Read again what I wrote. Yes, theoretical physics is mostly mathematics. But most of pure mathematics is not used in theoretical physics and theoretical physicists don’t care much about it - until somebody shows that some part of it can be useful for what they do.
Yes, there is an intersection between pure mathematics and theoretical physics, so they have something to talk about, but biology research doesn't intersect with either pure mathematics or theoretical physics. All the scientists in that group were biologists.
So is Carl, who started this discussion. What point are you trying to make?
During that time period, the logical positivism movement dominated in philosophy. Logical positivists thought only logic and science were useful, and prior philosophy was subjective bullshit that nobody could prove. Logical positivism is now considered debunked and dead in analytic philosophy.
Logical positivists were extremists and really into abstract math(s). It's not surprising that Russell enjoyed it but the four biologists from 1949 would find it useless. That says very little about whether philosophy of science, which found problems in logical positivism, would help science today.
In many ways, STEM bros who think only science and mathematics are useful—and philosophy is subjective bullshit—are logical positivists. And that's why some humanities education would help, especially philosophy of science.
This is laughable. Tech bros are nothing like logical positivists.Please read autobiographies by A. J. Ayer and others to see what they really thought about the world. The Vienna Circle members were leftists who actively opposed nationalism, fascism, and clerical conservatism.
Tech bros are a mixture of wannabe John Galts, longtermists (a “philosophy” with deep pseudoscientific roots), and more-or-less open authoritarians or worse. All scientists I know thoroughly despise their “philosophies”.
Also, the claim that logical positivists thoughts only science and mathematics were useful and philosophy a subjective BS is as wrong as it gets. They were philosophers doing philosophy, who had strong opinions how philosophy itself should be done. They only thought of metaphysics as meaningless.
Logical positivists were philosophers who birthed analytic philosophy, which didn't previously exist. "Prior philosophy" is an oversimplification, but topics outside its scope include metaphysics, theology, ethics, aesthetics, and the whole category of continental philosophy.
Analytic philosophy predates logical positivism - it started with Frege, Russell and Moore, none of whome were logical positivists. Logical positivists didn't think aesthetics or ethics were outside the scope of philosophy (they did work on both) but outside the domain of knowledge. Big difference.
I said "STEM bro", not tech bro, and I'm referring to the characteristic of most STEM people thinking that their topic of interest can be widely applied and solve problems in other fields, not their politics. I'm in tech, and even liberals are AI boosters who think generative AI can everyone's job.
I am a STEM person in STEM and I know of no other STEM people around me who think any of that, and I doubt that you do, either. It is only some (albeit too many) students who think AI can help them avoid learning without consequences.
You'd be surprised. I know an experienced ex-FAANG software engineer who thinks LLMs can be used to generate legal arguments for a lawyer but it just needs to be reviewed. It works really well for full stack web development coding, what they do, but not for software eng outside of that, what I do.
I was refering to your claim that "most STEM people thinking that their topic of interest can be widely applied and solve problems in other fields". I don't know any of my colleagues who thinks THAT. As for LLMs, they are a tool. People are still learning its limitations, sometimes the hard way.