Why Do So Many Scientists Want to be Filmmakers?
March 26, 2018 4:11 AM Subscribe
The problem with C.P. Snow’s famous two-cultures hypothesis (Kevin Berger, Nautilus).
For that matter, why didn't they ask anyone in the arts the question?
posted by kyrademon at 6:23 AM on March 26, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 6:23 AM on March 26, 2018 [9 favorites]
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that "literary intellectuals" (the evident target of Snow's disdain) have only a small overlap with the much wider group of "artists," and (in the late 50s, anyway) zero overlap with popular culture (such as film). As such, presenting this as "art vs. science" misses the point. Art is a more or less universal human activity, but "literary intellectuals" (i.e. those in the academic study of the arts) are a rarified elite who share space with scientists in the ivory tower. These academics (in my experience) find little of value to their own work in the intellectual offerings of their scientific cohabitants, and both groups share a deep mutual suspicion for the other's methods and standards.
None of this makes scientists "anti-art," any more than it makes literary critics "anti-technology." But it does lead to a breakdown in communication among academics. If anything this gulf is widened by the "war on the humanities" that is going on across college campuses, because nothing makes people defensive like having their basic value called into question.
posted by belarius at 6:46 AM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]
None of this makes scientists "anti-art," any more than it makes literary critics "anti-technology." But it does lead to a breakdown in communication among academics. If anything this gulf is widened by the "war on the humanities" that is going on across college campuses, because nothing makes people defensive like having their basic value called into question.
posted by belarius at 6:46 AM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]
Why Are So Many Science Writers Still Obsessed With "The Two Cultures"?
posted by zennie at 6:47 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by zennie at 6:47 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
The “two cultures” are not “art vs science” but people who prioritize professional achievements in the form of money and those who prioritize professional achievements in terms of output and reputation. A scientist gains professional rewards not in the form of monetary bonuses but by being admired for his or her professional output. The same dynamic is at work in filmmaking.
By contrast, a small time restaurateur who owns a small diner or mcdonald’s Franchise or a landlord or an investment banker is in it for the money, not for any kind of abstract reputation as rewards or professional acclaim for his achievements.
posted by deanc at 6:58 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
By contrast, a small time restaurateur who owns a small diner or mcdonald’s Franchise or a landlord or an investment banker is in it for the money, not for any kind of abstract reputation as rewards or professional acclaim for his achievements.
posted by deanc at 6:58 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure how naming random examples of scientists interested in art and artists interested in science "disproves" the theory that overall there's a marked difference between being a literary intellectual and a scientific intellectual.
I'd be curious to see if CP Snow's assertion that most scientists find Dickens incomprehensible and most literary types can't name the Second Law of Thermodynamics is still true today.
posted by perplexion at 7:05 AM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'd be curious to see if CP Snow's assertion that most scientists find Dickens incomprehensible and most literary types can't name the Second Law of Thermodynamics is still true today.
posted by perplexion at 7:05 AM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
These academics (in my experience) find little of value to their own work in the intellectual offerings of their scientific cohabitants, and both groups share a deep mutual suspicion for the other's methods and standards.
Yes, that is more the area of conflict I think, where the differing aims, but sometimes similar terminology, causes serious divisiveness between the groups. I've witnessed exasperated strawman arguments from each side over how they see the others totally at sea over some conceptual difference, mainly in regards to ideas of certainty and multivalence of meaning.
As an aside, I was a bit amused the article chose to reference Walter Murch as a sort of go-between for the arts and sciences since Murch himself rather infamously couldn't handle being a film director even though he got the chance to be one. He was given the chance to direct the 1985 flick Return to Oz, which is all sorts of weird, but panicked and ended up getting (secretive) assistance from Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola in completing the film. Hard to compete with that roster of directing talent back in '85. Heh. Just goes to show that even those who really are driven to direct mostly don't succeed in being directors in any real way, so interest alone isn't the only thing of import. Hell, if it was half the waiters in New York would be on Broadway and half the bartenders in LA would have screenwriting credits.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:07 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yes, that is more the area of conflict I think, where the differing aims, but sometimes similar terminology, causes serious divisiveness between the groups. I've witnessed exasperated strawman arguments from each side over how they see the others totally at sea over some conceptual difference, mainly in regards to ideas of certainty and multivalence of meaning.
