On April 21, the Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society hosted the annual Bathtub Debate, a beloved Swarthmore tradition that brings together faculty from the three academic divisions – natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities – for an intellectual competition to determine which division is most convincing. This year’s debate centered on the imaginative topic: “Which academic division would be best suited to help humanity start over on a new planet after an apocalypse?”
Representing their respective divisions were Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics Jeffrey Hyde, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Sabeen Ahmed, and Professor of History Timothy Burke. After the professors delivered their arguments and wittily responded to students’ questions, the audience cast their votes and awarded the “Top Duck” to Ahmed, whose humanistic insights won the day.
Ahmed began her opening statement by questioning students about what they would choose to pack if an apocalypse were around the corner. She emphasizes that this decision reflects more than basic survival instinct or practicality – it reveals our values, memories, and visions for the future. Ahmed argued that under this scenario, when everything else is gone, the most fundamental task for humanity is to build a vision of the new world, and it is through shaping this world that we also reshape ourselves.
“When you decide what to carry forward in the aftermath of an apocalypse, what you’re really asking is what part of myself I want to protect, preserve, and offer to the future? What will we need to rebuild? What will be the heart of the new worlds that we created?”
For Ahmed, the answer lies in the humanities, which functions less as a division but more as an orientation that navigates the developments of the sciences. By referring to science fiction, Ahmed argued that space has always been the setting where humans’ most radical questions were explored, including the infinite ways in which we might organize ourselves and modes of living beyond the status quo.
“It is through the lens of the humanities that we come to understand and practice what it means not simply to describe the world but to engage and live it,” Ahmed said. “To be a humanist is to ask not just what works but what matters. To insist that utility without meaning is not enough, and progress without an ethic of responsibility to others is no progress at all.”
Taking the stage next was Hyde, who spoke on behalf of the natural sciences. He began his argument by emphasizing that only the natural sciences can find humanity a new home. “I appreciate the desire to follow the uncertainty,” Hyde remarked, lightly teasing the idealism in philosophical approaches.
Hyde continued by arguing that space travel and potential encounters with alien life would also require the expertise of natural scientists, particularly astronomers and physicists experienced in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. To support his point, he presented an image of the Voyager Golden Records and explained how scientists used the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen to convey our concept of time. Then, Hyde quoted Carl Sagan to present the humility and humanity in adopting the lens of astronomy, namely how illusory human conceits are in contrast with the universe.
Hyde concluded with his own reflection on the value of the natural sciences:
“I believe that studying the natural world and coming to understand the immense challenges in finding a new planet to inhabit lead to a deeper appreciation of how fragile life is – and the importance of preserving it.”
Last to present his opening statement, Burke spoke in favor of the social sciences. He contended that while sci-fi comes from the humanities, they are fundamentally about social science and social analysis. Burke described social sciences as a Swiss Army knife equipped to handle both normative and practical questions, an all-in-one deal featuring humanistic and scientific aspects, but also unique on its own. He believes that different subjects in social sciences can help human beings engage with aliens who – according to Burke – we would encounter on our newly discovered habitable planet: the linguists will break the language barrier, the anthropologists will observe and understand how the aliens’ society functions, the psychologists will investigate how the aliens think, etc.
In the end, however, Burke said that he hopes academics will eventually step aside on our new planet: “Once we had done this useful work – when all the people are living together and living with these new aliens – they would tell us to all step aside … At this point, you might need something more, like wisdom, which scholars are sometimes in short supply. Social science, I think, is your best bet for having the total tool kit to get started, but if we all find ourselves in that situation at some moment, all the scholars need to step aside, and all of us together will need to step forward.”
Following the opening statements was a robust Q&A session. Then, the professors delivered their closing arguments, all emphasizing collaboration among different academic divisions. “I think really what this entire experience has revealed to us is that none of us can or are even doing this work in isolation – we’re all already in the community and thinking with one another,” Ahmed remarked, before taking home the win.
