I am sitting at a dinner party full of lawyers, scientists and artists. An interesting debate breaks out between the "arts and letters" of academia and science. One charismatic lawyer starts it.
"We really need more scientists in the United States. Everything is better with science and we really lack the number of scientists we need for us to have a good, healthy strong society. Our country is suffering because we need more science."
Interestingly enough, a physicist disagrees. "That's not true. We don't live properly with the science we do have. We could have a huge impact on our society by making some major changes in the way we live. To that end, what we lack is motivation on a soul level. The impact of a good song or poetry can change a country."
The lawyer laughs. "You actually think that? The impact of a poet or artist doesn't compare to the impact of a scientist. A society can function without the arts, but we depend so much on science that we need more of it. Society is most impacted by science."
The physicist contradicts her. "We actually have all the science we need at the moment. The problems in the world are due to the fact that we don't know how to properly use it. We don't live sustainably and we've lost our connection to the world. Poets and artists can make just as big of an impact (and even bigger) than science. You just don't realize it."
I decide not to partake in the argument as I learn more by listening to both sides, but it seems to me that one version of the question is whether science is inherently good or bad. I was reminded of this again while scouring the Templeton Foundation site for possible grant opportunities and happened upon a current grant award made to a Danish institute exploring the question "How is knowledge about science a good thing for religious practice or theology?" The Danish National Church's Institute for Theological Education seems to understand the importance of a scientific understanding for those in religious studies and theology. Through science we learn critical thinking and logical, analytical reasoning (important to religious studies), as we are informed about the natural order of the world and what is currently explicable according to natural laws. But what if it is equally important for those in science to study the humanities including religion?
This is what my friend, Ross, said to me on an arduous hike in a South African mountain range one morning. "Scientists need to study the humanities," my friend told me, "otherwise, you end up with things like the atomic bomb." That is when I realized that, just like religion, science has produced good and bad. As someone who has worked to detect and stop chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons, I have seen the bad. So I know science is not enough. "Science gives man knowledge that is power," Martin Luther King, Jr. once said. "Religion gives man wisdom that is control." Whether you get that wisdom from religion or elsewhere, it seems clear to me that perhaps we do need wisdom in the application of science. Perhaps scientists should study the humanities.
Scientists should study language to better communicate scientific results and implications especially to non-scientists. Such work naturally leads to the social science of communication studies. Science communication helps include all of society in the scientific dialogue and aids the inclusion of science in the societal dialogue. Scientists should study history to learn of the past uses of sciences. Through such studies, hopefully, lessons are learned to prevent or at least dissuade the misuse of science to bad ends. Though judging a particular use of science as good or bad depends on the adjudicator, scientists should study philosophy, law, and religion to learn of the different ideas and concurrence of goodness, justice, law, and truth. This guides and directs the use of science. Scientists should also study religion to learn about how to be relevant to communities of faith especially in areas such as international development when so much use of science in development involves rebuilding communities in which religious groups form the foundation. (History, law, and philosophy are also considered social sciences as well as humanities, but their importance is still relevant.)
With the plethora of both good and bad products of science, I can throw away dualistic thinking and realize that science is neither good nor bad. Science is neutral. It is the application of science that is good or bad. One definition of wisdom is the proper application of knowledge, and we need wisdom in the application of scientific knowledge. A study of the humanities (including religion) towards the purpose of good applications of science is a good thing. Back to our dinner party question: maybe we need both -- more science but always accompanied by even more arts and letters.
Samuel Arie: Ten New Year Resolutions for Capitalism
The University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception
Science and the Arts | the intersection of science and the arts, from ...
Writing (saith the writer) is also recommended; it stretches the imagination. I know being imaginative is not something that is often associated with science, but sometimes, making that intuitive "leap" or thinking sideways is what it takes to solve a problem.
In addition to all of the above, studying the above, as well as philosophy, spirituality, history and the other humanities tends to make one a well-rounded, interesting human being.
Always a plus.
Science can not solve the world's problems on it's own, or we could solve many of the major ones, but that's where Art, real art, comes into play - providing a medium that promotes difficult solutions to even more difficult problems in a way the masses can relate to.
The humanities(which are different than the arts) are a different animal and often contradict scientific fact/reality. There are several examples of the masses using really bad science fiction (Brave New World is my favourite example), as a guide for determining social policy - They wanted to ensure they would not live in such a world...but the alternative that I inherited is far, far worse.
