People's distaste for Science/Maths

[ChildishLegacy]

Before I start ranting, I will say that I don't feel superior because I study/enjoy science, I'm just feeling a bit pissy about other people's views on it.

Ever since I realised (at least from my point of view) that science is a wonderful thing that has caused the progression of humanity to elevate to the place it is in today, I have also seen that people of my generation haven't realised this, and if I were to talk about it/say I enjoy it to the average person of my age it would be socially unacceptable.

For example, in my 'form' in college, there is a guy who is one of the sorts of people who has no social inhibitions/doesn't realise the reactions of people around him when he talks very loudly about things that people find very awkward to hear blurted out in class, however, he also likes to think himself as very smart and good at science (which as far as I can tell he isn't). My teacher asked him what he wanted to do at university and he said he wanted to do Chemistry, the teacher asked him why and he blurted out some text book definition of research to do with functional groups of organic chemicals which wasn't impressive to any science student at all. However the majority of people who look down on academic/scientific subjects and have nothing to do with chemistry groaned and I heard stuff like 'You're already boring me' or calling him sad. Although I didn't feel to sorry for him because he likes to try and show off about him just taking science based subjects, the responses pissed me off and got me thinking whether they realise they owe their current lifestyle to science and technology. I don't know if its my generation of just people in general at this age, but I don't understand why being an academic is something that is frowned upon now, it's a pretty pathetic thing for people to do.

Anybody know why so many people look down upon people being intellectual/inquisitive in school/college at the moment, and why it's almost becoming a social taboo to talk about enjoying something that is to do with college work and academic subjects?

I really did have a good idea of what I wanted to say here - honest, but I'm just too tired to put it into words properly.

 

[Versuvius]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

 

[artanis_neravar]

Before I start ranting, I will say that I don't feel superior because I study/enjoy science, I'm just feeling a bit pissy about other people's views on it.

Ever since I realised (at least from my point of view) that science is a wonderful thing that has caused the progression of humanity to elevate to the place it is in today, I have also seen that people of my generation haven't realised this, and if I were to talk about it/say I enjoy it to the average person of my age it would be socially unacceptable.

For example, in my 'form' in college, there is a guy who is one of the sorts of people who has no social inhibitions/doesn't realise the reactions of people around him when he talks very loudly about things that people find very awkward to hear blurted out in class, however, he also likes to think himself as very smart and good at science (which as far as I can tell he isn't). My teacher asked him what he wanted to do at university and he said he wanted to do Chemistry, the teacher asked him why and he blurted out some text book definition of research to do with functional groups of organic chemicals which wasn't impressive to any science student at all. However the majority of people who look down on academic/scientific subjects and have nothing to do with chemistry groaned and I heard stuff like 'You're already boring me' or calling him sad. Although I didn't feel to sorry for him because he likes to try and show off about him just taking science based subjects, the responses pissed me off and got me thinking whether they realise they owe their current lifestyle to science and technology. I don't know if its my generation of just people in general at this age, but I don't understand why being an academic is something that is frowned upon now, it's a pretty pathetic thing for people to do.

Anybody know why so many people look down upon people being intellectual/inquisitive in school/college at the moment, and why it's almost becoming a social taboo to talk about enjoying something that is to do with college work and academic subjects?

I really did have a good idea of what I wanted to say here - honest, but I'm just too tired to put it into words properly.

Interesting, at my school we engineers looked down on every other major (excluding the sciences and sometimes math) people just need someone/something to dislike I guess

 

[cookyy2k]

I've no idea why this is the case. I completly agree with everything you've said. If anyone asks me what I'm doing at uni or as I job and I say physics instant glaze over or change of topic. It annoys me because it is something I'm passionate about. I try my best to get others interested but with very little success.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

 

[artanis_neravar]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference? (between college and university)

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

I experienced the same thing, except on the language end of the spectrum. I've always enjoyed the study of language, reading, writing, and to a lesser extent psychology and sociology. But whenever i mentioned that i didn't want to be a translator, people called me a moron for being interested in language.

Honestly, i don't have a good answer for you question that isn't incredibly insulting and demeaning to the majority. And even if it weren't insulting and demeaning, i'd hesitate to share that answer because i'm not convinced it's accurate. I guess i'd leave it at, "Fuck what they think; just do your thing."

 

[bluewolf]

Science is great! I just do not want to be a scientist myself because frankly, I am a raging idiot.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Ah sorry, should have explained
In England, college is kind of what high school is for America.
Then our university is what you call college.

 

[cookyy2k]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Well I'm English. I don't see the distain as such in the uni or when I was at college but I do in the general populous. Oh yeah and the uni admins who deal with budget, they really dislike us.

Edit: by "us" I mean physisists and I misinterpreted the question in the quote.

 

[artanis_neravar]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Ah sorry, should have explained
In England, college is kind of what high school is for America.
Then our university is what you call college.

Oh OK, in that case it's an immaturity/insecurity thing, they don't or can't understand the sciences so they try to shift the focus from their lack of knowledge by insulting people

 

[artanis_neravar]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Well I'm English. I don't see the distain as such in the uni or when I was at college but I do in the general populous. Oh yeah and the uni admins who deal with budget, they really dislike us.

Edit: by "us" I mean physisists and I misinterpreted the question in the quote.

No big deal, I'm an engineer and I'm pretty sure the school administration dislikes us. Might be because one of our projects (most likely) requires a larger budget then any other departments entire budget. But either way we (the engineering students) Hate all of those business/arts majors, those bastards actually have a chance to see the sun and be outside during the day.