As an aside, I was a bit amused the article chose to reference Walter Murch as a sort of go-between for the arts and sciences since Murch himself rather infamously couldn't handle being a film director even though he got the chance to be one. He was given the chance to direct the 1985 flick Return to Oz, which is all sorts of weird, but panicked and ended up getting (secretive) assistance from Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola in completing the film. Hard to compete with that roster of directing talent back in '85. Heh. Just goes to show that even those who really are driven to direct mostly don't succeed in being directors in any real way, so interest alone isn't the only thing of import. Hell, if it was half the waiters in New York would be on Broadway and half the bartenders in LA would have screenwriting credits.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:07 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
These academics (in my experience) find little of value to their own work in the intellectual offerings of their scientific cohabitants, and both groups share a deep mutual suspicion for the other's methods and standards.
my very basic BA in English understanding is that this is a fundamentally wrong delineation between literary critics and scientists in the same way that Snow's delineation between arts and sciences is wrong. formalism (ie the text stands on its own outside the influence of the writer and society) was a theory proposed in the early 20th century that both recognized and attempted to replicate an empirical approach to texts - and it was codified at the same time historiographic approaches were blending in rationality over narrative and storytelling (see, for example, a Marxist construction of history in semi-quantifiable terms as applied to wider society vs the Great Men historiographies that attributed historical events to singularly powerful men instead of wider, societal causes like labor inequality or, more recently, environmental issues)
since then, I think most theoretical approaches to the arts happen within the context of systems thinking, very much like how a hypothesis rests on a system of tested truths. post-structuralism looks at history and art through the lens of epistemology, historiography, and institution in the same way engineering looks at physical reality through the lens of physical laws, tested methods, and mathematical constructs. you can see the blending more closely in scientific pursuits that are intentionally social
for example, take the Combahee River collective and later Kimberly Crenshaw's understanding of intersectionality, of the underrepresentation and disempowerment of black women in ostensibly progressive, feminist spaces, and combine that with intentional public health research in the intervening years by folks like Geronimus that demonstrates population wide disparities in the health of black women from the same root causes and you see the same paradigm shift occurring, likely both influencing one another, arriving at the same conclusions using different tools of analysis. or, another example, take Foucault's analysis of the medical gaze and biopower that occurred in the 70s, all of the reactive criticisms since then contributing evidence to the same theoretical understanding of the institution of medicine as a body that exerts authority over a patient, and forty years on we have a large body of research explicitly devoted to leveling the power between patient and doctor in how treatment is pursued, emphasizing the importance of patient-care
I think it's only when you take the most insular of literary criticism and mash it up against the most strident of the STEM folks that you start getting these heated debates in what is capital-T Truth and which is more important and so on. meanwhile, there's a very large middleground that, while not explicitly speaking to one another (something that could be improved) at the very least influences one another through popular culture and sometimes intentional approach in meaningful ways that obviates these extremists takes
posted by runt at 7:25 AM on March 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
my very basic BA in English understanding is that this is a fundamentally wrong delineation between literary critics and scientists in the same way that Snow's delineation between arts and sciences is wrong. formalism (ie the text stands on its own outside the influence of the writer and society) was a theory proposed in the early 20th century that both recognized and attempted to replicate an empirical approach to texts - and it was codified at the same time historiographic approaches were blending in rationality over narrative and storytelling (see, for example, a Marxist construction of history in semi-quantifiable terms as applied to wider society vs the Great Men historiographies that attributed historical events to singularly powerful men instead of wider, societal causes like labor inequality or, more recently, environmental issues)
since then, I think most theoretical approaches to the arts happen within the context of systems thinking, very much like how a hypothesis rests on a system of tested truths. post-structuralism looks at history and art through the lens of epistemology, historiography, and institution in the same way engineering looks at physical reality through the lens of physical laws, tested methods, and mathematical constructs. you can see the blending more closely in scientific pursuits that are intentionally social
for example, take the Combahee River collective and later Kimberly Crenshaw's understanding of intersectionality, of the underrepresentation and disempowerment of black women in ostensibly progressive, feminist spaces, and combine that with intentional public health research in the intervening years by folks like Geronimus that demonstrates population wide disparities in the health of black women from the same root causes and you see the same paradigm shift occurring, likely both influencing one another, arriving at the same conclusions using different tools of analysis. or, another example, take Foucault's analysis of the medical gaze and biopower that occurred in the 70s, all of the reactive criticisms since then contributing evidence to the same theoretical understanding of the institution of medicine as a body that exerts authority over a patient, and forty years on we have a large body of research explicitly devoted to leveling the power between patient and doctor in how treatment is pursued, emphasizing the importance of patient-care
I think it's only when you take the most insular of literary criticism and mash it up against the most strident of the STEM folks that you start getting these heated debates in what is capital-T Truth and which is more important and so on. meanwhile, there's a very large middleground that, while not explicitly speaking to one another (something that could be improved) at the very least influences one another through popular culture and sometimes intentional approach in meaningful ways that obviates these extremists takes
posted by runt at 7:25 AM on March 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'm a scientist and if I weren't one I'd like to be novelist (and maybe I still will be one day.) But I have been thinking about CP Snow's thesis since I first read his book, in high school. I think it's important and underappreciated, and this piece really fails to understand it.
