From: Tim Corio
I don't think we really see fear, but distrust of conflicting attempts
to understand the world.
nicely put
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.
hm, can I add a caveat?
Sculptors sculpted and produced sculptures..
Painters painted and made paintings, photographers photographed and made
photographs, carvers carved and carvings resulted - just as welders welded
and produced welding or blacksmiths forged, bakers baked, tailors
tailored - and all studied as apprentices or alone by trial and error to
discover the ART of creation. Some termed this arts crafts, and somewhere
along the line these craftsmen/artists found the output of their art
delineated artificially as 'art'
I still maintain an artist is someone who can be seen to have mastered
their art, their output isn't art.
but then I still maintain 'man' isn't necessarily gender specific given the
origins of the genders, wereman and wifman ;)
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.
aww I don't know.. Funny how people seem very shy if they're illiterate,
but many seem almost prideful of being innumerate - and while I've seen
many a soul stand in front of an image and say 'I don't get it', dismiss a
poem, or diverge wildly over a piece of music, a numerical explanation for
things will spark a smile of familiarity across all cultures if the
audience is numerate.
I must also say many of the scientists I know were drawn to science by
their fascination of the world and their longing to explore it, often
deeply creative people, they have tempered their nature by adopting the
precision science offers to avoid mistaken conclusions about what they
encounter. Their skillset is no less a craft, it's just a highly refined,
precise craft with no tolerance of embellishment. Realist painters almost,
with no tolerance for splashes of cubism ;)
I also make a strong distinction between scientists who uphold Popper's
concept of falsifiability and others termed scientists who are more USERS
of science. Radiologists, physicians, geologists, anthropologists etc -
here you will find 'schools of though' just as you would in any group of
painters.. this isn't the case with physics, chemists or mathematicians
where one new revelation will sweep away an earlier theory in one swift
blow.
The previous, once known as 'applied sciences' were later accepted into the
sciences, elevating their credibility - though I doubt justifiably. I
don't mean to demean any radiologists or others, many are very very good at
what they do, it's just that while they use science, it does not make them
a scientist.
Teaching the applied science of photography was an experience - the
students came from mixed areas, film, graphic design, 'art', and some
loathed the sciency side, preferring to explore randomly. funny thing was
that many were still striving for the same desire to understand underlying
processes - they were being scientific - they'd note successes and failures
and learn from them! In time it wasn't difficult to draw them in by
showing them what they'd discovered themselves as already being laid down
by some formula or whathaveyou, then they were usually very quick to want
to know more about these things =)
Some however seemed happy with just paddling around, easily satisfied by
mediocre results, with their mind filling in for unsharp focus, muddy tones
or spurious colours. They never learned the art of photography, however
arty they aspired to be.
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 have to laugh, science is at odds with many of the 'sciences' which delve
into these areas, much as scientists would be horrified at any scientific
attempts to examine religion - there is no intersection of science and
religion so no grounds for a common analysis! Yet we see so called
scientists proclaiming 'there is no god' - I can imagine no more
unscientific words be spoken. Falsifiability - there is no way to disprove
this silly statement so it ain't science!
In the UK now we see 'dolphin therapy' accepted in some medical circles as
a viable treatment for something or other - ?? !! ?? umm, a species known
as having a high percentage of child molesting murderers are going to help
disabled people how? Not science.. We see a group of Aussie scientists
proving stomach ulcers are bacterial in origin, yet medicine reviled their
theory for a long time, in some places they still do - even though they can
clearly demonstrate causality. Epidemiologists are statisticians, yet to
the world at large they seem scientists, and their dreadful bias
establishes 'truths' without justification, and people with a natural
linear logic adopt these 'truths' where really these are pointers to
theories. They are starters, but so often correlation is mistaken for
causality, and science does not permit this. The problems is, the wider
community (and politicians) do not know enough about science to know the
difference between one man in a white coat and another man in a white
coat - which is the scientist? So decrees from epidemiologists are seen as
scientific facts - scientists cringe..
psychology is a psudoscience at this stage in our knowledge. We are
infinitely complex and no attempt at this point in time to codify our
knowledge of the mind can be performed scientifically.
ask a question, man tells truth or man lies.. why would man tell the truth,
why would he lie? speculate. Do psychs actually test the honesty of a
statement by a patient? Do they investigate the real world interactions of
their patient? No. Hence repressed memory therapy took off - however a
few real scientists DID run some tests .. and debunked the concept of such
a therapy
(not for the timid:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1898820&page=1 )
I know many 'artists' who subscribe to science journals, a sculptor who in
frustration that his work wasn't improving studied anatomy, a painted who
studied chemistry to learn more about his pigments and who experiments
enthusiastically, documenting his voyage in the most rigorous manner. I
know history teaches us that many of the early great painters were keen
scientists..
I see no conflict between art and science in theory - but yes, people who
call themselves artists and scientists often do seem to be at odds
k
