What's More Important: Art or Science?

[Greenday]

And go! It's 2:25am, I'm too tired to post due to studying philosophy all night, so I shall post eventually tomorrow. But don't let that stop you from positing your opinion.

[Flyndaran]

Science feeds people.
Art is pretty.

[MaggieTheCat]

I'm an artist. I make jewelry, and I hope to be able to do it for a living (or at least some extra spending money for my husband and I.) I also used to love to draw and write and have created vast worlds worth of stories and characters.

That being said, I think science is more important.

Why? Because art didn't identify and remove my diseased, stone-filled gall bladder earlier this year and it's not going to help me recover from the UTI I have right now.

[AdminAssistant]

Why does it have to be one is more important than the other? They're both important for different ways and for different reasons.

Art is more than 'pretty'. It feeds the soul and provides social commentary. I realize it's a hard concept for Americans, but we have never had a strong fine arts culture in this country. There's no appreciation for it among the middle and lower classes, which is why the average theatre ticket buyer is a 60-70 year old white upper class woman. I can't speak for visual art or music, but in theatre we are desperately trying to bring in younger audiences.* But it's a struggle. I see it in the attitudes of my Intro students - they don't know and they don't care. They don't like being in a situation where they actually have to turn off their cell phones and unplug from their virtual world to immerse themselves in someplace else.

There's a fascinating book called The Necessity of Theatre by Paul Woodruff, and his argument is that human beings, as a part of their nature, need to watch others and need to be watched by others, and that theatre (in the broad sense of the term) fulfills that need. Example: Why would you spend a lot of money, wait in lines, and sit in a crowded arena to see a concert with crappy audio set-ups when you could stay at home and listen to a perfectly mastered and mixed recording of that same band?

I have to go to a meeting now, but I'll be back - oh, I'll be back.

*Broadway here does not count. That's spectacle-ridden fluff trying really hard to be just like movies so they'll sell lots and lots of tickets and make a jabillion dollars.

[Boozy]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

[AdminAssistant]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

Thank you, Boozy, for putting succintly what I was trying to say in my "just-woke-up" fog.

[Flyndaran]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

Not for all of us. I don't care that much about art. I enjoy life without art for art's sake.

[BroomJockey]

Not for all of us. I don't care that much about art. I enjoy life without art for art's sake.

Ever read a book? Watch a movie? Watch TV? Play a video game? If so, then sorry, you DO enjoy an art form. Paintings and live theatre are far from the only form of art.

[Flyndaran]

Ever read a book? Watch a movie? Watch TV? Play a video game? If so, then sorry, you DO enjoy an art form. Paintings and live theatre are far from the only form of art.

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

Science itself is artistic then negating the whole discussion.

[Greenday]

I enjoy art. But I think at his point in society, science will take us further than art. Art will not save my ass from H1N1.

[Flyndaran]

I enjoy art. But I think at his point in society, science will take us further than art. Art will not save my ass from H1N1.

Science may take us to the stars for our art to survive past this little ball of wet dirt's lifespan.

[MaggieTheCat]

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

Science itself is artistic then negating the whole discussion.

Well, isn't writing considered an art? I mean, English and literature majors get Bachelors of Art rather than Bachelors of Science, don't they? And obviously, a book is written, so I do consider that a form of art. Even the other things BJ mentioned, like movies and video games, have scripts that were written, so at least part of those things can be considered art.

[BroomJockey]

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.


Er, no, but you've just shown your lack of understanding. Leaving alone the scripts/writing part already mentioned, video games require "concept art" well before the first line of programming is coded. Voice actors are used to record dialogue. In movies/television shows, people create props and wardrobe. Acting itself is still artistic, even when not done in a live theatre.

[Boozy]

Flyndaran, Greenday capitalized "Art", so I'm inferring that he means "Arts" in an academic sense. Arts departments of universities include "artsy" stuff like music, art, dance, theatre, and creative writing -- but also history, English, rhetoric, anthropology, sociology, psychology, criminology, and linguistics and languages. Interested in any of those?

[Greenday]

but also history, English, rhetoric, anthropology, sociology, psychology, criminology, and linguistics and languages. Interested in any of those?

