STEM vs. STEAM

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Lots of people here seem to agree that STEM subjects involve art, and art subjects involve STEM. If that's really the case, yet there is a lack of respect for something this important to the rest of STEM, adding art to the acronym is a good response, which helps further imply this relationship.

I really can't agree with this. The first part, I might agree with in a loose sense of the word "art" - but the relationship between engineering and art is fundamentally nothing like the relationship between engineering and math.

As to the second part, I can't really agree, because I don't think the purpose of the acronym is to "build appreciation" - it's to provide a useful label for a collection of intimately-related subjects. "STEAM" loses that utility.