Make STEM into STEAM to bring the soul back into the modern world

Jerry Isdale has an interesting write-up over at the Adafruit weblog where he makes the case for adding art back into the mix of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. I heartily agree.

To me, one of the things that the rush toward STEM in the last seventy or so years has brought us is that the soul has been ripped out of the things we have discovered and created. This fact as a variety of evidences, from the exile of philosophy and faith from the scientific mind to the idea that artistically inclined people are not engineering material.

I think returning art (making STEM into STEAM) to the sterile environment we have created could go a long way toward returning us to a holistic state. What do you think?

DLH

Philosophy: Holism

Science and religion… are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there’s a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don’t agree. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if people in this so called “scientific age” knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they’d find it easier to share my view.

– John Polkinghorne

Read more at my Philosophy weblog…

Farming: Some thoughts on Punxsutawney Phil

So yesterday was Groundhog Day, complete with its requisite trotting out of the rodent and an internet full of mocking said rodent and the people who flock to him once per year.

Now, I will grant you that the whole show surrounding Groundhog Day is ridiculous and proves nothing except that people like to have a good time, yet I can’t help but notice that the day also points toward something we’ve forgotten over the past century in our rush to scientize everything: animals, particularly rodents, are a great way to predict the weather wherever you are.

This fact points to a larger failing on the part of our modern selves. We’re so busy analyzing, categorizing, and objectifying nature that we’re no longer a part of it. Nature is something out there, just beyond our sterile, lifeless environs we’ve created to flee it and all its weather-predicting rodent glory.

There was a time when people, farmers and hunter-gatherers alike, knew exactly what weather was coming because the animals, and to a certain extent the plants, told them so. They knew that when the groundhogs started coming out of their dens only to return to them without seeking mates or food that more winter was coming, at least where they lived. They knew that when the spring birds arrived early they could expect a mild late winter. They knew this because they paid attention to what nature told them.

Now, we pay attention to what the meteorologist tells us, and he’s wrong as often as Punxsutawney Phil in my opinion. The fact is I can tell as much about what the weather’s going to do in a week from how my cows eat hay or what my chickens are up to than I can from a sterile forecast of temperature and precipitation.

And together, I can tell a lot more. My argument here is not to abandon science in favor of nature. What does that idea even mean. If science is real science, it’s an observation of nature anyway, and the best observations happen in the environment instead of removed from it. Together, the meteorologist and the groundhog can tell us more than either one can alone.

So, maybe we should give the groundhog a chance. Take a look outside and see what’s happening. It might tell you a lot.

DLH

Read more at my Farming weblog…