I'm going to go ahead and disagree that history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and criminology are arts. Understanding the human mind is science, not art. Film, paintings, drawings, writings...those are art.

[gremcint]

Without science there would be a lot less art, any number of instruments, whether it was acoustical engineering or electronics. New paints, new brushes, new canvasses.

Without science there would still be art, but it would not be anywhere near the level we have today.

[Kalli]

Completely subjective question.

If you meant to ask "what's more important to YOU", sure, good thread. (My answer is Art, btw.)

If you are asking what is more important to humanity, there is no absolute answer.

[AdminAssistant]

Not to mention the number of artists who have made significant contributions to other fields - Goethe being the most prominent example.

Honestly, I blame the postmodern art movement for these negative attitudes. I look at some of these pieces and just wonder... Examples - Basquiat, John Cage, The Living Theatre (headed by Julian Beck and Judith Malina)...honestly, I think some of these people were just trying to be 'cool' and 'edgy' for the sake of being different and they purposefully alienated their audience. I do think art should challenge people, but I don't go for the stuff that is purposefully offensive for the sake of stirring up controversy.

[Savannah]

Neither.

Science works more on the physical side, while art works more on the emotional side. Both are necessary. Boozy puts it better than I do.

(I've always seen history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and criminology listed as social sciences. While I can't speak for the other disciplines, psychology strives to be a science.)

[Flyndaran]

It seems that people are lumping every single human endeavor into two categories and then asking which is more important.

I call it a useless question. It's like asking which half of your body is more important, your right or your left.

I'm left handed, but I kind of need my liver too.

[Gravekeeper]

I'm a writer, artist and designer and I would still say science.

My art isn't much good if no one is alive to enjoy it and there is no medium by which to spread it. I won't debate which is more important to me personally, as that wasn't really the question.

[lordlundar]

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

And yet it's accurate. Art is not just painting a picture or carving a statue. The purpose of art is to express and invoke emotional response, whether positive and/or negative. To that end, all forms of entertainment, regardless of the field, is art.

Now whether it's GOOD art is debatable, but it is art nonetheless.

No as for which is more important, I say neither is more important than the other, and nor are they mutually exclusive. A lot of the scientific breakthroughs we have we owe to people thinking creatively which stems from the arts, and a number of forms of art pieces stem from a scientific approach. (look at picture of a fractal algorithm for example)

[lovlybones]

I think art and science can be seen as the same thing. In some forms art is medicine for people in therapies and such. and science makes medicine(real perscriptions) to help other people with what they have. some people can never be able to see the inside of a live human body. I think that image is art, even though its included in science. why choose one over the other when you can have both work together? without pictures in science books you might have no idea what your doing.

there are also forms of science in art where you have to wait for the chemicals to do what they do for the end product to be the way you want. science is problem solving and so is art. I think the only difference is that sometimes art is about doing something that hasn't been done before when science is trying to prove so many things that have been done already.

[radiocerk]

While science may be more important now, in our day to day lives, I believe that if it weren't for art we would have never gotten to this point.

Science was, before it was quite so, for lack of better term, 'scientific', the domain of the dreamers, philosophers, the people who imagined a different world. Those imaginings and dreams led others to attempt to manufacture them. But if no one had ever written stories, or painted pictures of the concept, who would have bothered wanting to go to the moon?

Science is, in an odd way, very closely related to art. You can't research what you can't imagine.

[Flyndaran]

While science may be more important now, in our day to day lives, I believe that if it weren't for art we would have never gotten to this point.

Science was, before it was quite so, for lack of better term, 'scientific', the domain of the dreamers, philosophers, the people who imagined a different world. Those imaginings and dreams led others to attempt to manufacture them. But if no one had ever written stories, or painted pictures of the concept, who would have bothered wanting to go to the moon?

Science is, in an odd way, very closely related to art. You can't research what you can't imagine.

I see science in almost the exact opposite way. In a way it was a lack of imagination that led to discoveries. I don't know what's over there, so I'll go look leads to new knowledge, not I can imagine what's over there, so I don't need to look.

[BroomJockey]

In a way it was a lack of imagination that led to discoveries.

