A Quest for Unity
opinion Erwin Schradinger, in his essay "The Spiritual Bearing of Science on Life" wrote' What is the value of scientific research? Everybody knows that in our days more than ever before a. man or a. women who wishes to make a genuine contrihntion to the advancement of science has to specialise: which means to intensify one's endeavor to learn all that is known within a. certain narrow domain and then to try and increase this knowledge hy one's own workby studies, experiments, and thinking. Being engaged in such specialized activity one naturally a t times stops to think what it is good for. Has the promotion of knowledge within a narrow domain any value in itself? Has the sum total of achievements in all the several branches of one science-ay of physics, or chemistry, or botany, or zoology-any value in itself-r perhaps the sum total of the achievements of all the sciences together-and what value ha4 it? A great many people, particularly those not deeply interested in science, me inclined to answer this question by pointing to the practical Consequences of scientific achievements in transforming technology, industry, engineering, eto., in fact in changing our whole way of life beyond recognition in the course of less than two centuries, with further and even more rapid ehmges to be expected in the time to come.
How does it happen that Science has become, for most people, the adoptive parent of technology? What set of standards dictate that understanding the internal combustion engine is more important than comprehending the laws of thermodynamics? Why do we admire 100-W amplifiers and stereophonic sound but ignore the most recent understanding of nature that makes these accomplishments possible? How did these absurd situations develop? I n our views of science, what dangers do we risk by a disproportionate emphasis of the sensational (technological) at the expense of the profound (understanding of nature)? These are complex questions and there is no unique answer to all or to any single one of them. Every subset of our culture has contributed to the undesirable qualities we find in the relationship between science and society. I would like to offer some opinions concerned with one source of the dilemma. That source is the frequent absence of mutual interest and understanding between science and the arts in our colleges and universities. This absence of mutual interest began to spread rapidly in the early twentieth century and has now become a wide gulf. The problem has been recognized by others and Snow's discussion of the two culture syndrome2 or Huxley's observations on science and literature3 have become occasional topics of discussion at scholarly cocktail parties. But such superficial involvement does little to solve the problem and in the meanwhile more graduating classes leave our universities and colleges deplorably uninformed of where and how science fits into the human enterprise. At many liberal arts colleges across this nation, there is too little
meaningful interdisciplinary exchange beheen scientists and nonscientists and this in turn has encouraged our students to helieve that there is little basis for such exchange. In our colleges, we have arrived at an impasse where most nonscientists believe that scientific accomplishments can only be understood by scientific mystics who can read a mystical language called mathematics. Many scientists, through their confinement in narrow specialization, have aggravated the situation. Indeed, when scientists have difficulty understanding the work of other scientists, what hope can there be for exchange between the scientist and the humanist? We have come a long way from that time when Leonardo da Vinci, painter, sculptor, mathematician, and engineer exhibited the revered beauty of a unified intellect. And the unity of purpose that motivated the formation of the Royal Society, where Robert Boyle or Isaac Newton joined with Edmund Waller, or John Dryden, has disappeared. Today for example, few things seem less likely than joint annual meetings of the American Chemical Society and the Modern Language Association. Apparently, like many of the scholars of our campuses, scholarly groups are also convinced that there is little need to exchange with each other. As a practicing scientist, I find this development a disappointing one. For if nothing else, through this lack of exchange we deny students educational opportunities that their tuition should be buying. For example, when Clausius articulated the second law of thermodynamics, he expressed a profound thought that affects every man throughout his entire life. With such wide implications, the consequences of the second law deserve discussion in virtually every classroom on the campus. The same may he said of Heisenberg and the uncertainity principle. The work that lead to Clausius' and Heisenberg's understanding of the universe reflects the intuition and creativity needed to examine nature and stands alongside the work of Shakespeare or Goethe as intellectual achievement. In spite of this, we frequently find that the work of Clausius and Heisenberg evoke responses in the nonscientist that run from hostility to boredom. On the other hand, in the classroom of science, we omit the reflections of nonscientists concerned with scientific achievement, and in the process convert the learning of science into a remarkably dull experience. 1 SCHR~DINGER, E., "Science and Humanism," Cambridge University Press, London, 1961. "SOW, C.P., "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution," Cambridge University Press, London, 1962. HUXLEY, A,, "Litemture and Science," Harper and Row, New York, 1963.
