Reflections on Art and Science

Leonardo, Vol. 5, pp. 249-253. Pergamon Press 1972. Printed in Great Britain REFLECTIONS ON ART AND SCIENCE* Aharon Katzir-Katchalsky** INTRODUCTION Creative art and science evolve only within a framework of hospitable social attitudes. For, as historical experience has led us to conclude, creativity is an extremely sensitive and vulnerable process, easily constricted by adverse conditions. Thus, in a societygoverned by oppressive orfanatical rulers, science may well be converted into a collection of dead facts, safely entombed in official textbooks , while art can become a repetition of stereotypes . But in any culture, or at least those cultures which need intellectual and artistic creativity for individual progress and social well-being, a constant vigil on spiritual attitudes has to be maintained. There is a growing feeling today that, after a long period of thriving development, Western art and science are approaching a dead end and that a rather neo-mediaeval attitude is going to throttle creativity. As usual, art and science are being assaulted simultaneously. And, irrespective of the attitude of artists and scientists towards each other, in periods of spiritual decline both groups meet the same fate. So that, in the present crisis, artists and scientists and all those concerned with the survival of art and science have to become aware of the need for a common programme to arrest the spread of the anti-intellectual flood. THE CONTEMPORARY ATTACK ON ART AND SCIENCE Before proceeding further, it would perhaps be in place to consider some ofthese attitudes threatening the growth of science and art.The most vociferous of them is the 'revolutionary' attitude, which demands an immediate moratorium on all scientific activity. Proponents of this view concede that during the 'age ofenlightenment' science was indeed *Based on a lecture given at the Art and Science Symposium organized for the inauguration of the new Tel Aviv Museum on 20 April 1971. The symposium was sponsored by the Helena Rubenstein Foundation of New York, N.Y., U.S.A. ** Prof. Katzir-Katchalsky, Polymer Department, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. (Received 8 February 1972.) 249 devoted to the search for truth and in its struggle against the 'dark forces of nature' provided the means to raise man's standard ofliving-but now it has become a menace and its progress endangers the survival of mankind. True, they accede to the recently established notion that science is based on a curiosity that has biological roots deeper than human culture and that it cannot be controlled by political decisions. But they accuse modern science of a hypertrophy of curiosity that has assumed pathological dimensions. They claim that the scientists, by their immature evasion of responsibility for the consequences of their activity, have yielded the utilization of science to amoral exploitation , so that almost all further development of science has become as hazardous as the handling of atomic bombs by politicians or generals. These claims are supported by the recent aweinspiring discoveries of 'genetic engineering' and the possibilities opened up by chemical and physical intervention in the workings of the brain. Unaccompanied by appropriate moral values, the advancement of molecular biology may become as dangerous as the uncontrolled utilization of atomic energy. In a recent book entitled The Making ofa Counter Culture, Theodore Ruszak describes some of the anti-human attitudes of the new generation of technocrats. Convinced that the overwhelming majority of all human needs are of a technical nature, the technocrats believe that it is within their power 'to make everybody happy'. Ruszak points out that the prophets of technical progress are so obsessed with the mad rationality of efficient production that they cannot pay any attention to 'minor' items such as love and freedom or the loneliness and alienation in modern society. The critics of the contemporary 'Brave New World' describe the scientocratic society as a joyless, rapacious and egomanic structure-or, in the words of Jacques Barzun (Science the Glorious Entertainment ), 'Artists detest and despise the scientific culture because when techne assails the senses and science dominates the mind, whatever they touch grows numb, ossifies and falls away like black, mortified flesh... .' Although much can be said for this criticism, the conclusion that the time is ripe for...