To the Editor:
At a time when humanities funding is getting harder and harder to come by, I was happy to see Jared Moffat's '13 stirring defense of the liberal arts ("A disturbing trend," Jan. 31). However, he errs in dividing academics into two categories: the sciences, which are career-focused and ruled by "principles of market logic and commodification," and the humanities, which love learning for its own sake. In reality, much of the scientific research done at Brown is undertaken purely to learn about the universe and our world, and the researchers who pursue it are motivated more by a love of natural beauty than by practical concerns. There is as much "creative and critical thinking" in biology as in history, and the inner workings of an atom are as beautiful as any poem. If Moffat were to take a theoretical physics course, he would see that it has far more in common with philosophy than he presumes.
Alexander Berg '13
