Week 1: Two Cultures

            C. P Snow states that society places “Literary intellectuals at one pole - at the other scientists” (4).  This separation is something I largely accepted as the norm from seeing distinctively separate classes for science and arts in elementary school to having north and south campus at UCLA. Hence, it was surprising to learn from the videos and the texts that this separation was about as recent as 1959. 

           

TAK, NITYA, and Noah Danesh. A Campus Divided, Daily Bruin, 2021, prime.dailybruin.com/justinnorth&southcampus. 

Episode 3: The ‘Mad Scientist’ Trope, Medium , 24 Apr. 2019, medium.com/inspire-the-mind/episode-3-the-mad-scientist-trope-f9370ea5fe83. 

       I am a STEM major and have aspirations to become a life science researcher in the future. However, I find that I do not fit into the societal expectations of what a scientist looks like. Since I do not fit into the mold of a “mad scientist”, I have often found myself questioning my capacity to become a scientist. Hence, Professor Vesna’s detailed lecture on the notion of an eccentric scientist is largely stereotypical relieved some of my imposter syndrome. 

 

      D. Bohm speaks in length about how science is often thought of as this rigid, black and white sort of thing when in reality scientists use a lot of creativity and in fact, come up with arbitrary languages or states merely for convenience. The more I learn in-depth about science, the more I agree with D.Bohm’s analysis for at least in the realm of biology I have found that there is really no absolute right answer as such.  

      One thing that the government’s handling of the covid pandemic has taught us is that “government officials and the general public often misinformed about science”; hence “the scientific community needs to be more vocal in explaining science and advocating on its behalf” (Williams). I would argue a step further that scientists’ style of communication also needs to be more accessible. Often scientists use a lot of jargon to maybe show their expertise. However, I find that this is very ineffective, for a lot is lost in translation and the public does not effectively understand what is being said.  

       It is promising that a third culture has emerged with the computer era, and these lines between the two disciplines are slowly blurring (Kelly). My hope is that the collaboration between the arts and sciences described by Victoria Vesna’s paper comes to fruition (Vesna).  

The Art and Science of Love – Live, The Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com/product/the-art-and-science-of-love-workshop-live-seattle/. 

REFERENCES :

Snow, Charles Percy. The two cultures and the scientific revolution: The Rede Lecture, 1959. University Press, 1959. 

TAK, NITYA, and Noah Danesh. A Campus Divided, Daily Bruin , 2021, prime.dailybruin.com/justinnorth&southcampus. 

Episode 3: The ‘Mad Scientist’ Trope, Medium , 24 Apr. 2019, medium.com/inspire-the-mind/episode-3-the-mad-scientist-trope-f9370ea5fe83. 

Bohm, D. “On Creativity.” Leonardo, vol. 1, no. 2, Apr. 1968, pp. 137–149. 

Williams, Christopher M. “A Dangerous Divide: The New York Academy of Sciences.” Nyas, 24 July 2009, www.nyas.org/ebriefings/a-dangerous-divide/?tab=overview. 

Kelly, Kevin. “The Third Culture.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 Feb. 1998, science.sciencemag.org/content/279/5353/992.full. 

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121-125.

The Art and Science of Love – Live, The Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com/product/the-art-and-science-of-love-workshop-live-seattle/.