The Two Cultures: Integrating STEM and Non-STEM Disciplines

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In a world in which technology in various forms affects major components of our lives, large portions of the population, even at high levels of formal education, lack the capacity to interact fully with those technologies.   

In 1959, the English scientist and novelist C. P. Snow gave his “The Two Cultures” lectures, forecasting that the sciences (or, as we might say, STEM disciplines) were distancing themselves from the humanities in ways that threatened our culture. At almost the same time, as if to prove that Snow’s future state had not yet arrived, William F. Friedman, often described as the “father of American cryptology,” gave a series of lectures on the state of cryptology to National Security Agency employees (presumably not the cryptologists) that they should not be intimidated by the complexity of his subject. He assured his audience that anyone who had completed introductory mathematics and laboratory science classes at the university level should be comfortable with the presentations he was about to make. 

Not only does the evidence suggest that Snow’s prediction has now arrived, but it is also clear that a contemporary audience for Friedman’s lectures might be intimidated if not totally lost. One major reason for this shift is the destruction, at least in the United States and perhaps elsewhere, of the “general education” requirements imposed on American undergraduates. Few early 21st-century students planning to major in the liberal arts, social sciences or humanities will have Physics 101 or 102 imposed on them, let alone calculus. A more generic “science” requirement may be part of a general education curriculum, but nothing matching a lab-based physics or chemistry sequence. 

In many respects, American education represents a part of what the journalist Michael Barone has described as the gap between “hard America” and “soft America.” In higher education, we must at least hope that medical schools represent “hard America,” while history, sociology and many other fields may represent “soft America,” as reflected in the degree of difficulty and average grades awarded. For the record, the author’s degrees are in history. 

This development presents exactly the danger Snow predicted. At the risk of oversimplifying, many IT applications exist to permit the STEM-deficient population to interact with technologies they can use—and conveniently—but that they really do not understand. Even more significantly, few if any technologies contain inherent capabilities to interact with society, its instruments and its institutions. From the invention of the alphabet, technologies have not of themselves had the capacity to integrate, socialize or even humanize their inclusion into society’s nontechnical processes. Humans, clever beings that we are, supply the energy involved in the socialization process. The invention of photography, for example, has greatly enhanced education, commerce and the arts. It also added a whole new dimension to the pornography industry. Recent and rapid changes in information technology have transformed many, if not most, of our institutions, largely for the better, one could argue. But then there is social media. 

For the last 20 years, I have taught undergraduate and graduate students, mostly from political science or similar backgrounds, the critical role they must play in the successful and beneficial integration of technology into society. The first and most important thing I teach them is that I cannot, in 14 weeks, make them technologists. What I can do is start them on the process of becoming capable of interacting with technologists and doing so in a way that maximizes the value of the marvelous developments the STEM disciplines have made available to us. Understanding the difference between functional requirements and systems requirements can be a start, as can knowing such things as the sequence of invention from vacuum tube through transistor to integrated circuit. In a pre-test for these courses, I ask the students to place those developments in the correct order of invention. I give them the correct order on the test, but about half the students can be counted on to think it’s a trick and proceed to rearrange them. 

The process of integrating new technologies in ways beneficial to society crosses a wide spectrum, from pure research to implementation and embodiment in law, economics and the other structures of civilization. Universities, along with other organizations and institutions, have done important work in advancing the capabilities of STEM-proficient aspirants and professionals. In too many instances, however, especially in higher education, leadership has permitted an early and intensive specialization that does little to communicate to students the issues at the other end of the spectrum. In my experience over the last 20 years, universities often seem more focused on training their students along a narrow, specialized path than on educating them to operate effectively across a broader range of components. Over the course of that time, I have had brilliant computer science majors blocked from taking courses in government or economics because such classes (at the upper level) are limited to those “majoring” in those fields. More often, interest in that more complete range is limited by the room for electives outside the major field. 

In his 1959 lectures, Snow presented a dark picture of a world divided into two cultures unable to communicate with or learn from each other. Sixty-five years ago, that was an ominous prediction. It has become a dangerous reality. How do we confront it? 

First, let us assume that the old general education curriculum is not coming back. Many STEM programs have eliminated or reduced requirements in foreign languages or social sciences in first- and second-year university programs. In many such programs, the major issue in curriculum reform is to avoid making STEM programs a five-year (rather than four-year) route to a physics or engineering degree. No college or university wants to be the first in its market to promote a five-year course while competitors continue to offer a four-year program. This is true even though the percentage of STEM undergraduates who complete a nominal four-year program without an additional semester or summer program has been declining for some time. It should, however, be possible for institutions to offer conferences and other events that speak to the need for conversation across disciplinary lines, even if these take place as extracurricular activities.  

Beyond that, employers in public and corporate settings alike, need to be alert to the dangers of technological developments that lack sufficient attention to implementation details, requiring attention to nontechnical considerations. Most SIGNAL readers can probably recall the appearance before one congressional committee or another of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who had to apologize for not factoring legal or ethical considerations into their products. Many of us can, without effort, even think of one or two CEOs who seem to be serial apologists. 

In the end, however, responsibility for closing the STEM/non-STEM gap must be a primary personal and professional responsibility for individuals working from either end of the spectrum to produce a full and effective spectrum of technical innovation and implementation, one encompassing everything from pure research through integration into society’s legal, economic and ethical structures. If this seems to place the burden of closing the gap, from either the technical or societal side, on individual professionals and aspiring professionals, so be it. If Henry Kissinger could develop an interest in artificial intelligence (AI) somewhere after his 90th birthday and then co-author two well-received books on the effects of AI on contemporary civilization, younger audiences should feel a responsibility to do their share of ensuring the successful integration of what could be an awkward and even dangerous “clash” of two otherwise disconnected cultures. The stakes involved in this integration could not be greater. 

William Nolte is a retired senior intelligence officer and a member of and chairman emeritus of the AFCEA intelligence committee.