Although most AQ readers will be familiar with the politicization and dilution of teaching and scholarship that have occurred in the social sciences and humanities over the past several decades, we tend to think of the STEM subjects—along with, consequently, institutions chiefly known for their focus on those fields of study (such as MIT)—as largely free of such watering down. (Nobody, whatever his political views, wants to be treated by a doctor, or inhabit a building designed by an architect, whose credentials are not based on the highest standards of learning.)
It is also a commonplace of contemporary life, however, to observe that today’s young “adults”—college students, twentysomethings—tend to mature more slowly than their counterparts in previous generations did. (Consider Kay Hymowitz’s 2012 book Manning Up, or the comic strip Dustin.)
Our assumptions about the relative immunity of
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