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We are content to discuss Darwin without the views of Eliot or Mill, to explore Newton's study of light without examining the related views of Goethe. Our science classrooms operate in a rather nonscientific manner; they examine only a narrow fraction of the available response to nature before they convey conclusions about nature. While I cannot speak authoritatively for those faculty in the literary or fine arts, I am disappointed by the extensive attention science faculty devote to their own narrow specialization. We are content to ignore opportunities to contrast the motivation and accomplishments of scientists with those of nonscientists. Such intellectual regionalism does little to inspire the student and even less for the perspectives of faculty members. All too frequently, when scientists do discuss science with nonscientists, they do it without a sensitivity to the nature and values of their colleagues' disciplines. Moreover, these efforts frequently underestimate the intelligence of our nonscientific audience and lead to a gross oversimplification of scientific accomplishment that guides the nonscientists to a position of misunderstanding that is worse than if no explanation were made at all. On the other hand, if we examine the attitudes of our colleagues in the literary and fine arts, we find the artist's reaction to the man of science is frequently an unfavorable one. The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset summed the situation for many when he pictured the scientists as the typical representative of the brute ignorant rabble (hombre masa). Gasset viewed the scientist as one of the chief threats to the survival of civilization, and described him as "a man who proclaims it a virtue not to take any notice of all that remains outside the narrow domain he himself cultivates, and denounces as dilettantist the curiosity that aims a t the synthesis of all kn~wledge".~It seems clear that an avenue of misunderstanding and distrust has been built by both the scientist and the artist. At the university and in society, the manifestations of this misunderstanding have been numerous and tragic. They move from the faculty member advising a student who is a nonscience major "to take his science courses and get them over" to United States Senators assuring their constituency that environmental problems will always be solvable as long as we labor to be technologically capable. In brief, we have arrived at the absurd conclusion that science possesses magical powers and apparently that it should be studied only by magicians. No one is more responsible for this state of affairs than the scientist. For the scientist knows that science helps man search for understanding of the universe, not for the right to indiscriminate exploitation of nature. Too often the scientist has failed to convey the nobility of that search and the predictable tragedy of indiscriminate exploitation. But the scientist cannot stand alone. If a balanced set of values are to operate in our society, meaningful scientific achievement must be confronted by humanistic and artistic reaction, and students of humanities, arts, and sciences must be aware of each other's reactions to common phenomena. Viewed through the 32
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lens of one discipline, nature \ d l yield only fractional answers about itself. If discipline and criticism are a t all important to the development of man's nnderstanding, then students and teachers must. seek the broadest possible base of understanding as the source of their criticisms and the framen-ork of their disciplines. This objective will not be accomplished easily. The love of specialization has spread from the university to the liberal arts college. Too frequently, the function of the college in the scientific and nonscientific disciplines, appears to be the shaping of people to fit into the slots of our industrialized society. Most efforts to encourage diversification of the students' education are opposed vigorously by departmental interests with faculty crying that the excellence of training within their specialty would be damaged by the extensive accommodation of a truly liberal education. But excellent training for what? Apparently, training to compete in a market place already exhibiting many questionable values; values unlikely to be challenged by the highly specialized student. And so compartmentalization seems fostered from without as well as from within our colleges. How do we depart from the limited perspectives of training in specialized disciplines? To a great degree, that departure must he motivated by students and faculty concerned with their mutual ignorance of an immensely interesting world. We need a change of intellectual climate in our colleges, a change that permits the motivated teacher and student to pursue learning as partners rather than as ruler and subject. Small colleges, by permitting youthful enthusiasm and judgment tempered by experience to mix on an intimate basis, can provide a last haven for such partnerships. Furthermore, in the small college, teacher and student can exchange roles effectively and an inspired faculty can demonstrate an enthusiasm for learning to the student. My concern here is with weaving an understanding of science into the fabric of education. We must not underestimate the in~portanceof that understanding for our students. The future moves in upon us a t an increasingly accelerated rate with one scientific or technological achievement after another forcing us to reassess our comprehension of life. To contend with this future, students must acquire a grasp of the scope and limitations of scientific achievement, the personalities that guide the achievement, the climate that can foster or inhibit it, and the impact of scientific achievement upon man's view of his importance in the universe. To accomplish these objectives, students of science will need far more than the tokenism provided by an occasional course in literature or European history. Moreover, students in the humanities will need more than a brief exposure to the scientific method and the cataloging of transient "facts" about nature. Students, as future humanists and scientists, and teachers as practicing professionals will need a vigorous search for intellectual unity. The experiences of the search must be shared and communicated by students and faculty who view their ignorance as a challenge and
' ORTEGAY GASSET,JoQE,"La rebeli6n de las masas," EspasaCalpe Argentina, Buenos Aires-Mexico, 1937.
not as a defect to be hidden. Teachers in the humanities and teachers in the sciences must start talking to each other about things other than the condition of their front lawns or the politics of the next faculty meeting. We must show students that open and broad based exchange can proceed in our colleges and that
such exchange will help provide the perspectives they need to maintain a balanced view for the future.
Robert P. DeSieno Westminister College New Wilmington, Pennsylvania 16142
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