The two cultures aren't "scientists" and "artists." They are "people who respect science and believe that it has important things to tell us" and "people who don't respect science, and believe that tradition has much more important things to tell us than science does."
It's the future vs. the past. Modernity vs. mysticism. It's knowledge that is accessible to anyone vs. knowledge that is accessible only to the specially initiated. It's data vs. intuition/revelation.
In Snow's time, the scientists he knew were on team "modernity" and the literature professors were on team "mysticism." But nowadays nearly all university professors are on team "modernity." The divide has shifted from the academic realm into the political realm. There used to be people in both major parties (in the UK and the US) on both sides of this cultural divide, but the parties have realigned, and especially in the US, now... It is conservatism vs liberalism, what I have previously called type 1 vs. type 2 societies.
So. Anyway. Yes, science and the arts go together like chocolate and peanut butter, but CP Snow would never have disputed that. And that's not what he was writing about.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:01 AM on March 26, 2018 [15 favorites]
The two cultures aren't "scientists" and "artists." They are "people who respect science and believe that it has important things to tell us" and "people who don't respect science, and believe that tradition has much more important things to tell us than science does."
It's the future vs. the past. Modernity vs. mysticism. It's knowledge that is accessible to anyone vs. knowledge that is accessible only to the specially initiated. It's data vs. intuition/revelation.
In Snow's time, the scientists he knew were on team "modernity" and the literature professors were on team "mysticism." But nowadays nearly all university professors are on team "modernity." The divide has shifted from the academic realm into the political realm. There used to be people in both major parties (in the UK and the US) on both sides of this cultural divide, but the parties have realigned, and especially in the US, now... It is conservatism vs liberalism, what I have previously called type 1 vs. type 2 societies.
So. Anyway. Yes, science and the arts go together like chocolate and peanut butter, but CP Snow would never have disputed that. And that's not what he was writing about.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:01 AM on March 26, 2018 [15 favorites]
They want to learn how things are and to show other people what they learn. Film perhaps seems the easiest route. You choose a subject and point a recording device at it. You put what you have recorded in order and interpret it so people can see the big picture. "There. Do you see that? That's how this thing is. Wonderful, isn't it?"
posted by pracowity at 9:06 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 9:06 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think the divide is more like: If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist vs. The things you can measure are ultimately the least important.
posted by Obscure Reference at 9:15 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 9:15 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Or like: If you can't find a valid way to measure it, you can't be sure you're not making it up, vs. If you're super smart and think about it a lot, you can transcend human biases and don't have to verify anything.
posted by little onion at 10:01 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by little onion at 10:01 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd say three cultures, one dependent on the past, one focused on the future, and one based on UN-enlightened self-interest, as in "I don't care about tradition or anything science can find, I'm gonna make it up as I go along and it's gonna be great for ME". And the third is currently ascendant.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:03 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:03 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'll join in with the critics here.
perplexion: I'm not sure how naming random examples of scientists interested in art and artists interested in science "disproves" the theory that overall there's a marked difference between being a literary intellectual and a scientific intellectual - yes. I know it's a short article, but the samples are tiny, and it is way, way too easy to find counterexamples.
pracowity: They want to learn how things are and to show other people what they learn. Film perhaps seems the easiest route... - exactly. These scientists are passionate about their fields and want to share. That's been true for centuries (think of the Royal Society doing live experiments for audiences) and doesn't speak to Snow being incorrect.
Also, what OnceUponATime said.
In my work (future of higher education) I run across the two cultures all over the place, especially in American academia. I can't tell you how many humanists (for example) brag to me about how bad they are at math, or how little they know about science, and how they don't care to improve. At the same time, how many scientists (including some people from quantitatively intensive social sciences - i.e., econ) mock the humanities for being delusional, too political, too mysterious, too in love with jargon or theory, etc.
This is playing out now in the current economic sustainability crisis, once we look away from the elite colleges and universities. There's a rising trend of humanities majors and programs being cut, and many folks see this as a STEM-humanities culture war.
posted by doctornemo at 10:04 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
perplexion: I'm not sure how naming random examples of scientists interested in art and artists interested in science "disproves" the theory that overall there's a marked difference between being a literary intellectual and a scientific intellectual - yes. I know it's a short article, but the samples are tiny, and it is way, way too easy to find counterexamples.
pracowity: They want to learn how things are and to show other people what they learn. Film perhaps seems the easiest route... - exactly. These scientists are passionate about their fields and want to share. That's been true for centuries (think of the Royal Society doing live experiments for audiences) and doesn't speak to Snow being incorrect.
Also, what OnceUponATime said.
In my work (future of higher education) I run across the two cultures all over the place, especially in American academia. I can't tell you how many humanists (for example) brag to me about how bad they are at math, or how little they know about science, and how they don't care to improve. At the same time, how many scientists (including some people from quantitatively intensive social sciences - i.e., econ) mock the humanities for being delusional, too political, too mysterious, too in love with jargon or theory, etc.
