I had a discussion with someone recently about the value, or lack thereof, of a liberal education. Her thesis, I think, was that liberal education is not worth a shake, because the only thing that matters is learning enough to get a good job. I was trying to advance an argument along the lines of Newman (woots for Newman!) about the value of having an understanding of your discipline's relation to knowledge in general. Her response, summarized, was that people would always think of themselves and their individual skills and problems as more important than anyone else - eg, you'll never convince the 'evolutionist' that just because complex animals came from simple animals that God doesn't exist.

I donno. Perhaps I'm silly for thinking that people can act rationally or extract anything from learning about the world. But I hope not.

Labels: philosophy, science