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Comment by BiteCode_dev | Hacker News Reader

Well, most people in math and science majors can pass an arts and humanities major. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Anecdotally, I can easily engage in talks about literature, politics and art with my friends coming from a biology or physics background. I can hardly do so with my friends with a major in French or Sociology. When we mix them together, the debate is always animated when we talk about philosophy, a specific author or book, and even painting. If we speak about GPT3 or the CERN, suddenly the table is divided in two.

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You can have some seriously in-depth discussions in sociology or philosophy as well, that would be hard to follow for someone with just a STEM background. The kind of sociology or philosophy one would discuss without preparation or reading with friends is not really comparable with the academic disciplines. It is just armchair philosophy/sociology.

I have a feeling many technically minded people would struggle to read and write an essay about Heidegger or Habermas. In fact, I doubt most people are even aware of that type of philosophy due to not having actually delved into it very deeply, and yet as outsiders to such fields they feel confident in making claims that those fields are "easier." (And usually there is also an implication that this being "easier" is an indication of those fields being less serious or worthwhile.)

If my non stem sample would be able to engage with armchair science in the same way that the stem sample can engage with armchair philosophy, I would agree with you.

However, it's not the case.

I also find more stem people reading entry level materials in philosophy around me (like Moral letters to Lucilius), that I will find non stem people ready entry level materials in science (like A brief history of time).

The ratio is hugely disproportionate, and while I understand this is all anecdotal, I have a large and very diverse social circle to observe, spanning on wide areas of age, social backgrounds, political preferences, sexual orientation and jobs.

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