A discourse request, mostly directed at @slatestarscratchpad –

Can we not casually equate “fuzzy / empathy-oriented / non-systematic thinking” with “the humanities?” 

“The humanities” is a field of intellectual inquiry.  Practiced properly, it involves rigor and clear logic – not experiment, not quantification (usually), not empirical data (usually), but definable principles and arguments that proceed cogently from those principles.  The people who are good at it are not that different, in ability or in temperament, from the people who are good at science. 

[…you know that philosophy counts, right?  That High Holy Utilitarianism itself is a product of the humanities?]

If you want to point out that we live in a world in which humanities scholars and humanities departments often seem to prefer feelings to reason, well, I can’t really argue with that.  But making a bad-thinking totem out of “the humanities” in the abstract…cedes a lot of ground, unnecessarily, to people who don’t deserve it.  And insults a lot of people who  do good work.