Week 1: Two Cultures (Travis Shibata-Bardaro)

    My understanding of two cultures best came from the lectures and Snow’s book “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” The two cultures are defined as the separation between literary intellectuals (the arts) and scientists and their inability to effectively communicate. This division is exacerbated by stereotypes. Snow reveals the hypocrisy among literary intellectuals and their dismissive attitude toward scientists who have never read major works of literature despite not knowing the laws of thermodynamics (Snow 15-16). He also points out a similar arrogance amongst the scientific community.

    For myself, the separation between art and science became noticeable in elementary school, which supports Snow's argument. He points “towards the curricula of schools and universities as the source of the problem” (Vesna 121). This separation also resulted from stereotypes of job prospects told to me by adults. I often heard something to the effect of: “Do you want to be a starving artist/writer or a well-to-do scientist solving the world’s problems?” These stereotypes are not completely baseless as even when Snow was investigating the issue in the mid-to-late 1900s, English and history professionals barely made 60% of what scientists earned (Snow 19). The plot below indicates that there has not been much change in this income disparity.
https://www.mass.edu/foradmin/trustees/documents/HowLiberalArtsandSciencesMajorFareinEmployment.pdf

    Such job prospects are a driving force that furthers the division. For instance, the other day, I read an article that commented on a Reddit post by an anonymous father who was asking the community whether or not he was justified in choosing not to pay for his daughter’s English degree because he considered it to be useless (Martin).

    Nevertheless, I held a similar belief that taking courses outside of my materials science major was a waste of time. While I now recognize the self-destructive nature of this mindset, I believe my reasoning was not without merit. STEM fields have evolved to incorporate many of the characteristics of the arts including creative and critical thinking, and so many other flavors that deviate from the methodological plug-and-chug system. Moreover, art is directly applied to the sciences for better communication and understanding. Complex beings can become comprehensible when accompanied by well-drawn pictures (Benko).
 https://www.funbiology.com/animal-cell-structure-function-diagram-and-types/

    Furthermore, Bill Nye uses art in the form of comedy and visually appealing presentations to teach about science (Nye). Sadly, art seems to benefit science and rarely the other way around, which may be attributed to how literature lacks a mechanism for automatic correction as noted by Snow (9).

Works Cited

Benko, Raven Capone. “Why Science Needs Art.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 15 Apr. 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2020/04/15/why-science-needs-art/. 

Humphreys, Debra, and Patrick Kelly. “Median Annual Earnings for College Graduates, by Age-Group and Area of Undergraduate Major (2010-11).” How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment, 2014, https://www.mass.edu/foradmin/trustees/documents/HowLiberalArtsandSciencesMajorFareinEmployment.pdf. 

Martin, Hawthorn. “Dad Who Refuses to Pay for Daughter's English Degree Asks If He's Wrong for Funding Sons' Medical School.” YourTango, YourTango, 17 Mar. 2023, https://www.yourtango.com/entertainment/dad-refuses-pay-daughters-english-degree-funded-sons-medical-school. 

Nye, Bill, director. Hey Bill Nye! Is Art as Important as Science? Big Think, Big Think, 30 Sept. 2021, https://bigthink.com/videos/bill-nye-on-the-importance-of-art-and-science/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023. 

Sabhadiya, Amit. “Labeled Diagram of Animal Cell.” Fun Biology, https://www.funbiology.com/animal-cell-structure-function-diagram-and-types/.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1959. 

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125. 

Woodruff. “Anatomy of Squirrel .” Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/18009082060/. 

Comments

  1. Giovanna BoffaApril 8, 2023 at 5:33 PM

    I would say that your last line saying that art benefits science and rarely the other way around is confusing, do you mean to say that artists do not value or appreciate how much science affects their work? I believe there is a great amount of recognition / interested by artists currently on how science & technology help or ruin (in the case of AI) their work

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    1. TravisShibata-BardaroDesma9April 8, 2023 at 6:53 PM

      My bad for the confusion, I wanted to elaborate on it a bit more but had to meet the word limit. I was just trying to say that art, at least in my eyes, is sadly overshadowed by science. For example, materials science can be used to date when a painting was made and understand how that painting was possibly constructed. From that, science often receives a huge amount of appraisal that can overshadow the arts.

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