Letters to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir: Dr. Potts' brief analysis of how an "esthetics of science" might be approached was interesting and stimulating. So complex a subject, however, ought to be approached with very strict concern for premises. One can profit from "those who have attempted to hack a path through the jungles of classical esthetics." But premises will have to be modified so that analogies do not perpetuate distortions. In discussing Boas' "eightfold confusion" in relation to the Crick-Watson theory, I think Dr. Potts has made an assumption that entails a distortion ofthe scientific process. It relates to the so-called finished product that is a natural part of the artistic creative process, such as a poem, story, painting, ballet, statue or vase. My argument is that what the scientist produces, be it a hypothesis, experiment, or formula, cannot really be characterized as a finished product in the same sense as an artist's creation can. This distinction must spring from the deepest nature ofwhat science is, as does the finished piece ofart spring from the deepest nature ofwhat art is. Without question there is an esthetic in science, but its factors must differ from that ofthe artistic discipline. I think this distinction can be established because ofthe different goals of each. True, the subjective human search for the esthetic is unitary for both because it springs from the same humandesire for self-expression. But the artistic creation is entirely subjective—scientific work cannot be. Science must deal with reality—art need not. The scientific explanation is cumulative, having historically necessary sequential logic—art is much more psychosociological. Science is almost always, broadly speaking , explanation or description—art almost always is interpretation or expression. Ofcourse, further definition of such terms can explode ferocious argument; and I do not deny great similarities in the way artists and scientists approach and accomplish their work. Also, Dewey [?] is probably right in attempting to derive the esthetic from man's having to succeed in the real world—the esthetic must have a facilitating adaptive function. But there is really only one artform (one which the scientist already uses in his research work, though this is not the genre ofit to which I refer), which can draw art and science closer in an operational way—and one that offers an enormous potential to the investigation of esthetics and science. Only this art form can be used to describe reality as it is. Only this art form does exactly what science is trying to do. Only this art form does not transform its raw material, as Kracauer [2] maintains. Only this art form is more objective than subjective. It is the film, specifically, the documentary film. It is with film that experimental work can be done integrating problems of esthetic perception and science teaching. Here art 307 and science can be merged—perhaps in the most important area ofhuman adaptive functioning —in the learning process. If the highest interpretive facility of film art can be mobilized to clarify scientific explanation, there may be no level of science that is inexplicable , or at least undescribable, to an average intelligence. Lawrence Kubie has written, "There would seem to be some 'X' factor in education which plays an important role and which we have not yet learned to recognize or to measure" [3]. Now think ofour present day teaching practices, particularly in reference to "style" in teaching. Has not every great teacher a "style"? Can it be that Kubie's X factor is an esthetic one? Obviously there is much hidden here (though not for this letter). Thank you for your indulgence. The wide scope ofPerspectives in Biology and Medicine constantly delights me. references r. John Dewey. Art as Experience, chap. 2. New York: Putnam, 19S9· Thelive creatures and ethereal things. 2.Siegfried Kracauer. Theory ofFilm. New York: Oxford University Press, i960. 3.Lawrence Kubie. Daedalus, 94, No. 3: 570, 1965. Hillel A. Schiller ? Charlton Street New York, New York 10014 308 Letters to the Editor Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1966 ...