Science can solve many problems, but it can not save humanity from itself as humans refuse to give up their pathetic hopes and dreams(most of which are enshrined in religion), the arts have the potential to give people new dreams which are in line with what is realistically possible, instead of promising them the world....after they have died, which is what religion does.
Even if every scientist on the planet worked 24/7, and all of us got incredibly lucky in solving global problems the masses and their crotch droppings would wipe out our gains faster than we could come up with them.
So let people find contentment in music,or paintings, instead of family life.... such things are infinitely less destructive.
In short, we need both.
Shouldn't we be cultivating those underlying characteristics found in both science and the arts - appreciation for beauty, curiousity, etc. in the next generation and let career paths lead where they will?
I was talking about cultivating those interests in the next generation - supporting their natural curiosity and appreciation for their surroundings and not caring whether or not they express it in the form of researching it or writing songs about it.
A good song changes the world for three minutes. A good physics discovery changes the world forever.
So I suggest the humanities go back to changing the world their way and the physical science do their thing. We will meet, again, in one hundred years, and compare the impact of songs to, say, nano-technology and more efficient solar panels.
Fair?
http://english.ucdavis.edu/people/directory/milburn
Do I love Shakespeare? Absolutely. He is fun to read and watch. But did anybody get better by reading Shakespeare? How many people got better by taking antibiotics?
The problem here is not one of relative cultural value. The problem here is the ridiculousness of the comparison. We need both. But only one makes life physically better. And only if the lives of the masses are physically better can they enjoy the arts. If they want to, that is. Most don't even care.
"Why, for instance, do they insist on color enhancing the pictures of astrological formations?"
Scientists do not enhance the colors of "astrological" formations. Astrology is not science. It's, at best, an industry to take money from the mentally poor. Now, scientists do not enhance colors of astronomical objects for science very much, either. That's not how image analysis for science works.
They do it for communicating the information contained in spectral channels to the public, though. And that is a good way of demonstrating, for educational purposes, what is out there.
Colin Milburn's books are not science books, they are meta-science books... books about science. That's not the same thing.
Aesthetics is subjective. The fine arts are elitist (that is not a criticism); specifically, they are only important to those who have the time, inclination and education to appreciate. Of course, the arts can be enjoyed by everyone and anyone but any impact is only transitory. Despite the fantasy of a number of academics, art for the masses is not a reality, and is essentially irrelevant. In my local pub, an argument over Botticelli’s Birth of Venus rarely leads to a fight (Masaccio is another matter).
“[H]umankind repeatedly seeks...” A few hardly constitutes totality.
“[S]o much software.” What’s that in quantitative terms? You’re vague overstatement means nothing. This software is only relevant to a tiny minority of professional users and enthusiastic amateurs/ hobbyists. In the scheme of things, it is insignificant.
“[T]actical media signifies the intervention and disruption of a dominant semiotic regime...technocultural forms...transitory sites of immanent critique.” Milburn, C - Art in the Age of Nanotechnology. This is Pseudo-scientific, structuralist/post-structuralist bulls**t.
I love humanities though.
If one has a profound understanding of language and mathematics, I believe a self-taught level of that of a first year undergraduate - in any subject - is attainable. I'm ignoring the contribution of school, here, to make a point.
Also, as I say below, with those who do come out of school literate and competent, they then go on to a decade worth of study, mostly in their field of expertise. And now we think scientists should also study history, philosophy, and religion? Beyond a superficial education, that's looking more like 12-15 years of education just to become what one is required of scientists.
I can't accept that scientists working in the defence industries are oblivious of the ramifications of their work. I think their ethics are overridden by virtue of working at the cutting edge of science. I'm not making a judgement, here.
Scientists undergo ethics training every year if their research deals in ANY way with human interaction (even if it's just blood samples/tissues)...ethics courses are mandated by the government ever since the Tuskegee experiment fiasco.
Anyway, why do you think we bothered with actually going to the moon? Realistically, we didn't need to. We knew we could send people into space, we knew we could send objects into the moon's orbit. It was just a matter of engineering at that point. The answer is that fictitious tales of going to exotic new worlds caught people's imaginations. It didn't make them see the value of going to the moon; it created the value of going to the moon.
Why are people really excited about AI? Some old research paper? Nope. Things like "the Terminator," "the Matrix," "Deus Ex," "Mass Effect" - I believe I've listed those in the order they came. And even those who build AI now don't always focus on the purely scientific or practical. Sometimes they just make robots that play sports. Why do that? There are other more practical tasks they could focus on and learn more or less the same things from. But they didn't go into their field just because they were cold, calculative mathematicians. They have imagination, vivid personalities, vision.