Anecdotal, either way, is irrelevant. If you wish to attack the data, and therefore the conclusions, do it with data within the data, or bring exogenous data. Break out "stem" degrees
over the last 30 or so years and refute the trend as to some subsection.
The theory of the 1979 book was a liberal intelligentsia formed as industrial society became more complex, thereby separating the monied class (think Monte Burns) from the ability to manage their owns businesses, thus creating a class, neither owners nor workers, of TECHNOCRATS who had the leverage of some degree of autonomy. They sent their kids to colleges and obtained advanced degrees not just 4 yr.
See the culture of critical discourse as opposed to the authoritarian and traditional power frame of reference of these intellectuals who demanded more money.
THAT is the thesis. Saying STEM are conservative flies in the face of that thesis. They were not Russian Lit grad students who wrested control
from the monied elite, they WERE the new class of STEM type technocrats who were needed to run complicate businesses owned by ignorant money men.
Try harder.
PS I note without the slightest sense of irony that conservatives here are wholly incapable of comprehending the authors theory much less engage in our culture of critical discourse
in this thread.