This is playing out now in the current economic sustainability crisis, once we look away from the elite colleges and universities. There's a rising trend of humanities majors and programs being cut, and many folks see this as a STEM-humanities culture war.
posted by doctornemo at 10:04 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Capitalism has already sided with STEM as no one hires humanities majors.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:17 AM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:17 AM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
When I was in physics graduate school, there wasn't nearly as much trash talking of people in the humanities as much as there was trash-talking engineers for just wanting to plug numbers into equations without understanding anything. Which to me seems to have it's own problems with classism a little, but I think there was some camaraderie in that we were mostly studying esoteric details that maybe 20 other people on the planet might understand or care about.
In the hard scientists, pretty much nobody is making grand discoveries so much as painstakingly working out some tiny piece somewhere, that with luck might later be worked into part of a larger whole, or at least be useful to someone, somewhere, when they have a very specific sort of question.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:47 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
In the hard scientists, pretty much nobody is making grand discoveries so much as painstakingly working out some tiny piece somewhere, that with luck might later be worked into part of a larger whole, or at least be useful to someone, somewhere, when they have a very specific sort of question.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:47 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
This makes a lot of sense to me in that, as a high school graduate I was somewhat torn between my interests in both art and science. In college I switched majors several times from physics to biology to english literature to mass communications. I have spent my entire adult life working on that razor thin edge between technician/engineer/artist as an editor/cameraman. For me, it has always scratched both of those itches perfectly.
posted by DaddyNewt at 11:06 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by DaddyNewt at 11:06 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
For that matter, why didn't they ask anyone in the arts the question?
That uh, does seem to be missing.
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that "literary intellectuals" (the evident target of Snow's disdain) have only a small overlap with the much wider group of "artists," and (in the late 50s, anyway) zero overlap with popular culture (such as film). As such, presenting this as "art vs. science" misses the point. Art is a more or less universal human activity, but "literary intellectuals" (i.e. those in the academic study of the arts) are a rarified elite who share space with scientists in the ivory tower. These academics (in my experience) find little of value to their own work in the intellectual offerings of their scientific cohabitants, and both groups share a deep mutual suspicion for the other's methods and standards.
I think this is the most accurate comment here. I grew up around academic science people (on the "harder" end of life science, or the "lighter" end of chemistry) and I'd say they had plenty of respect for "the arts" and for people who make art. I would say they were not entirely dismissive, in my circles, but mildly dismissive of more subjectivist approaches in academia - treating them as an interesting exercise but as inherently "less true."
posted by atoxyl at 12:23 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
That uh, does seem to be missing.
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that "literary intellectuals" (the evident target of Snow's disdain) have only a small overlap with the much wider group of "artists," and (in the late 50s, anyway) zero overlap with popular culture (such as film). As such, presenting this as "art vs. science" misses the point. Art is a more or less universal human activity, but "literary intellectuals" (i.e. those in the academic study of the arts) are a rarified elite who share space with scientists in the ivory tower. These academics (in my experience) find little of value to their own work in the intellectual offerings of their scientific cohabitants, and both groups share a deep mutual suspicion for the other's methods and standards.
I think this is the most accurate comment here. I grew up around academic science people (on the "harder" end of life science, or the "lighter" end of chemistry) and I'd say they had plenty of respect for "the arts" and for people who make art. I would say they were not entirely dismissive, in my circles, but mildly dismissive of more subjectivist approaches in academia - treating them as an interesting exercise but as inherently "less true."
posted by atoxyl at 12:23 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
The essay actually shows how Snow's prejudices are now today internalized. Scientists "respect" art only if it's at a comfortable distance: one says they'd be a filmmaker in some alternate life. But such speech acts serve to commodify art as a fungible, consumable identity. It is still internalized scientism.
The problem with Snow is epistemology. Ask how many professional scientists want to do philosophy. As Einstein noted, few such exist.
posted by polymodus at 1:41 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
The problem with Snow is epistemology. Ask how many professional scientists want to do philosophy. As Einstein noted, few such exist.
posted by polymodus at 1:41 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Snow's essay
Melvyn Bragg podcast on the two cultures [not In Our Time but quite interesting]
I apparently react to the Nautilus the way I've heard some people complain about Radiolab. I'm always annoyed by the end no matter how intriguing the topic they've picked starts out.
The snark about Snow not seeming prescient even in 1959 annoyed me as unearned and not addressing Snow's actual point. (I should have liked it because it dissed Pinkerton, but even that didn't help). If you're going to dismiss a couple generations of discussion (and countless tiresome 'get that engineer some humanities classes' posts on MeFi) I think you should try to be on pretty solid footing.
All this was enough so that I listened to the podcast during my commute and actually read Snow's essay for the first time. I thought it started out disingenuous, and definitely exaggerated to provoke, but unlike the OP piece I did find it more interesting as I read.
