Discovery Has No Roadmap - the role of the Humanities

Nice post by Julia on BlogUT - and a heads-up about a funding cut across the pond...

The humanities, far more than the sciences, are unpredictable. There are no set experimental steps that will take you to a set outcome, and the impact of research is nearly impossible to measure. So it’s all too easy to write the humanities off as useless, or a waste of money. The thing is, as important as our gadgets may be, society and social change are what define our lives and the way we live them – and neither of those things can function without the products of work in the humanities. That is why cuts in humanities funding, like King’s College London’s recent decision to scrap the UK’s only Chair in Paleography, are atrocious. That is why we owe it to ourselves to create the best possible environment for study and research in the humanities. That is why the humanities matter.