I don't think we really see fear, but distrust of conflicting attempts to understand the world. Long ago, people tried to explain how the world appeared to work using almost purely rhetorical means. We now call these people philosophers. As technology advanced we gained the means to reproduce what was seen to new levels of detail. Using charcoal, pigments, and other tools these people recorded the visual world for others. We now call those people artists. Later, along with printing, new intellectual tools emerged to help explain the world. These new tools followed a three-tiered process: 1) Make objective observations of the world, preferably using mechanical tools that could not be fooled by their own wishes and emotions. 2) Pose a guess (or theory) of how these observations relate to each other. 3) Record this information in writing and distribute to others for their discussion and approval or rejection. This three-tiered process eventually became known as the scientific method and has been heavily codified in academics, research and publishing. However, the scientific method has proven to be of little use for explaining or communicating how people feel about the world. Artists have continued to dominate in that discussion. As science has expanded its ability to explain ever more abstract concepts it encroaches on art's traditional territory. Science's explanations for the world are often at odds with the traditions of art. It's this conflict that leads many artists to distrust science. And many scientists to distrust art. Science has been diving deep into the traditional territory of the artist with investigations into psychology and the brain. As these fields have grown over the last century or so animosity has grown between the fields. I think artists and scientists are not so much afraid of each other as they are concerned that the other's conflicting positions undermine the work that each thinks is important. These are only my vague understanding of how thinks have unfolded. A proper historian can probably straighten me out on this. Tim On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 17:38 -0700, Ruey wrote: > Why is it that in earlier times science and art could coexist > comfortably and today so many artists seem scared to death of learning > any science and so many engineer-scientists find no value in art or > desire to create it? I wonder if this modern extensive degree of > specialization and complete distrust of the other or their knowledge, > hasn't a great deal to with our inability to solve the problems we face > in the world today? What could an instructor do to bridge that gap? > > Ed Scott >