 

[Navvan]

My hypothesis is that its a snowball effect. Science, math and the like take an effort for most people to learn and don't come easily. Thus if they can belittle it (its boring, not important, ect...) they can convince themselves that learning it isn't worth the effort. Massive amounts of people with the same feeling lead to an outward display leading to more people who begin to think its boring and before you know it subject X is boring and not important but to the relatively few who enjoyed it enough before they learned it was suppose to be boring.

This is in addition to the people who just find it dull to begin with which I'm sure there are plenty. No evidence for me to support this though just a hypothesis.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I never looked down on anyone who's specialties were Science and Maths (although the entire University system in Britain seems to look down on me because I didn't excel in them).

The reason I personally didn't like the subjects very much is because they just seem so... cold, to me. This is just my opinion so please don't hate me, but I much prefer theater, art, music and literature, which are all about emotion. Seeing the beauty in the world and processing it though uplifting language and imagery. To me personally Science and Maths seemed to seek to understand that beauty in the world not by glorifying it, but by mutilating it down to it's base components. I never saw any sense of soul in chemicals and numbers, I could see soul in the things they could create, but not in the components themselves. I know I sound like an artsy prick writing this (and I probably am), but the best way I can think of describing it is I can get very excited by a beautiful house, but that does not mean I can become excited about each individual brick.

 

[cookyy2k]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Well I'm English. I don't see the distain as such in the uni or when I was at college but I do in the general populous. Oh yeah and the uni admins who deal with budget, they really dislike us.

Edit: by "us" I mean physisists and I misinterpreted the question in the quote.

No big deal, I'm an engineer and I'm pretty sure the school administration dislikes us. Might be because one of our projects (most likely) requires a larger budget then any other departments entire budget. But either way we (the engineering students) Hate all of those business/arts majors, those bastards actually have a chance to see the sun and be outside during the day.

Oh yeah, I definately get that, plus my uni loves to throw budget at the "trendy" subjecs since they get more than like 30 in a calss and are what's getting tuition fees through the door.

I never looked down on anyone who's specialties were Science and Maths (although the entire University system in Britain seems to look down on me because I didn't excel in them).

The reason I personally didn't like the subjects very much is because they just seem so... cold, to me. This is just my opinion so please don't hate me, but I much prefer theater, art, music and literature, which are all about emotion. Seeing the beauty in the world and processing it though uplifting language and imagery. To me personally Science and Maths seemed to seek to understand that beauty in the world not by glorifying it, but by mutilating it down to it's base components. I never saw any sense of soul in chemicals and numbers, I could see soul in the things they could create, but not in the components themselves. I know I sound like an artsy prick writing this (and I probably am), but the best way I can think of describing it is I can get very excited by a beautiful house, but that does not mean I can become excited about each individual brick.

To be honest I couldn't disagree more. I've seen lots of rainbows in my life but the first rainbow I saw having just learnt in optics exactly why they should be that shape, size and other similar things was the most moving sight in a long time. I see greater beauty in things as I understand them deeper. A spiral galaxy for example (which my research is on) is a beautiful thing but the fact of how many things must align just right to make that pattern (same with raidbows) makes them more magical not less.

 

[Mr Goostoff]

Personally, I love science. I've just never had a teacher that taught it in a way that made it enjoyable. I guess the last 4 or 5 years of science classes have left a bad taste in my mouth.
Math, on the other hand, I detest. I 100% understand that math is important to much of our daily life, but that argument becomes kind of moot after you reach the 9th grade. The fact that I'm forced to learn 3 years worth of math which I will, in all likely-hood, never ever use, annoys me to no end.
My real interests are English, History, and Visual Arts.

 

[Wild_Marker]

That whole science vs art thingy always reminds me that gaming is awesome for requiring both.

 

[cookyy2k]

Personally, I love science. I've just never had a teacher that taught it in a way that made it enjoyable. I guess the last 4 or 5 years of science classes have left a bad taste in my mouth.
Math, on the other hand, I detest. I 100% understand that math is important to much of our daily life, but that argument becomes kind of moot after you reach the 9th grade. The fact that I'm forced to learn 3 years worth of math which I will, in all likely-hood, never ever use, annoys me to no end.
My real interests are English, History, and Visual Arts.

I think it's a lot of this, the people who become science teachers don't become science teachers because they're the best at the subject, they become it because they arn't (in general, I know some are but for the most part). I did my degree and got a decent 2.1 in an Mphys. I had job and PhD offers flowing in, everyone more interesting, exciting and better payed than teaching and all without having to deal with a bunch of disinterested kids just to inspire the few good ones. I think it's because their is such a shortage in general that thwe draw of industry and research far outstrips teaching. In comparrison to myself one of my friends got a 3rd (lowest grade without failing) this was because he was just good but not passionate about it so never did the work. He's training to be a teacher because it';s the only job that will take him with a 3rd...

 

[artanis_neravar]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Well I'm English. I don't see the distain as such in the uni or when I was at college but I do in the general populous. Oh yeah and the uni admins who deal with budget, they really dislike us.

Edit: by "us" I mean physisists and I misinterpreted the question in the quote.

No big deal, I'm an engineer and I'm pretty sure the school administration dislikes us. Might be because one of our projects (most likely) requires a larger budget then any other departments entire budget. But either way we (the engineering students) Hate all of those business/arts majors, those bastards actually have a chance to see the sun and be outside during the day.

Oh yeah, I definately get that, plus my uni loves to throw budget at the "trendy" subjecs since they get more than like 30 in a calss and are what's getting tuition fees through the door.

It doesn't help that those are also the more...seen...as in they are the most likely to have students appear in the news (not many people want to hear about what chemists, or biologists are doing)