Literature and Science

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE J. L. Howarth There is a long tradition of hostility and antagonism between scientists and literary intellectuals. Poets have decried the destructiveness of science. Keats asks: "Do not all charms fly/At the mere touch of cold philosophy?" E. E. Cummings is equally concerned: "I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing/than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance." The scientist's concern over quantitation is frequendy a source of resentment. Again to quote Cummings: While you and i have lips and voices which are for kissing and to sing with who cares if some oneeyed son of a bitch invents an instrument to measure Spring with? And, at a more plebeian level, there is the song about the inchworm, measuring the marigolds, "Seems to me you'd stop and see/How beautiful they are." There are of course scientists whose point of view makes such concern very reasonable. I, myself, find very distasteful the attitude of some behavioral psychologists who imply that their own quantitative researches are the one true psychology, who deride as unscientific, and therefore of less value, the activities of those clinical psychologists whose interests are in fields not amenable to measurement, and whose approach is not quantitative. There is a famous saying of Lord Kelvin, which is frequently quoted, apparently with approbation, in the introductory chapters of elementary physics texts: "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot express it in numbers your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." It is tempting to dismiss these attitudes as narrow, self-centered, and easily overcome by those of us who can take a broader view. I can easily share Qimmings' enthusiasm for kissing and singing and at the same time agree wholeheartedly with Lord Kelvin when I think of the excitement which Galileo's preoccupation with quantitation led him into in the matter of rolling balls down inclined planes. But this dismissal is deceptive. I do not really mean "at the same time." What I mean is quantitation from 9 to 5, kissing and singing afterwards; science Monday through Friday, poetry on weekends. It is easy to find reinforcement for this dichotomy into two kinds of human activity. Students in the humanities tell us that physics is "hard," and learning mathematics requires a special kind of mind, which they do not have. Science and engineering students, though generally less verbal about it, see the study of literature as an interesting and entertaining diversion sometimes, but in the main, a bothersome interference with their important , real studies. 178RMMLA BulletinDecember 1968 The controversy which arose a few years ago over C. P. Snow's essay The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution illuminated and perhaps also reinforced this dichotomy. In his essay, delivered as the Rede lecture in Cambridge in 1959, Snow described and lamented the lack of communication between the scientific community and the community of literary intellectuals , and the hostility between the two groups. He discussed the limitations of each group, but displayed a greater antipathy to literary intellectuals describing them as "natural Luddites." He stressed the importance of the fruits of science in improving the social condition of man (materially)—something which he claimed many literary intellectuals ignore. He deplored the fact that, in England at least, it is those educated in the "traditional," that is, literary, culture who form the Establishment, which has, therefore, an inadequate understanding of the educational and political necessities brought about by the Scientific Revolution. Snow's essay provoked immediately a considerable amount of discussion which led to a large measure of acceptance of Snow's ideas. This provoked an attack on Snow by F. R. Leavis in a lecture: "Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow," delivered, also in Cambridge, in 1962. Leavis' lecture was a violent attack on Snow, full of personal abuse, which did little to clarify the criticism Leavis himself was making. However, the controversy was rekindled and the issue debated at great length from varied points of view. The antagonism existing between scientists and literary intellectuals was...