The main point is not that scientists don't understand art. He says that but most of it is that artists don't understand science at all. "Oh, I don't get math" should be as embarrassing to an educated person as "I don't get reading novels" is according to Snow. But intellectuals who aren't scientists are literally described as Luddites and they set the culture. This is wrong and more resources should be put into science education.
So asking a bunch of scientists what they think about the arts and having them say "Oh, awesome" isn't addressing the point. Even if the sample wasn't twisted towards the scientists Nautilus talks to, who almost all have written multiple books for the lay audience. Even if the most big signifier of interest in "art" seems like it was daydreaming about it being fun to make movies. I wonder how many people who said that actually are serious hobbyists who've spent time editing movies or volunteering in community theater? Otherwise I suspect it's like me saying I'd like to be a jazz pianist, which is true but doesn't mean I have a good ear or great rhythm.
[Incidentally, the Melvyn Bragg podcast points out that the debate really started with the older Huxley in the 19th century, who gave a speech at Manchester I think it was saying students didn't need the classics if they got the sciences.]
posted by mark k at 10:05 PM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
Melvyn Bragg podcast on the two cultures [not In Our Time but quite interesting]
I apparently react to the Nautilus the way I've heard some people complain about Radiolab. I'm always annoyed by the end no matter how intriguing the topic they've picked starts out.
The snark about Snow not seeming prescient even in 1959 annoyed me as unearned and not addressing Snow's actual point. (I should have liked it because it dissed Pinkerton, but even that didn't help). If you're going to dismiss a couple generations of discussion (and countless tiresome 'get that engineer some humanities classes' posts on MeFi) I think you should try to be on pretty solid footing.
All this was enough so that I listened to the podcast during my commute and actually read Snow's essay for the first time. I thought it started out disingenuous, and definitely exaggerated to provoke, but unlike the OP piece I did find it more interesting as I read.
The main point is not that scientists don't understand art. He says that but most of it is that artists don't understand science at all. "Oh, I don't get math" should be as embarrassing to an educated person as "I don't get reading novels" is according to Snow. But intellectuals who aren't scientists are literally described as Luddites and they set the culture. This is wrong and more resources should be put into science education.
So asking a bunch of scientists what they think about the arts and having them say "Oh, awesome" isn't addressing the point. Even if the sample wasn't twisted towards the scientists Nautilus talks to, who almost all have written multiple books for the lay audience. Even if the most big signifier of interest in "art" seems like it was daydreaming about it being fun to make movies. I wonder how many people who said that actually are serious hobbyists who've spent time editing movies or volunteering in community theater? Otherwise I suspect it's like me saying I'd like to be a jazz pianist, which is true but doesn't mean I have a good ear or great rhythm.
[Incidentally, the Melvyn Bragg podcast points out that the debate really started with the older Huxley in the 19th century, who gave a speech at Manchester I think it was saying students didn't need the classics if they got the sciences.]
posted by mark k at 10:05 PM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
"daydreaming about it being fun to make movies. " -- mark k
EXACTLY.
Scientists and artists don't interpret the world, just in different ways. ARTISTS MAKE THINGS. Scientists really, mostly...don't.
Scientists think they want to make movies (or be novelists, etc.) for the same reasons that everybody else wants to -- because it looks like a lot of fun to be "creative." The idea that science and art are equivalent in some "creativity quotient" is wishful thinking. Maybe if you're a theoretical physicist you're being as creative as a film director (who's also written the script), but most people who work in a lab are droning along, 99% of the time NOT making creative decisions or putting their own original spin on what they're discovering.
Yes, you can argue that most of creative work is also plodding along in one way or another, but I still think that, in science, you're (mostly) working to take yourself OUT of the equation, to be "objective," whereas, in creative work, it's all about your vision.
Being an artist, we could say, fulfills narcissistic needs in a very different way than scientific work does, and that's not an accident.
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:42 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
EXACTLY.
Scientists and artists don't interpret the world, just in different ways. ARTISTS MAKE THINGS. Scientists really, mostly...don't.
Scientists think they want to make movies (or be novelists, etc.) for the same reasons that everybody else wants to -- because it looks like a lot of fun to be "creative." The idea that science and art are equivalent in some "creativity quotient" is wishful thinking. Maybe if you're a theoretical physicist you're being as creative as a film director (who's also written the script), but most people who work in a lab are droning along, 99% of the time NOT making creative decisions or putting their own original spin on what they're discovering.
Yes, you can argue that most of creative work is also plodding along in one way or another, but I still think that, in science, you're (mostly) working to take yourself OUT of the equation, to be "objective," whereas, in creative work, it's all about your vision.
Being an artist, we could say, fulfills narcissistic needs in a very different way than scientific work does, and that's not an accident.
