Tech titans weigh into a classic debate: art or science?

NET RESULTS: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are at odds over an issue that may prove crucial to Ireland's future

SCIENCE AND engineering, or arts and humanities? Which area of study offers better job prospects, which is more entrepreneurial, which more needed in an economic downturn to fuel growth?

The debate is an old one, and was amplified last month when Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs advocated differing approaches in speeches three days apart.

Gates, in a talk to state governors in the US, stressed a need to push funding towards science and engineering because these disciplines are “well-correlated to areas that actually produce jobs”.

Days later, at the iPad 2 product launch, Jobs proclaimed that science and engineering were not adequate as a basis for real innovation – that a product like the iPad needed people with a background in arts and humanities too.

“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough – it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing, and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices,” he said.

The New York Times found this a fascinating contrast and set up a discussion forum, soliciting brief essays from eight notable contributors (http://short.ie/m067r8). All of them are interesting perspectives on an argument most famously crystallised by CP Snow in his 1950s essay Two Cultures.

The debate in the forum is not conclusive, nor is it meant to be. But it certainly gives an insight into a quandary that is highly relevant at the moment in Irish universities – where there are justifiable worries on the arts and humanities side that departments will see funding redirected to science and engineering.

Ireland is far better known for its contributions to the arts and humanities. While it is uplifting to see that Irish universities have climbed the ladder in terms of citations in scientific papers, Ireland’s reputation for creativity and innovation remains connected to its legendary production of writers, artists and musicians.

If we look towards the best-known international measurement of achievement in particular areas of knowledge and expertise, the Nobel prize, Ireland has had little to show in the sciences. North and South, we have produced 10 Nobel laureates, of which only one is in the sciences; four are in literature (the remainder won the peace prize).

Ireland’s more recent advancements in science did not bring it into the top 100 list of universities published by the Times Educational Supplement last month either. This evaluated universities in terms of research and reputation, arguably tilting the results towards the sciences. But either way, Ireland did not figure.

One could argue this mediocre showing needs to be addressed by pumping significantly more funding into science and engineering, inevitably to the detriment of arts and humanities. Advocates for such a view, those who would have the attention of Government and the highest access for whispering in the ears of ministers, are many. Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) fronts the queue, followed by university leaders who tend to come from a science and research background. There is no humanities-based research organisation with clout similar to that of SFI.

I’d recommend university and government decision-makers read the contributions to the New York Times debate. Consider the view of Edwin W Koc, director of strategic and foundation research at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. While science and engineering graduates, armed with in-demand professional skills, can command a much higher initial salary, a longitudinal study for the National Center for Educational Statistics “found that the wage differentials that existed between career-oriented majors and academically oriented majors were all but eliminated within 10 years after graduation”.

Amanda L Griffith, assistant professor of economics at Wake Forest University, notes the reason for the large wage differential is only that science and business majors are scarce in comparison to humanities majors.

Perhaps most interesting is the contribution from Vivek Wadhwa. His research team surveyed 652 chief executives and heads of product engineering at 502 technology companies and found that only 37 per cent held degrees in engineering or mathematics.

He acknowledges there are far more jobs on leaving university for the science and engineering graduate, but stresses that discipline is not reflective of entrepreneurial skill and notes the world needs liberal arts graduates as much as engineers and scientists.

As he says: “Steve Jobs taught the world that good engineering is important, but what matters the most is good design. You can teach artists how to use software and graphics tools, but it’s much harder to turn engineers into artists.”

Such a view delivers a cautionary tale for university heads and Government. If fewer than half of those technology company entrepreneurs held degrees in sciences and engineering, that must challenge the route most universities here are currently taking – effectively downgrading arts and humanities, prioritising science and engineering.

Evidence would suggest that arts and humanities, for many reasons, remain every bit as important as science and engineering, and that a good time to focus on entrepreneurial skills in Ireland is in secondary school, before students have been forced into their narrower university degree track.

Not least if we go back and look at Gates and Jobs themselves – university dropouts, who have created tens of thousands of jobs and pumped billions into the global economy.