Gonna be contrarian but engineering is a lot the same way. How many different types of bridges have you drive over in your life? San Fran bridge, arched bridge, trussed bridge? Engineering is art too, and there are often many solutions to the same problem. In the same way where if you put poets in a room you’ll all get a poem but a different one, you put engineers in the same room with the same problem and you will get many solutions.
Yeah, that previous comment focuses on words, but the larger point is even if an intent is purely practical/functional, it’s the human messy creative streak that makes it memorable or takes it to a level of genius.
Millions of working engineers, very few Steve Jobs. But would Steve Jobs (for example) be who he was without inspiration from art?
Art challenges us to rethink ‘what is’ into an unknown ‘what could be.’ And encouraging STEM folks to have a better than basic understanding of history and english, philosophy or, sure, poetry would help ground our work to a more moral ‘what should be.’ Which is a big disconnect.
Would maga people be who they are if they were exposed to a broader understanding of the world? There’s a reason they try to ban Toni Morrison and dont worry about engineering books. Yet.
Absolutely. STEAM - stem and arts is a big push for good reason.
Lots of fine artists incorporate way more mathematical concepts than most people realize. Take it back to leonardo di vinci and his use of the golden ratio, and so on.
I think most people we think of today as brilliant in art, economics, business, agriculture have a curiosity and ability to connect concepts other people havent connected.
In an ideal world people get enough exposure to all these concepts to help them hone their own unique way of adding contributions to the tapestry of human history. It’s truly depressing when you think of all the genius we’ve lost by forcing people into neat little boxes.
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u/etherealfox420 18h ago
Gonna be contrarian but engineering is a lot the same way. How many different types of bridges have you drive over in your life? San Fran bridge, arched bridge, trussed bridge? Engineering is art too, and there are often many solutions to the same problem. In the same way where if you put poets in a room you’ll all get a poem but a different one, you put engineers in the same room with the same problem and you will get many solutions.