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:42 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Scientists and artists don't interpret the world, just in different ways. ARTISTS MAKE THINGS. Scientists really, mostly...don't.
Scientists make things all the damn time, you just don't hear about it because people rarely rave about the elegant experimental design or sweet new piece of apparatus someone developed to test a niche prediction of an obscure theory.
posted by logicpunk at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
Scientists make things all the damn time, you just don't hear about it because people rarely rave about the elegant experimental design or sweet new piece of apparatus someone developed to test a niche prediction of an obscure theory.
posted by logicpunk at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
Well then we get stuck at a "what is art?" question. Is an experimental design art? Even the most "elegant" one? Or that piece of technology that's designed to solve a practical problem? Obviously there are no answers to these questions (at least I think that's obvious), but I think, when you get so many scientists who say "What I REALLY want is to direct," you're getting an answer about, at least, the "sexiness" of art versus science.
Maybe it's a myth, but the idea is that "directing" = telling a story that you choose to tell, and maybe even make up yourself, and that that's the most fun of all -- more fun than making sense of something that's already "out there."
posted by DMelanogaster at 1:07 PM on March 27, 2018
Maybe it's a myth, but the idea is that "directing" = telling a story that you choose to tell, and maybe even make up yourself, and that that's the most fun of all -- more fun than making sense of something that's already "out there."
posted by DMelanogaster at 1:07 PM on March 27, 2018
Capitalism has already sided with STEM as no one hires humanities majors.
Nor most science/mathematics majors, except Computer Science. They hire Economics majors (a bastard child of the humanities) and Business majors. Way back in the '70s, the university I graduated from separated Business from both the Sciences and Arts, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in addition to the M.B.A.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on March 27, 2018
Nor most science/mathematics majors, except Computer Science. They hire Economics majors (a bastard child of the humanities) and Business majors. Way back in the '70s, the university I graduated from separated Business from both the Sciences and Arts, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in addition to the M.B.A.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on March 27, 2018
The essay actually shows how Snow's prejudices are now today internalized. Scientists "respect" art only if it's at a comfortable distance: one says they'd be a filmmaker in some alternate life. But such speech acts serve to commodify art as a fungible, consumable identity. It is still internalized scientism.
I'm not quite sure I get part of what you're saying here? If you mean they are attracted to the notional identity of "being a filmmaker" more than anything about the actual process of making films then yeah, sure, probably. But is that different than the way anybody else who is not a filmmaker "daydream[s] about it being fun to make movies?" I follow through "art as a fungible, consumable identity" but where does that imply scientism?
posted by atoxyl at 2:09 PM on March 27, 2018
I'm not quite sure I get part of what you're saying here? If you mean they are attracted to the notional identity of "being a filmmaker" more than anything about the actual process of making films then yeah, sure, probably. But is that different than the way anybody else who is not a filmmaker "daydream[s] about it being fun to make movies?" I follow through "art as a fungible, consumable identity" but where does that imply scientism?
posted by atoxyl at 2:09 PM on March 27, 2018
Well then we get stuck at a "what is art?" question. Is an experimental design art? Even the most "elegant" one? Or that piece of technology that's designed to solve a practical problem? Obviously there are no answers to these questions (at least I think that's obvious), but I think, when you get so many scientists who say "What I REALLY want is to direct," you're getting an answer about, at least, the "sexiness" of art versus science.
eh, I don't think it's so much a question of what constitutes art so much as that both endeavours (as noted in the article) hook into proclivities for creative problem-solving. I doubt anyone working out an experimental design is laboring under the belief that they're making a work of art, but that doesn't mean they aren't engaging in creative work.
But: maybe the creative problem-solving aspect is a load of b.s. and scientists, like anyone else, respond based on things that are popular and that they enjoy, in which case the article is revealing that scientists are human persons. Maybe it is indicative of... something... that the modal response is 'directing' instead of 'acting,' but without a proper control group, there's not much one can conclude one way or the other anyway.
In any case, the question posed wasn't "What would you rather be doing instead of boring old science?" but “What would be you be if you weren’t a scientist?” Most of the scientists I know legitimately like doing science because they enjoy the process and they chose to pursue it as a career, not because their first choice didn't pan out.
posted by logicpunk at 2:19 PM on March 27, 2018
eh, I don't think it's so much a question of what constitutes art so much as that both endeavours (as noted in the article) hook into proclivities for creative problem-solving. I doubt anyone working out an experimental design is laboring under the belief that they're making a work of art, but that doesn't mean they aren't engaging in creative work.
But: maybe the creative problem-solving aspect is a load of b.s. and scientists, like anyone else, respond based on things that are popular and that they enjoy, in which case the article is revealing that scientists are human persons. Maybe it is indicative of... something... that the modal response is 'directing' instead of 'acting,' but without a proper control group, there's not much one can conclude one way or the other anyway.
