Someone just sent me the following joke:
The graduate with a science degree asks, “Why does it work?”
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, “How does it work?”
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?”
The graduate with an arts degree asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
Like Queen Victoria, I was not amused. Here’s my response:
A scientist, like the engineer, only asks how a thing works. He never asks why a thing works. To understand why a thing works you need a philosopher or a theologian. When the philosophers and theologians are selling fries, instead of being listened to, the world will wonder why everything is going wrong.
Sorry to be so po-faced but supercilious and arrogant jokes, like racist jokes, should not go unchallenged.
Joseph, thanks for the comments on this.
I want to point out that to say that *only* philosophers and theologians can answer “why” is just as supercilious and arrogant as the joke was intending to be.
OK, as a liberal arts BA myself, I can’t resist commenting.
I’ve heard this joke. Actually, I’ve TOLD this joke, in rueful tones, as someone who took one and a half years to find a good full time job after graduation. But the education I got–which was very heavy on the philosophy and theology–was absolutely worth the financial setbacks.
To Kyle’s remark: Perhaps we should just say “philosophy and theology” instead of “philosophers and theologians”. To say that a certain _discipline_ produces a certain kind of answer that other disciplines do not produce isn’t arrogance, it’s merely a good definition.
Responding to Kyle, I maintain that only philosophy and theology asks and answers “why” things happen. Science only asks and answers “how”. Great art and literature sometimes beg the question but it is not in the nature of these media to answer explicitly the questions they ask. Also, the questions being begged are still theological and philosophical questions. Perhaps I might ask Kyle to provide other disciplines that ask “why”, as distinct from “how”.
I don’t know about other disciplines outside of the four mentioned in the joke, but going with those four:
(1) Why does an electron orbit the nucleus?
(2) Why does my wall appear yellow (it is, in fact, painted yellow, and not stained)?
(3) Why are some atomic transitions invisible?
(4) Why do costs go up?
(5) Why is there a progressive tax, rather than a flat tax?
(6) Why does a computer use binary and not ternary, quaternary, or higher logic gates?
These 6 “why” questions are not at all answered or answerable by philosophy or theology but by science, engineering, and economics. Like I said previously, to assert that *only* one field can answer a “why” question is supercilious and arrogant.
Mr. Kanos,
“Why” is an equivocal word, and it has a special meaning in philosophy etc. that it just doesn’t have in the more physical sciences.
Your examples all give a reason for something (hence they can be phrased using the word “why”) but the sort of reason they give has to do with material and physical causes (hence they can also be phrased using the word “how”). For example:
Why do costs go up?
can be rephrased as
How does it happen that costs go up?
where both questions mean
What events lead to costs rising?
But
Why does man exist?
does NOT mean the same thing as
How does it happen that man exists?
for the answer to the second is something like
Because his parents bore him.
whereas the answer to the first would be (depending on who answers the question)
To give glory to God. (Christians)
To achieve a life of virtue. (Pagans)
For no reason. (Atheists)
Of course, one could also say that the reason “why” prices rise or electrons orbit is “for the glory of God” … 😉 But then one wouldn’t be doing physical science any more.
Now, it IS possible to dispute the importance or the meaningfulness of the philosophers’ “why”, but if it means anything at all, it is clear at minimum that it means something different from the “why” of the physical scientist.
Sophia:
None of my questions, if understood properly, could possibly be defined as “how X comes about.” Surely you can come up with a new question that somewhat mimics the details of the question but doesn’t maintain the ‘why,’ as you had done, but you would be creating a straw-man argument at that point.
The only difference between the two ‘views’ of ‘why’ questions is because philosophers and theologians are arrogant enough to believe that their’s is different.
But Mr. Kanos, aren’t those a different sort of “why” than the “why” of philosophy and theology? The “why” of philosophy and theology is (as Aristotle would say) “the that-for-the-sake-of-which”, whereas the “why” in all the instances you have given has more to do with HOW a thing comes about.
For example, “Why do men exist?” is a question about the purpose of human existence: it seeks to uncover that for the sake of which men were made. (Of course, the atheist philosopher will end up saying “Men were made for no purpose; indeed, men were not made at all”–but that doesn’t change the nature of the question, except on a meta-level.)
Your examples, on the other hand, don’t deal so much with Purpose (what are atoms FOR? what is an economy FOR?–philosophical and ethical questions) but with means (how do atoms / how does an economy work?).
Same word, different senses. And, if one acknowledges that the former sense (why as in “that-for-the-sake-of-which”) is a real sense of the word, then it’s hard to avoid admitting that THAT sense of the word is the more significant one.
Tom R (and Kyle),
The definition of “why” to which I was referring is given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as “for what reason? for what purpose?” Scientists do not ask the reason that an electron orbits a nucleus, they discover that it orbits a nucleus and then make further deductions from that fact. The reason for its orbit is not one of the questions that scientists ask. Atheists will answer that there is no reason but atheism is a philosophical and ultimately a theological position: God or his absence being the first principle.
Similarly, and returning to our dictionary definition, scientists do not ask the purpose for an electron’s orbiting of a nucleus. A purpose requires a will to purpose it. Scientists do not concern themselves whether there is a will or a purpose behind the mechanics of the cosmos, they seek only to understand the workings of the mechanism. Again, atheists will argue that there is no purpose, but such an argument is philosophical and theological in nature. The irony is that scientists can only become atheists by ceasing to be scientists, i.e. by reading philosophical and theological meanings into the scientific data.
