Are art and science at odds with one another?

You appear to have a very narrow view of art and poetry. I don’t see at all how science and art are at odds. I don’t see how a hen not attacking her own children is more “poetic” than a chick’s peeping having a disarming ability on it’s mother.

What I’m getting from your perspective is that art and poetry can only exist in a state of delusion. Once presented with facts and proof art and poetry die. I see this as a grim view of poetry, rather than a grim view of the world.

I may know very consciously that the “love” I feel for my husband is a set of chemicals rushing through my brain, left over from an evolutionary time when pair bonding became very important. However the emotion of “love” is still very real and poetry worthy for me.

I don’t think science and art are incompatible or at odds with one another. Science is the most reliable method we have for obtaining knowledge, while art is a mode of creative expression. The end goal for each pursuit is to fulfill a different need.

And as Noon suggested, even though we know that human emotions are a product of chemicals in our brains, we still experience them in a significant way.

My concern is that what you have described is not art per se. You’re just projecting human emotions onto animal behaviors. You can come up with any explanation for natural phenomena that you like, but that’s not art. Why do you say that trees are reaching out to God? That’s looking at a tree’s existence through the lens of human existence. What would a tree say about you? What you’re doing is choosing to ignore facts in favor of a worldview that you’ve projected yourself onto, and calling that art. It’s only incompatible with science because you have rejected a factual worldview.

@Vinifera7 — right; science is incompatible with what @LostInParadise calls or feels as art. He or she creates art from his feelings and emotions about other living things, and those emotions can be canceled out by knowing the facts about said organisms. Now the question makes sense!

For many other people, science is only relevant to art when you need science to make your art; e.g., to create pigments or anodize metal or figure out how high the ladder has to be to make the paint droplets the size you want them. Otherwise art and science are completely irrelevant to each other.

That’s silly. And not one of your examples made your case, in fact all of them could be made against you if looked at differently. Eh, Vinifera said it better, I just woke up. :)

This idea is not original with me. No less a person than John Keats felt threatened by science. As @Noon points out, science and art form two different perspectives. You may be comfortable shifting perspectives, but you cannot view from both perspectives simultaneously. Alternatively, you may have difficulty switching views.

There is of course much to be gained from the scientific view, but I maintain that there is a certain loss of Romanticism. Poetic metaphors lose something when looked at from the view of science.

And a lot of this romanticism you describe is based in naivety and lack of knowledge. So yes, by definition, gaining knowledge removes whatever false thoughts we’ve put on these items, such as assuming birds sing because they’re happy. What’s wrong with embracing knowledge?

Science concerns itself with objective truth. I factors out, to the extent possible, the observer’s feelings, hopes and desires.

Art is concerned with subjective truth. It explores the human response to the world. It recognizes and embraces the fact that the act of perception itself transforms objective reality into something new and personal.

Which is the “real” truth? Both are, of course. Problems arise when we mistake one for another (thinking, for instance, that our myths are objective truth) or when we dismiss either perspective as less valid than the other. Scientists are charged with ignoring the subjective in their work, but this in no way means that the subjective truth has no place in the enlightened mind.

Just one more point: I want to emphasize that “art” isn’t blind to the darker aspects of reality. Our best artists, in all art forms, don’t candy-coat reality; they freely explore the savagery, struggle and pain that interweave with the sweetness of every life. In probing subjective truth, art is obliged to look at the dark side of that subjective experience as well.

listen i was educated in science, and i feel richard dawkins is a pompous ignorant ass.
I understand the feelings he has towards religion and quasi things, but he doesnt have the answers so why go out of your way to make fun of the “faith” driven people, that feel they have the answers. as long as faith stays away from politics im happy.

btw im not religious in any sense, but im not ignorant enough to say i know the ways of the world

In my world, science and art compliment each other.

Lots of beauty is actually scientific – look at fractals, or music. There’s all kinds of math there. Of course there’s the Golden Ratio, a mathematically defined construction that also happens to be something very beautiful, that even is the definition of beauty in some circumstances.

@laureth,
I like this quote from Bertrand Russell:
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture”

@Harp, Your point is well taken, but what concerns me is that objective truth may be crowding out subjective truth.

C P Snow wrote the book The Two Cultures, which discussed the cultural divide. Although written in the 50’s, the issue is still relevant.

@Harp – Very well put. :o)

I think Leonardo da Vinci’s legacy both in art and in science is a pretty strong case study of art and science being in harmony.

@toolo
That’s kind of a side topic, but Richard Dawkins concerns himself about raising awareness of the world through an objective lens (science).

As Harp pointed out, it becomes problematic when people conflate objective truth with the subjective, or simply reject objective truth altogether.

That is something that Dawkins strives to combat.

i do not disagree with you at all, but i find his methods of attacks on people pretty harsh. and this being said im not saying they dont need a harsh reality check but i still find he comes off as a prude. and i agree with the man 80 percent of the time, it just his methods i have a problem with

@toolo and @Vinifera7
Dawkins has definitely said things that can be offensive, but often people take offense to his words even when he isn’t pushing Christians’ buttons. The fact of the matter is people are far more vocal when an atheist attacks elements of an established religion than when religious people undermine atheist rights or defame the character of atheists as a whole. Frankly people don’t seem to notice it at all, at least not in my country.

this video addresses the matter in brief and amicable terms.

of course none of that has anything to do with art, but neither did the original comment about Dawkins.