In any case, the question posed wasn't "What would you rather be doing instead of boring old science?" but “What would be you be if you weren’t a scientist?” Most of the scientists I know legitimately like doing science because they enjoy the process and they chose to pursue it as a career, not because their first choice didn't pan out.
posted by logicpunk at 2:19 PM on March 27, 2018
I think "filmmaker" is a bit of an outlier among these fantasy professions, though - the above arguments apply pretty convincingly to it because is a "sexy" thing that few people actually have direct experience with. When someone says in an alternate life they'd be a musician or a writer - which I would guess are also not uncommon responses among science people - that's not all about the "consumable identity." Those professions are romanticized too, but lots of people actually write or play music, lots of people love writing or making music and lots of people fantasize about an alternate reality in which there were fewer barriers and less uncertainty involved pursuing those things full-time.
Of course, since it's a relatively common fantasy it maybe doesn't say that much about scientists in particular.
posted by atoxyl at 3:01 PM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Of course, since it's a relatively common fantasy it maybe doesn't say that much about scientists in particular.
posted by atoxyl at 3:01 PM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
lots of people actually write or play music, lots of people love writing or making music and lots of people fantasize about an alternate reality in which there were fewer barriers and less uncertainty involved pursuing those things full-time.
Yeah. When I said above that I'm a scientist who would like to be a novelist someday or in an alternate lifetime, I meant that I have actually written one and half unpublished novels.
I like writing even better than I like science, probably, but my path to making a living at science seemed a lot clearer.
So I just write long-ass comments on MeFi, these days. (And the occasional website.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:26 PM on March 29, 2018
Yeah. When I said above that I'm a scientist who would like to be a novelist someday or in an alternate lifetime, I meant that I have actually written one and half unpublished novels.
I like writing even better than I like science, probably, but my path to making a living at science seemed a lot clearer.
So I just write long-ass comments on MeFi, these days. (And the occasional website.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:26 PM on March 29, 2018
Scientists and artists don't interpret the world, just in different ways. ARTISTS MAKE THINGS. Scientists really, mostly...don't.
Artists take things and mold them, but they really don't MAKE anything new. I've made NEW things. I have held the world's supply of a compound in my hand, and quite also probably the universes supply of said compound, MADE in a multi-step organic procedure of my own design. I also designed the molecule itself. In all likelihood, the amount I made is the sum total of that compound to exist EVER in the entire universe.
An artist will I dunno, put a messy bed covered in used condoms on display, or jewel a skull in diamonds, or paint something on a wall, but is that really making anything new? I mean the messy bed exists whether or not the artist deemed it to be art, across many different college campuses, in many dorm rooms all over. The diamond encrusted skull is probably unique, but so is each individual grain of sand on a beach. If I take a vial of sand and call it uniqueness does that mean I MADE the sand by transforming it into "art". Does preserving a dead shark in formaldehyde mean I made the shark?
Chemical space (as in the sheer number of different compounds that can be MADE) is so large that there isn't a simple way to calculate just how large it is. Estimates tend to be in the range of 10^60 simple compounds. There are only approximately 10^55 grams of matter in the observable universe. For the mathematically challenged it means it is impossible to make even one milligram of every different compound using all of the matter ever to exist.
So yes scientists do make things. I would suspect that scientists make many more things than "artists" and do so using tools that you really can't comprehend.
posted by koolkat at 9:27 AM on April 3, 2018
Artists take things and mold them, but they really don't MAKE anything new. I've made NEW things. I have held the world's supply of a compound in my hand, and quite also probably the universes supply of said compound, MADE in a multi-step organic procedure of my own design. I also designed the molecule itself. In all likelihood, the amount I made is the sum total of that compound to exist EVER in the entire universe.
An artist will I dunno, put a messy bed covered in used condoms on display, or jewel a skull in diamonds, or paint something on a wall, but is that really making anything new? I mean the messy bed exists whether or not the artist deemed it to be art, across many different college campuses, in many dorm rooms all over. The diamond encrusted skull is probably unique, but so is each individual grain of sand on a beach. If I take a vial of sand and call it uniqueness does that mean I MADE the sand by transforming it into "art". Does preserving a dead shark in formaldehyde mean I made the shark?
Chemical space (as in the sheer number of different compounds that can be MADE) is so large that there isn't a simple way to calculate just how large it is. Estimates tend to be in the range of 10^60 simple compounds. There are only approximately 10^55 grams of matter in the observable universe. For the mathematically challenged it means it is impossible to make even one milligram of every different compound using all of the matter ever to exist.
So yes scientists do make things. I would suspect that scientists make many more things than "artists" and do so using tools that you really can't comprehend.
posted by koolkat at 9:27 AM on April 3, 2018
I’d like to comment on how science isn’t creative as people say it is as a science student and a long time art hobbyist since I was a child.
