Useless Majors

Nature isn't constant, and no scientist would ever say anything like that. We know it will rise in the east because we know how our planetary body spins, rotates, and orbits the star we call the sun. As long as superman doesn't try to turn back time and spin is the opposite direction, math tells us the answer of "the east".

I would call that a stretch. Philosophy uses the same basic logical axioms that computers use, neither created the other, but one existed before the other. I would agree that propositional calculus is fundamental to both, and that it is much easier to understand in context of philosophy than electrons. But ease doesn't make it an ancestor.

lol. I like that one, even though outdated!

 

Education, for education sake has immense value,,to bad as a society we devalue it, liking to point out the short comings of "intellectual/elites" with derision.

The world is a much poorer place since college educations hve become vocational track rather than learning experience. Bottom line is the college graduate of today is probably less wel educated ( and less able to independently think) than the average highschool grad of 50 years ago.

A substandrd college education is expected of nearly everyone now, much as a high school education was required then. We have rised the Ben h mark, but not the standards, and as such workers entering the work force do it later, and often saddled with major debt. (another consequence of the off loading of public infrastructure to the individual)

Icarus

 

I think you are blaming someone else rather than blaming the slackers who don't get an education.

I went through and educated myself. Same system, different people, different outcomes. If underwater basket weaving is your dream, then go to university and get your BA in UWBW. You will probably be one of the best and open your shop or something or teach others that want to know how. But if you don't know what you want to do, or have no passion about anything, getting a "mass comm" degree or "business" degree really isn't going to help you out. If you ever realize that is what you actually want to do, you will probably have blown off the previous couple years doing nothing and learning nothing.

I think those that go to college on their own free will are more likely to be happy and successful with their jobs (mechanic, plumber, tech, etc) than someone who goes to university just because that's what they were told to do.

 

Toaster beat me to it, but I'd still like to put it in my own words:

We know the sun will appear to rise in the east because the Earth is spinning counterclockwise as seen from the north pole. That is, the surface of the Earth is moving from west to east. We know the mass of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy, and therefore we know the angular momentum of the Earth. Due to the law of the conservation of angular momentum, we know that altering the Earth's rotation enough to prevent the sun from appearing to rise in the east would take a force greater than the planet could sustain. The Earth could be demolished by an asteroid or comet, but we would see it more than 24 hours in advance. Therefore, we do know that tomorrow, at least, the sun will rise in the east.

Your argument demonstrates a weakness of philosophy: it ignores the real world and what is actually known about the real world.

You are correct that I've never studied philosophy. I did read Plato in school and thought it was a bunch of hogwash. His "proof" that the soul is eternal, or that the "true" essence of things is our idea about them rather than the things themselves. The greatest philosopher of them all, Aristotle, insisted that a heavy object falls faster than a lighter one, but nobody until Galileo thought of actually dropping two objects to see which would land first.

 

We could sure use another Galileo, but the denialists would kill him.

 

Thanks for complementing my High School graduating class but I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I agree that there is a trend towards what you suggest.

 

On this note, thanks to The 10 college majors with the lowest unemployment rates | The Lookout - Yahoo! News, I found Best College Majors for a Career - WSJ.com which shows you stats like unemployment rate and earnings by major. It lets you search and sort.

 

Unfortunately none of those will get you on MTV, so I doubt they will be studied.

I would be surprised if the majority of graduating high school seniors in this country even knew what an astrophysicist was or what they do. With the exception of Niel deGrasse Tyson I haven't seen any astrophysicist in mainstream media. Although Tyson is awesome!