<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018In 2019, the \u201ctwo cultures\u201d described by CP Snow in 1959 will have finally ceased to have meaning.\u2019 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
So said Russell Foster<\/a> in a recent article<\/a> in Wired. Russell is clearly an optimist and I fear I do not share his optimism, despite all the evidence he adduces in his piece. The examples he cites \u2013 including statistics about visitors to the Science Museum \u2013 unfortunately only refer to certain segments of our population. Just like Russell is now, in the past I have been a Trustee of the Science Museum and have seen the data compiled by them on the views of their visitors; those surveyed or more than likely to be those already regarded as \u2018engaged\u2019 (to use the audience segmentation term adopted by museums, if my memory serves me right). Such visitors are likely to be scientifically engaged but also more widely; after a visit to South Kensington\u2019s Science Museum they might pop across the road to the V+A to look at fine arts, jewellery or costumes. Not all parts of the population seem to think in the same way, including many very well-educated people who seem determined to claim \u2018vive la diff\u00e9rence<\/em>\u2019 when it comes to arts and sciences and write about this vociferously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me quote from another recent article<\/a>,\nthis time in the Guardian just before Christmas. Here Natalie\nBrett<\/a> (head of London College of Communication<\/a> and pro\nvice-chancellor of the University of the Arts in London) sticks up for \u2018soft\u2019\nskills in the modern world of work, but then appears to lay claim to these as\nbeing learned only on non-STEM courses. To quote her article about the skills\nsuch courses teach:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google cites creativity, leadership potential and communication skills as top prerequisites for both potential and current employees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
As my last blogpost<\/a>\nsuggests, not all lab heads are exactly full of leadership potential, nor\nnecessarily good at communication (but then who said a history graduate or a\nlinguistics scholar was necessarily good at this either?) but the idea that\nscientists are not creative is a long-term bugbear of mine (see here<\/a>\nfor instance). In talks on the subject I like to cite Peter Medawar<\/a> \u2013 always good\nwith the finely-tuned, pithy sentence \u2013 who said, way back in 1968<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All ideas of scientific understanding, at every level, begin with a speculative adventure, an imaginative preconception of what might be true \u2013 a preconception that always, and necessarily, goes a little way (sometimes a long way) beyond anything which we have logical or factual authority to believe in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what\ncreativity is all about. Let us remember that the so-called \u2018creative\nindustries\u2019 would not contribute as much to the UK economy as they do if it\nwere not for all those allegedly tediously uncreative techie and STEM types who\nare capable of writing the code for video games, considering optimum ways to\ncreate ambience by appropriate lighting of the stage in the West End or finding\ninnovative ways to record music. Why has creativity been appropriated by\ncertain non-STEM folk as being theirs and theirs alone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natalie\nBrett does not stop with her criticisms of science and scientists with this\nbending of her thoughts to creativity. She goes on to say<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To return to the Google example, many of the company\u2019s top \u201ccharacteristics of success\u201d <\/a>are soft skills: being a good coach, communicating and listening well, possessing insights into other points of view, being supportive of one\u2019s colleagues, critical thinking and problem solving, and being able to make connections across complex ideas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Again this seems a curious misunderstanding of what\nscientists get up to. Surely seeing other points of view, critical thinking\n(which to my mind frequently seems to mean no more than being able to see\nthrough bogus arguments) and making connections across complex ideas sit at the\nheart of a scientist\u2019s day job. As for problem solving\u2026..isn\u2019t that what we\nspend our lives doing from the first day of our undergraduate degree, albeit\nthe problems may be slightly different from what she actually was thinking\nabout? Nevertheless, she cannot pretend to be Humpty Dumpty deciding\nto choose exactly what the word \u2018problem\u2019\nmight mean regardless of other\nconventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems to me scientists are far more likely to want not to put boundaries between the disciplines than non-scientists. To my mind it is a great shame that anyone wants to erect such walls. What I think we should be distinguishing when we consider education is the act of knowing facts in one\u2019s own speciality \u2013 thermodynamics, the topic CP Snow was so agitated about, or the Greek lexicon, or the life of Napoleon or whatever it might be \u00ad \u00ad\u2013 from skills useful to getting on in life. Language does not help us here: calling these latter skills \u2018soft\u2019 strikes me as ridiculous. Let\u2019s call them ubiquitous, or broad or non-specialised but we should all worry about mastering as many of them as we can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Science communication is a \u2018thing\u2019. Some people are good at\nit \u2013 like Russell Foster, who amongst other roles is Chair of the Cheltenham\nScience Festival \u2013 some are most decidedly not, and should not be let loose on\nan audience of non-specialists at any price. Nevertheless that does not mean\nscientists, collectively, cannot communicate. Some scientists are brilliant\nleaders \u2013 Peter Medawar seems to have been in this category, much beloved as\nthe Director of the Mill Hill Laboratory before his untimely death \u2013 others, as\nthat last blogpost on jerks spells out only too painfully, are shocking at it.\nBut that certainly does not mean that good leadership is the prerogative of\nthose with an arts or humanities degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore I would hazard a guess \u2013 although I am more than\nhappy to be proved wrong \u2013 that scientists are far more likely to read\nnon-science books in their bath or bed than non-scientists are likely to pick\nup a science book, popular or otherwise. My current bath-time reading is\nactually Paul Warde\u2019s The\nInvention of Sustainability<\/a>,<\/em> which has elements of science but even\nmore of history and even philosophy within its covers. My current Kindle book\nis The\nSeabird\u2019s Cry: The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and other Ocean Voyagers<\/a><\/em>\nby Adam Nicholson which (forgive me), the Mail apparently said was written \u2018with a heart full of poetry and a head full\nof science<\/em>\u2019 according to the book\u2019s Amazon website. I like books that can\u2019t\nbe neatly pigeon-holed. I like my life like that. I do not appreciate being\naccused by non-scientists of being unable to think creatively, or to join the\ndots between different ideas let alone that I am incapable of listening well or\nsupporting my colleagues: all things that Brett seems convinced of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I wish I could believe that Russell Foster was right\nwhen he said there was no longer any division between the cultures. I fear his\noptimism has overtaken the evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018In 2019, the \u201ctwo cultures\u201d described by CP Snow in 1959 will have finally ceased to have meaning.\u2019 So said Russell Foster in a recent article in Wired. Russell is clearly an optimist and I fear I do not share … Continue reading