The nature of invention in technology is that it has to explore a diverse amount of ideas on how to apply something — creativity. It’s not a creativity rooted from emotion, but more of a creativity rooted in logic. In creative writing, people speak of puting limits on your writing so you’d be forced to work harder for original ideas such as why many poems rhyme. In the sciences, these logical rules in math allow a rigid point for ideas to flourish in technology.
Another is how much more challenging it seems to actually think of ways to experiment on ideas. It’s easier to theorize on something for many, but actually finding creative solutions to test it in the real world is harder. For example, in psychology, you can’t communicate with babies to know what’s going on in their minds well, so they often focus on how much babies create eye contact with something to recognize interest. That’s creativity right there.
Another is how imagination is needed in theorizing. To be able to observe is purely categorizing, but to be able to theorize means having to imagine what could be more than a thousand possibilites of what could explain something. Einstein’s theory of relativity was born from the creativity of a possibility as radical sounding as time is relative. Like how music explores the possibilites of how to express emotions in sound, theories explore the possibilities on how to express something in the world.
Another is that some of the arts are more rigid than people say they are. Drawing real life portraits and nature landscapes can have a certain style to them, but much of it is rooted in copying the world as it is. It needs the observation required often in past biologists who often drew plants in detail to understand their subject’s nature like Darwin.
Another is how much of art requires a certain aptitude for analysis. In the visual arts for example, there requires certain guidelines to follow in being able to allow “beauty”. Such as basics as color theory, symmetry or white space. That, or how in creative fiction there needs to be a skill in finding out loop holes in a story — logical deductions on how a story has to be coherent together.
Science is more out of logic and the arts are more out of emotion, but both have creativity and analysis in their own ways. I don’t deny there are many differences and I don’t know if people in the sciences and arts really tend to be grouped together. What I know is understaning both allows me a perspective on logic and emotions, and how they paradoxically intermingle with each other.
posted by RoboticForest at 1:46 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
The nature of invention in technology is that it has to explore a diverse amount of ideas on how to apply something — creativity. It’s not a creativity rooted from emotion, but more of a creativity rooted in logic. In creative writing, people speak of puting limits on your writing so you’d be forced to work harder for original ideas such as why many poems rhyme. In the sciences, these logical rules in math allow a rigid point for ideas to flourish in technology.
Another is how much more challenging it seems to actually think of ways to experiment on ideas. It’s easier to theorize on something for many, but actually finding creative solutions to test it in the real world is harder. For example, in psychology, you can’t communicate with babies to know what’s going on in their minds well, so they often focus on how much babies create eye contact with something to recognize interest. That’s creativity right there.
Another is how imagination is needed in theorizing. To be able to observe is purely categorizing, but to be able to theorize means having to imagine what could be more than a thousand possibilites of what could explain something. Einstein’s theory of relativity was born from the creativity of a possibility as radical sounding as time is relative. Like how music explores the possibilites of how to express emotions in sound, theories explore the possibilities on how to express something in the world.
Another is that some of the arts are more rigid than people say they are. Drawing real life portraits and nature landscapes can have a certain style to them, but much of it is rooted in copying the world as it is. It needs the observation required often in past biologists who often drew plants in detail to understand their subject’s nature like Darwin.
Another is how much of art requires a certain aptitude for analysis. In the visual arts for example, there requires certain guidelines to follow in being able to allow “beauty”. Such as basics as color theory, symmetry or white space. That, or how in creative fiction there needs to be a skill in finding out loop holes in a story — logical deductions on how a story has to be coherent together.
Science is more out of logic and the arts are more out of emotion, but both have creativity and analysis in their own ways. I don’t deny there are many differences and I don’t know if people in the sciences and arts really tend to be grouped together. What I know is understaning both allows me a perspective on logic and emotions, and how they paradoxically intermingle with each other.
posted by RoboticForest at 1:46 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've yet to find any parallel between science and art that doesn't apply to science and art and... anything else. Like, do the appropriate word-substitution and most of the above comments on 'creativity' could apply to politics, or business, or manufacturing, or sports, if you thought hard enough about it.
posted by perplexion at 2:46 PM on April 5, 2018
posted by perplexion at 2:46 PM on April 5, 2018
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Is that a question someone might ask, say, a janitor or retail clerk? If it was asked would the answer be taken seriously? If someone said "If I wasn't a janitor I'd be a film director." Would we see the answer in the same way as when the scientists are asked? My feeling is that there is some underlying assumption of transferability involved here that comes from "smarts" that most wouldn't be seen as sharing. While the interest shown in the arts is important, I'm a little uneasy about the secondary implications involved regarding ability. Although it's also true that access through schooling and connections may indeed be more open to people in some fields, so I'm not completely dismissive of the assumption either.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:39 AM on March 26, 2018 [6 favorites]