editoridly /peaking What Can Scientists Learn from the Humanities? Since C. P. Snow's description of the two rultures it has heen popular to believe in-or accept-the existence of a conflict between humanistic and scientific ways of thought. This point of view diminishes hoth disciplines, because it focuses on the natural tension that exists between them rather than on their inherent affinity. The interconnections between the sciences and the humanities become clearer if we consider what the humanities are and what humanists purport to do. The essence of the humanities is a spirit or attitude tuward mankind-humanity; the central question is an understanding of the human condition-what does it mean to he human? Humanists use language, dialogue, reflection, imagination, and metaphor in seeking answers and in doing so, they achieve insight, perspective, cultural understanding, discrimination, and creativity rather than quantitative measures and selfconsistent proofs that are the familiar results of scientific processes. Language, literature, philosophy, and history have traditionally been the fields of knowledge most often viewed as humanistic. The humanities are, in effect, that form of knowledge in which the knower is revealed. From this point of view, all knowledge-even scientific knowledge-hecomes humanistic. Many scientists, however, seem nut to be interested in the expositor of a theory as he relates to the subject. Knowing the person who revealed a bit of scientific knowledge is seldom considered important in scientific subjects. Science often appears to stand apart from humanity, even though it is a product of human intellect. The medium of the humanist is language, hoth written and spoken, for it sets into motion reflection and judgement that lead to critical thought. In this regard scientists and humanists share a common concern over the deterioration of the educational processes as reflected in the well-documented decline of high school seniors' reading and writing skills since the 1960's. Such problems ultimately affect institutions of higher education. Thus a recent national survey revealed that the number of remedial classes in English, hoth grammar and composition, and mathematics increased by 22% in colleges and universities during the 1980-81 academic year. Scientists and humanists have grown accustomed to working separately in institutionalized divisions created by our educational systems. These divisions have arisen in part because of an assumed incongruity between their methods of inquiry. On the other hand, the uncritical association of science and the humanities has lead to premature attempts to resolve ethical or interpretative dilemmas without understanding how humanists formulate questions or manage inquiry. Some scientists or managers of science who engage in research involving fundamental questions of personal and professional responsibility have turned to humanists for expert guidance with disappointing results. Scientists are often dismayed to learn that humanists generally do not have access to special or eternal truths. They think any humanistespecially the wisest-can serve as an ultimate authority and therehy liberate others from the need to deliberate about ethical problems. Humanists can provide useful conceptual
and analytical tools for examining concrete human problems. Humanists are usually oriented toward the study of the past and serve as a collective cultural memory. In contrast, scientists are orimarilv oriented tuward the Dresent and future, and look for an understanding of the natural order and what can be exuected to follow from it. Precise fields of inmirv are difficilt to establish in the humanities hecause studies "ften proceed by progressive inclusion of ideas in which elements of fact, speculation and judgement, and the ohjective and subjective are often integrally entwined. On the other hand, scientific inquiry normally proceeds through a series of systematic exclusions toward precise proofs and laws. The humanistic method is usually figurative and interrogative whereas the scientific approach is experimental and declarative. Although humanists may have developed a more sophisticated conception of criticism than have scientists, their standards for defining error is not as well developed as those of the scientists. Clearly humanists have acquired important insights into discerning the broad fields of knowledge which address human values. Since World War I1 a erowine number of scientists have abut t h v ~ s
