Access to higher education: Why is there a ocean between humanities and science?

Question

Once upon a time I did an Acces course ... Preparation for doing TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) at Middlesex university it was meant to be.
I went to the university open day and was told by the professor that he would be happy with me, as a mature student, if I understood biology to A-level standard. I told him I wanted to further my study on a philosophical/theoretical level after i finished the degree course and he was fine with that. Chinese medicine has a recorded history of at least 2500 years.
Originally the college had put me in the Acces to Humanities and Social Sciences. After I told them what had been told to me at the open day they decided I should be in Access to Science.
It was way too much science for what i needed and asked if i could do some units from both Access courses. Since that was perfectly acceptable for the degree i wanted to do i could not see the problem.

But they found a problem and i was told by the head of humanities that I could not have my cake and eat it. the head of the science course sort of seemed to give in to the pressure from humanities and in my opinion wold not have been bothered by it too much.
I quit the Access course in the end ... and find most academics a waste of time since.
Your opinion?
Ta

Picnic: I am gardener by trade and would rather grow than prescribe chinese herbal medicine to be honest. On the other hand i like writing and would have liked to have found employment in trade
publications.
TCM is based on biomedical science. Classical theory on the other hand is not. To put it simlistic; they took the Spirit out of acupuncture and called it TCM. The professor at uni was classically trained and there is some respect still for those that prefer the classic theory over TCM. He understood that my wish to get the degree and build on that was because my wanting to understand how the classical theory really interprets things to work.

thylawyer: I had no prob with the anatomy (i already have an A-level botany from years ago), I had no prob with the chemistry. But i did find it confusing to be taught endocrinology before they had explained covalent bonding properly. Endocinology was in the first term and basic chemistry was in second term.
I know more of TCM i care to know. Like i said. The took Spirit out of classical theory and called it TCM. But I am not too big to know that TCM is a very good foundation to build on if I want to delve in the classics further. The degree course would have included Mandarin Chinese. Not that that would have gotten me anywhere with all the untranslated classical texts but I might have learnt some proper pronounciation. As one gets older it gets harder to learn another language. And I should know since English is my third :-)
I will look into Analog sometime ... but i usually end up in semantics ...

Answer 1

Hi,
very interesting and intriguing question. I hold an MA in English and Bsc in Zoology, but I m hardly an ambassador of higher education. UK HE system is not perfect to say the least. Tutors are mostly research oriented but they are asked to take endless lectures, set papers, mark exams and do all possible admin tasks leaving them with a frustrated mind and less and less time for their research passions. As a students I have seen the irritation boiled down to us.
Now about your Access course, if I am not wrong its meant to prepare students for degree level coursework. I think both humanities and science help prepare the students in a different way. Humanities equip you with a communication and wider interpretive skills while science gives analytic and logical skills. A medicine student would require both an ability to interpret,study , communicate(humanities) and also logically analyse a patient's situation.
But I am not surprised by the duel between humanities and science department. I have seen a Shakespearean Study tutor flashing swords to a Modernism guy. Academic rivalry is here to study, considering how bureaucratic and silly our academic structure is.

Answer 2

The problem is you are a free thinker .Academia is just that. A structure to which we can all have a base from. Unfortunately universities are limited , by the need for their courses to appeal to many. Other than the tried and tested books of what is poisonous in the field you have chosen, the very art of Chinese medicine is one of a natural feel for it. Chinese medicine is older than modern science. Egg before the chicken. modern science endeavours to define what already has a proven track record, by taking out the ignorance that went with the ancient way. suggest you study with a Chinese herbal healer. hands on. Philosophy is a science of encirclement projecting wisdom. Wisdom is the Chinese way. Good luck.

Answer 3

Separating Humanities and Science never was a wise decision. Despite the fact, that it helped the improvement of each one in general, it destroyed the very core of their strange symbiosis in the past. In historical times, science and humanities were used together, as the shamans used herbs and magic rituals to heal the injured and the weak.

Science of course reflects the world from a scientific, rational viewpoint, where only scientific fact give the base of each statement. It is much more about how things work and not about how they should work. However science theorizes many things as well, it remains constantly loyal to the facts. It often opposes to humanities, since while the humanities always consider the moral side of the coin, science gives higher priority to survival, productivity and rational decisions, since science must be true at any time in any society, irrespectively from the morals and customs of that society.

Humanities try to answer the less practical side of these questions and often theorizes and hopes, that this 'fake hope' somehow results in great revelations, which lead to many great events in history. Humanities try to localize and analyze the very core of scientific facts and theories so they can be developed to a higher level, which level cannot be reached in real because of the limitations of science itself.

But in fact science refers to humanities and vice versa. Humanities can be explained by rough science as well as the most scientific statement can be described on a theoretical and more human-centric way. Separating these two ways of seeing is not often wise, since comparing them may give the best description of the events.

As for me, I learn HUMANITIES at university as a "Philologist with specialization in Philosophy". However I believe in science and that all things in this realm exist only because of the scientific chain strong enough to make people argue about it through many generations and ages. If we take GOD into the picture, we just separete the two areas even more.

Answer 4

I understand your compromise. I am assuming you are Asian and want a cultural emphasis. The differences in Eastern and Western medicine is vast. Unfortunately the two will not put the best of each to work for the ultimate good of all mankind. When this happens I think you must ultimatly learn both things so you can integrate them properly using your intellect and access to subjects outside either realm. Once that is done you will have the best of both worlds. You could if you choose to write in 3 languages and attempt to put it together in a humanitarian effort for all peoples.

Answer 5

wow has world war 3 broken out here ...think if you want to study traditional medicine or in these days not so but alternative medicine it would be better to go to college or get apprenticeship with practising herbalist ..but think it would give you good start to study the concept of medicine per say.........nothing lost maybe something gained like another certificate to say how brainy you are ....PS also found science very boring to many rules .and formula's sorry just my opinion prefer to let others do the ground work and go from there ....and agree why couldn't you use units from both ..silly rules again

Answer 6

If academia puts people into boxes marked either 'science' or 'arts' when those people want to experience something from both boxes then it is more likely, in my opinion, to produce workmanlike students who will probably conclude that the purpose of education is to solely to prepare for a career and to make money rather than to extend the faculties of how to understand generally.

Answer 7

Because science is based on solid facts that apply in every case and get the same results, whereas humanities changes at an always rate and can not be applied to every case and get the same results.

Answer 8

Since you have a low opinion of academia going into this, why bother asking the question? You were told up front you needed A-level biology (science, you know), but apparently you are not up to that level, though you fail to provide us with that necessary datum.

You also apparently believe that TCM is not scientific and should not have to know science. I have no idea what your academic record is as far as philosophy goes, but if you really believe (especially contemporary) philosophy is all you need to understand science, read the July/August issue of Analog. You might find it, er, enlightening.

Answer 9

there is a dilemma between the search for 'fact/truth' and the acquisition of opinion. Science is very limited as a discipline by its conventions, there is 'wiggle' room in humanities fro interpretation, for faceted variation, infinite diversity!

Answer 10

maybe because humanities is still trying to understand the human condition...and it is learned through evolution...it is constantly changing#
whereas science is more exact and operates on proof

they tried to understand the human being by mathematical formulas in america....
guess what?
they admitted it was rubbish ..it only took 30 odd years for them to find out ...DOH!!!