>I don't know why, but there's a fairly strong association between being in STEM and thinking that the humanities are easy and obvious and people study them just because they don't understand STEM.
Sampling bias. The association exists because most that don't fit the stereotype keep their yap shut.
I'd say there's also plenty of STEM people that don't think humanities are easy nor obvious, but they interpret the outward appearance as something so far up it's own ass that they're just turned off from exploration of the field. But that's a popular take among non-STEM too.
I think it's an extension of the cultural idea that the hard sciences are more important than the soft sciences, which itself is because hard sciences are more empirical and we culturally value what we can measure more than what we can't.
FWIW, it's a broad enough problem that it has its own term - STEMlord.
Sampling bias. The association exists because most that don't fit the stereotype keep their yap shut.
I'd say there's also plenty of STEM people that don't think humanities are easy nor obvious, but they interpret the outward appearance as something so far up it's own ass that they're just turned off from exploration of the field. But that's a popular take among non-STEM too.