Humanities

====STEM====
Politicians in the United States currently espouse a need for increased funding of the [[STEM fields]], science, technology, engineering, mathematics.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/reform |title=Whitehouse.gov |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021222654/http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/reform |archive-date=2014-10-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Federal funding represents a much smaller fraction of funding for humanities than other fields such as STEM or medicine.<ref name="bi_26Jun2013">''America Is Raising A Generation Of Kids Who Can't Think Or Write Clearly'', [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-war-against-humanities-2013-6 Business Insider] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029054524/http://www.businessinsider.com/the-war-against-humanities-2013-6 |date=2014-10-29 }}</ref> The result was a decline of quality in both college and pre-college education in the humanities field.<ref name="bi_26Jun2013"/>

Three-term Louisiana Governor, [[Edwin Edwards]] acknowledged the importance of the humanities in a 2014 video address<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUY5c9IrAHE |title=YouTube |website=[[YouTube]] |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-date=2015-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517203300/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUY5c9IrAHE |url-status=live }}</ref> to the academic conference,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210228013512/http://scedhs2014.uqam.ca/ Scedhs2014.uqam.ca]</ref> ''Revolutions in Eighteenth-Century Sociability''. Edwards said:
:Without the humanities to teach us how history has succeeded or failed in directing the fruits of technology and science to the betterment of our tribe of ''homo sapiens'', without the humanities to teach us how to frame the discussion and to properly debate the uses-and the costs-of technology, without the humanities to teach us how to safely debate how to create a more just society with our fellow man and woman, technology and science would eventually default to the ownership of—and misuse by—the most influential, the most powerful, the most feared among us.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/8919778 |title=Academia.edu |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-date=2018-10-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181002050619/http://www.academia.edu/8919778/Introductory_remarks_by_former_four-term_Louisiana_Governor_Edwin_W._Edwards_Honorary_Chair_Montreal_Enlightenment_Conference_October_18_2014 |url-status=live |last1=Eaton |first1=Fernin }}</ref>