Artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology and other emerging technologies are transforming society at an unprecedented pace. As scientific advances continue to reshape the world, they are also raising increasingly complex questions about ethics, culture, history and governance.
Against this backdrop, one question has become central to higher education worldwide: What role should the humanities play in an age driven by science and technology?
In a recent Nature Comment, Fan Xin, vice dean of the Institute of Humanities (IH) at ShanghaiTech University, offers his answer. In the article, “Why science needs the humanities more than ever,” he argues that the common assumption that science and the humanities compete for attention and resources is fundamentally mistaken.
“That ‘zero-sum’ logic is flawed.”
Instead, Fan argues, the faster science advances, the more we need the humanities—not as an alternative to science, but as an essential partner in helping society understand and navigate technological change.
The idea did not emerge from theory alone.
Since joining the IH at ShanghaiTech one year ago, Fan has found himself working within one of China’s youngest research universities, where scientists, engineers and humanists interact on a daily basis. The experience prompted him to reflect on a question that extends far beyond a single institution—why should a science-focused university invest in the humanities?
ShanghaiTech became an important case in his answer.
In the Nature article, Fan draws on ShanghaiTech’s experience to argue that humanities education is not an embellishment to STEM education. Rather, it helps cultivate critical thinking, ethical judgment, creativity and a broader understanding of the relationship between science and society—qualities that are becoming increasingly important as technologies such as AI continue to transform everyday life.
Fan places this discussion within a broader historical context. Looking back at the development of modern Chinese higher education, he notes that science and engineering understandably became national priorities during the country’s drive toward modernization. Today, however, scientific progress is creating challenges that can no longer be addressed by technical expertise alone.
AI, biotechnology and data science are reshaping not only industries, but also the ways people live, communicate and make decisions. Questions about fairness, responsibility and human values increasingly accompany technological innovation.
For Fan, these developments call for closer collaboration between science and the humanities rather than greater separation.
As he writes in the article, science is not becoming less dependent on the humanities—it is becoming more so. The humanities help society understand how scientific knowledge is produced, how technologies reshape human experience, and how innovation can better serve the public good.
The article concludes with a reflection that looks beyond higher education itself. If the twentieth century was defined by humanity’s effort to advance science, Fan suggests, one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century may be understanding what science has changed—and what new questions it has created.
Perhaps the most memorable line comes at the very end:
“In meeting this challenge, the humanities are not catching up. They are catching society before it moves too fast.”