A guy on LSD conceptualized the form of DNA. An excellent scientist has a nearly intuitive grasp on concepts and being able to link them in uncommon ways to come up with new ideas. Useful and amazing discoveries are often nearly overlooked because some straight-laced twit didn't have the imagination to see what they could lead to. Science isn't about a lack of imagination. If it was, we'd still be in the Dark Ages, because people wouldn't be able to imagine things working any differently than "they just work." Science is all about saying "What if?"

[Flyndaran]

Imagination is a useful tool, but not the goal in itself. I was just trying to suggest a different way of looking at things.

[BroomJockey]

I was just trying to suggest a different way of looking at things.

And I was saying your suggestion was wrong. Or at least incredibly limited in scope and application.

[Flyndaran]

And I was saying your suggestion was wrong. Or at least incredibly limited in scope and application.

And I think many arguments in this thread have been overly broad in scope and application. To each their own.

[LadyMage]

I kind of agree that art and science can be the same thing myself, like cooking is considered an art, but science has its hand in it too.

Both need each other,, there is no getting around that, one always helps the other

drawings of models for scientists to show what they know about the human body to others

computers becoming canvases for artists drawing something

and any form of human expression, be it cake, game, book, poem, song, painting, statue, dirty table (yes there was an artist that passed off a dirty table as art, until the cleanup crew thought it was real and cleaned it, as my husband tells me anyways), formula, invention, building, program are all some form of art, be it good or bad, useful or not

so I say they are important, which you prefer is the question, me I like art, my husband likes science, but then I be a wannabe writer and he be a chemist so yeah bias central

[blas87]

Science is for people much smarter than myself.

I prefer to stick to trying every day NOT to color outside the damn lines.

[lordlundar]

Anyone want a perfect example of art and science mixing?

Here you go. (http://sawse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/water-droplet.jpg)

This is a picture of one drop of water hitting another at the moment the column of the first one forms. Without the understanding of water or the ability to record in the nanosecond, this would not exist.

[LadyMage]

Science is for people much smarter than myself.

I prefer to stick to trying every day NOT to color outside the damn lines.

inside the lines? where is the fun in that?:p

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm either an artistic scientist or a scientific artist.

Advances in art have influenced science heavily. Tricorders on Star Trek + about 30 years = cell phone. And then those things have offered at least me and pretty certainly many others more and more ideas for creativity. "Hey, cell phones were invented. ...what if a society of people got to the point of putting tiny chips in their brains and heads that can just talk to each other and eventually evolve to a hive mind and oh God where's my pen?"

I personally don't see a lot of difference between the two. The very best scientists typically also have the best imaginations. I mean, the scientific method and the artistic method can be summed up like "Hm, I wonder what would happen if X and Y." Granted, my mother has told me she'd prefer I imagine the results and write them rather than try them out, after the rather unfortunate brake fluid + baking soda incident...but yeah, you see what I mean.

[lordlundar]

Tricorders on Star Trek + about 30 years = cell phone.

That's a communicator, not a tricorder.:p

[Greenday]

I mean, the scientific method and the artistic method can be summed up like "Hm, I wonder what would happen if X and Y."

The scientific method is a bit more complicated than "I wonder what will happen if I do this?"

[BroomJockey]

The scientific method is a bit more complicated than "I wonder what will happen if I do this?"

Right. It's actually "I think this will happen if I do that." And then you go do that and see if you were right.

[Greenday]

Right. It's actually "I think this will happen if I do that." And then you go do that and see if you were right.

Still a pretty over-simplified version of it. Even the one they teach in schools isn't nearly as extensive as I learned it to be in college.

[BroomJockey]

Still a pretty over-simplified version of it.

Just as Mysty simplified the artistic method, I'd say.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Things aren't nearly as complicated as people try to make them. "What if I put a particle in this machine and smash it into the walls as hard as I can?" is on the same line as "What'll it look like if I take my paintbrush and do this with it?" Sure, people don't think it in such simple terms...I certainly don't, I typically end up with pages of equations when I try to figure things out. But really, it all boils down to What If, and you try to see if you got something that works or you don't.

Also, the question is which is more important, and some people take that to mean "useful" I think. My car is a ton more useful than my cat, I can do more things with it and it has better potential than a white fuzzball that sleeps for 19 hours a day. But to me, my cat is way more important than my car. ;)