they have:

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/tod

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/bv

Plus these others with a mix of STEM/Liberal Arts backgrounds:

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/geek

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/neri

Are you kidding me?

No shit his papers are about teaching physics. That's his research. But, if you look at his papers, they reference work from all types of education, which is in direct contradiction to what you claim.

I don't have time to sift through a giant website and look for a needle in a haystack.

The first guy on their faculty page has a phd in media technology, the second is a biological engineer, the next woman is a computer scientist/engineer, the next is a computer scientist. The "Society of the Mind" guy is a PhD in mathematics. How many bios must I look at.

How about you look at the ones I conveniently linked to you?

How is it in direct contradiction? You know what most people studying the field of education write articles about? *Education*. Not something as parochial as "teaching physics" or "methods of teaching physics". Yes I imagine he might have to cite sources about education more broadly because it's a fucking field that is wider than the teaching of a single subject. If that's your best example of interdisciplinary research then thanks for that.

The Schmandt guy is a computer scientist/visual studies major.
Oxman has a PhD in design computation, whatever the hell that is.

Yes you have two professional musicians at your lab. Congrats.

Let's take a moment to summarize:

You claim that because you've never met an Engineer who is opened-minded about education or liberal arts or soft sciences, it's OK to presume this is true for the vast majority of people.

I showed you a Professor of engineering who's research focuses on education and relies on work outside the STEM field. I also showed you and College of Engineering that offers a degree in engineering education.

I have also showed you a lab at the best engineering school in the world that focuses completely on the merger of engineering, humanity, and arts, with faculty from a wide variety of areas.

This is all in about 10 minutes of research. You have absolutely no leg to stand on here. People specialize in fields. That's what they do. You don't see me complaining that Shakespearean scholars don't talk to computer scientists more. Yet, there is quite a lot of interdisciplinary work in the STEM fields.

Here is an example of something to come out of the Media Lab:

http://opera.media.mit.edu/projects/deathandthepowers/

Quite a fascinating opera that I got to see a year or so ago. Is that what you envision Labs in Engineering Colleges to produce?

A better summary would include the fact that you've jumped from one straw man to the next , distorting what I actually said with almost every breath you take. I never said engineers didn't care about education. You claimed I did. I never said engineers don't talk to other people. You claimed I did. I never said there weren't nice engineers. You claimed I did. What I said and what you haven't done much to disprove is that engineering is a narrow minded discipline whose practitioners have an inflated view of engineering and look down upon other fields they deem less "rigorous" or "job training oriented", namely the social sciences & humanities. The best you can come up with is the fact that the "poster child for the merger of arts & science - the MIT Media Lab, with its supposed faculty from a "wide variety of fields" employs a couple of professional musicians while the vast majority of faculty are engineers and/or computer scientists. The other smoking gun you bring is the fact that a professor at UMass writes articles so specific as to be about teaching physics that *cites* other work done about education more generally!

"People specialize in fields. That's what they do."

That's not the point. But as you haven't bothered to actually respond to what the point is, I'll quit.

The MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies has several faculty with science and engineering degrees.

@Putin

It goes both ways. If I can't find examples that live up to your scrutiny, it also means there aren't liberal artists working with engineers. Why are engineers solely to blame? I've heard plenty of liberal arts majors shoot their mouths off about how they're better than engineers. Do I think all liberal arts people think that way? No.

How about this:

There is a University that offers a program that is essentially a PoliSci/Civil Engineering double major and a Civil Engineering Masters. It is intended to recruit people for nation building in foreign countries. I can't remember which university offers it at the moment, but is that more what you're looking for?

Except that's a lot of shit. There's a huge and growing subfield within political science that bases its work on computer simulation. We hire people with computer science backgrounds to teach polisci @ Ohio State. Lars Erik Cederman won an award for his work using simulations. Axelrod's work on Tit for Tat strategies was a computer simulation. A legion of professors in the department spend most of their time working on what is known as formal theory, which is pure mathematical logic. It has grown so influential than there is quite a lot of bitching about it from those who don't do it. For my own work I've had to spend countless hours reading environmental psychology and geography work.

Liberal "artists" as you call us have to be interdisciplinary, because social problems by their very nature almost never fall neatly along these reified disciplinary boundaries. Plus the simple fact that the whole notion of liberal arts is premised on interdisciplinary & general knowledge.

"I can't remember which university offers it at the moment, but is that more what you're looking for?"

Yes, that would be something.

"Born in Sweden in 1963, Lars-Erik Cederman received an M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of Uppsala in 1988 and an M.A. in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in 1990 before obtaining his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1994."

He has a STEM degree. That proves my point as much as it does yours.

Yes well I don't see him taking up posts in Engineering Physics Depts. but he's a celebrity virtually everywhere he goes in the social science field.

Your point being? He has a Master's Degree in Engineering and he was interested in broader topics, so he also pursued other degrees. That pretty much makes my point for me. Engineers have interest in and respect for other disciplines.

Also, I couldn't find the exact program, but this one is close. CivE/UrbanStudies combined degree:

http://www.hhh.umn.edu/degrees/dual/engineering.html

Also, I'd like to point out that the following undergrad/Grad combinations are very popular:

CivE/Architecture
Engineering/MBA
Engineering/Law
Engineering/Medical

Granted, they aren't liberal arts, but they're much more diverse than you make it out to be.

How about Interactive Media and Game Design Degree from WPI?
http://www.wpi.edu/academics/imgd/faculty.html

Mixes Computer Science and Art. Close to half the faculty is from the Humanities department.

In fact, the Assistant Director has an MFA.

Ok abgemacht. You win. I tired of this a long time ago. You've proven to me by your attacks on economics and your dismissal of business majors that engineers are lovely open minded people who really respect other disciplines.

LOL

What the shit? I just showed you a degree that is literally half computer science and half humanities.

Furthermore, at no point did I attack Economics. I clearly stated that I was unfamiliar with the subject and asked for those with more experience to weigh in. Nor did I dismiss business majors. I simply stated that we currently have too many. A few decades ago, we had too many power engineers. That doesn't make them unimportant, it just means they aren't what the economy requires at that time.

Also, I'd like to point out that while I've now linked to over a dozen people/groups that support (to varying degrees, I admit) my claim, you've only produced one, which is completely invalidated by the fact that he is an engineer as well as a humanist.

"People specialize in fields. That's what they do."

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - RobertHeinlein,

I can't count how many silly things you've now said in this thread.

"Furthermore, at no point did I attack Economics."

Really? See how many economists you can befriend while claiming their field is both 1) not a science and 2) too politicized to be objective.

"I'd like to point out that while I've now linked to over a dozen people/groups that support (to varying degrees, I admit) my claim, you've only produced one, which is completely invalidated by the fact that he is an engineer as well as a humanist."

So my field gives him the PhD and gives him the money and the research grants and you get to take the credit. Wow, talk about heads you win, tails I lose. And nevermind that I also brought up the fact that formal theory - meaning the use of mathematical modelling & game theoretic modelling for a wide array of political science is a widespread and formally organized subfield in political science departments across the country. Nevermind that the whole notion of liberal arts education was founded upon the idea of generalized knowledge. Nevermind that I was actively encouraged to take research methods course work in Sociology, and have a Geography professor on my dissertation committee. Nevermind that interdisciplinary humanities and social science majors are a dime-a-dozen (to the point where some higher-up liberal arts oriented schools, like Brown, pretty much have a self-designed interdisciplinary program of study for everybody), they're so common that I'd waste a day of my life posting them all here, whereas it's a big deal that you can find a single Civil Engineering/Political Science double major somewhere.