I agree that a sense of humour is worth developing and am somewhat amused that someone should accuse me of lacking such. Isn’t it interesting, for instance, that only human beings have a sense of humour? Animals don’t possess this gift. I wonder why? But that’s another (philosophical and theological) question.
I’m going under the assumption that this post is serious. If not, the joke is so subtle in the wording that I’ll admit it passed me by.
I’m a scientist. What, where, when, why and how are still the fundamental questions. It is ludicrous to say that to understand “why a thing works” you need a philosopher. The problem with that is that ten different philosophers will opine about the answer, typically with ten different results, while scientists will go about searching for one answer that is most consistent with the data, and are willing to change that answer in light of new and/or additional data.
I’m not saying the world doesn’t need moralists and philosophers, but it certainly doesn’t need philosophers who dismiss the scientific method of searching for the truth with a broad-brushed “Harumph!”
To call this joke arrogant indicates is flagrant hypocrisy in light of the statement “When the philosophers and theologians are selling fries, instead of being listened to, the world will wonder why everything is going wrong.” That is the height of arrogance. You could state the exact same thing substituting “scientists” for “philosophers and theologians.”
Get a life. While you’re at it, pick up a sense of humor. Both are long lasting, generate friendship, and available at the very inexpensive price of free will.
Mr. Kanos,
If you can’t see that “why” can mean more than one thing, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere on this question.
For further reading on the different senses of why, I recommend a basic dictionary, as well as the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality
and
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/
Sophia,
The difference between the questions “Why does man exist?” and “How did man come to exist?” is the same as the difference between “Why do costs go up?” and “How does it happen that costs go up?” But this is common knowledge: if you ask a different question, you get a different answer. The “why” questions are exactly the same, regardless of profession.
As someone late to the conversation, it seems that there are two different issues being discussed: 1) Is it legitimate to say that physicists ask “why”? and 2) Is there a difference between the “why” of the scientist and the “why” of the philosopher?
As for the first, I would have to say it is legitimate. If a child asks why some balloons fly and some balloons don’t, I don’t think anyone would claim that an explanation regarding the density of gasses wouldn’t answer the question.
As for the second, Ms. Mason has done an excellent job distinguishing between the “why” of philosophy and the “why” of science. A simple though inelegant illustration of the difference might be made based on a murder at a card game. Ask a medical examiner why the victim died and he might say a blow to the head caused severe brain damage, causing the brain to cease functioning and ultimately leading to the death of the victim; ask the investigating police officer the same question, and he might say it was because the murderer thought the victim was cheating at cards, lost his temper and attacked the victim, leading to the latter’s death. Both are answering the question “why” in the context of their own field, but this doesn’t affect the validity of either answer.
Mr. Jaindl, that is both simple AND elegant!
Well, I was missing out on this debate while on tour with Theater of the Word … speaking of which, please allow this plug:
***
This June I will be performing my one-man show in which I portray Fr. Stanley Jaki, a Chestertonian known for writing hundreds of books and articles on the relation between Science and the Christian Faith. He was a remarkable man, a very deep thinker, and I will be addressing the issues behind this debate.
So come see me as Fr. Jaki, June 22-24 at the Portsmouth Institute Conference in Portsouth, Rhode Island.
For more info, see http://www.portsmouthinstitute.org/
***
Meanwhile, I can only affirm the case Sophia and Joseph are making. The “why” that science can not answer is the “final cause” or the “teleology” of something – the purpose of something. For instance, what is the purpose of life is not a scientific question. How living matter operates is entirely a scientific question.
Fr. Jaki pointed out that Aristotle’s mistake was infesting science with purpose. He taught that gravity was explainable because on object sought out another, that it was attracted to another as its final cause. It was only with the dawn of modern science (which Jaki points out began with Catholics in the Middle Ages), and particularly with Newton’s Laws of Motion that science confined itself to what it does best – dealing with efficient causes by means of measurement, experiment and replication – and thereby explaining much of the world without recourse to purpose or teleology, which prooperly speaking are the purview of philosophy, not science.
This exists in many forms, but to lighten the mood here:
Several faculty are called in to see their dean. Just as they arrive the dean is called out of his office, leaving the three professors there. They notice a small fire in the wastebasket.
The physicist says, “I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the fire will go out.”
The chemist says, “No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants.”
“We can do both at the same time if we hit it with a big bucket of water.” says the engineer.
While they debate what course to take, they are alarmed to see the statistician running around the room starting more fires. They both scream, “What are you doing!?!”
To which the statistician replies, “Trying to get an adequate sample size.”
I graduated with a BA in Philosophy. People deresspict Philosophy because they don’t understand it. Philosophy is a very broad and ambiguous subject. People associate philosophy with classical philosophers that are very difficult to understand and read about. Many people think that philosophers work on questions in which there can be no answers to, or questions that are meaningless. People (the masses) don’t appreciate things they do not understand and are quick to make ignorant judgments of things and people that they do not understand. If you’ve studied Philosophy, you would find that there is something there that can help you, or something that you can relate to and enjoy. There is the Philosophy of Religion, that may help you understand your own faith. There is Eastern Philosophy that may enlighten you to simple truths about harmony and nature (Tao). Philosophy is a very cool degree to have, in a highly commercialized world. I really enjoyed getting my Philosophy degree, and feel like it was a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment. It made me a better person. I thought that I would be thinking deep thoughts about unemployment, but I ended up with a great career in Information Technology.