Science and Art

[Sheilbh]

I've been reading a lot of Victorian novels, Victoriana and poetry lately. One of the really striking things is how close the relationship is between science and these works. Whole chunks of Tennyson are influenced by Lyell's geological discoveries and the crisis of faith they caused.

There's a general assumption in the novels that these successful, interesting middle class men (generally) would have an active interest in the sciences. They would read the latest works on natural science. There is even a practical element that there's a few amateur -ologists of different types.

The whole subject of science, inquiry and discovery is a topic that's seen as fitting to be covered in fiction of poetry.

The odd thing for me is that I can't think of a modern authors or (with a couple of exceptions) poets. I think Ian McEwan might do to some extent, but I've not read any of his stuff.

So I've two questions. First, does anyone know of modern writers who are engaged in and interested in scientific developments as part of their work? Secondly, why did the division happen? Was it the professionalisation of both? Did the science just become a bit too complex? Was it a 20th century scepticism towards something so positivist as scientific discoveries? Some combination of all of the above. Either way I think both are losing out in some way.

[Razgovory]

I'm not sure what you mean.  Certainly modern novels refer to science and scientific disciplines.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure what you mean.  Certainly modern novels refer to science and scientific disciplines.

Like? The only one that springs to mind is that Ian McEwan novel about the brain surgeon (which I've not read).

Edit: And refer to is very different to addressing or dealing with a topic as part of the whole novel.

[Tonitrus]

Some of Michael Crichton's novels come to mind...in fact, I thought that was his schtick.

[dps]

I'm guessing that the real answer isn't that science became too complex, per se, but rather that it became too specialized.  In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the ideal of the educated man was a renaissance man.  Writers could reasonably assume that their readers would be generally familiar with the whole spectrum of science.  By the late 19th/early 20th century, this was no longer true.  Even scientists themselves now often have only the most rudimentary understanding of sciences outside of their own specialities.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, I'm not accepting the premise, if for no other reason than that there is a genre of writing called "hard science-fiction" that encompasses thousands of entries.  Arthur C. Clarke was a scientist.  And, more currently and beyond the SF ghetto, fully 40% of Michel Houllebecq's novels are still straight-up science fiction, both being told as histories read by and in Possibility of an Island's case, partially, and in Elementary Particles' case, wholly, written by a transhuman future person.

And in other literary fields, writers are reading about science, even if they're not fully understanding it, or deliberately misinterpret it for the sake of story; in comics, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Mark Waid are all reasonably well-read laymen with a clear interest in the sciences; in film, Andrew Niccol at least cares about life sciences.

[CountDeMoney]

So I've two questions. First, does anyone know of modern writers who are engaged in and interested in scientific developments as part of their work? Secondly, why did the division happen? Was it the professionalisation of both? Did the science just become a bit too complex? Was it a 20th century scepticism towards something so positivist as scientific discoveries? Some combination of all of the above. Either way I think both are losing out in some way.

Like Tonitrus mentioned, as far as mass paperback writers go, that is Michael Creighton's schtick, or at least he was the first to do it on the best seller list since Robin Cook in the 70s, who did it from a distinctly medical angle;  hell, I remember we had to read Jurassic Park for a Science and Philosophy course when it was first published, before there were plans for a movie.  And, as far as its merits as a book, there are some excellent dialogues in it regarding the ethics of scientific discovery, particularly with Ian Malcolm's character, who is a much bigger driver in the book regarding the impact of chaos theory on the rigidity of empiricism and the predictability of the scientific method than he got in the film.  A few of Creighton's works do that;  he's very big on using characters in set-piece dialogues on contemporary science.

As dps said, there was a distinct romance between The Educated Man and the Scientific Revolution throughout the 19th century that didn't just hit literature, but all forms of the arts, with the premise that knowledge and science could, would and must eventually unlock all secrets.  But there were pushbacks;  look at the pre-Raphaelites.  And literature has always been reactionary and questioning when it comes to prevailing dogma and contemporary authority, and no different with the elevation of science to a religion--and it was manifesting itself right alongside the Scientific Revolution, beginning as early as Mary Shelley, through Whitman and all the way to Proust.

The division of science from the arts over the last 100+ years?  Yeah, there are the issues of specializations, the narrowing of scientific fields involved to the point that it is inaccessible to the commoners or even other scientists (dps was right on about that)...but regarding the "20th century skepticism" you mentioned, maybe if science and its scientists didn't believe in the inviolability of scientific achievement, that all scientific progress is inherently virtuous and that it must go forward at all costs regardless of impact or the participation of society not to question it or hold it accountable, but to blindly acquiesce to it...well, there's a division between science and the arts, alright...but it's not the arts that have the problem. 

Maybe if science didn't place itself upon its own pedestal (or placed upon it by its own actors and an unquestioning society), perhaps the majority of writers wouldn't have such an adversarial relationship with it the last century or two. 

[CountDeMoney]

Damn, I was all over the place on that post.  Stupid science.

[Martinus]

Sheilbh, do you mean "poets" when you are talking about "writers"? Because there is a hell lot of prose writers (especially in science-fiction genre - duh) who are vividly interested in science and many of them have scientific or science-related careers.

The best example I can think of is Stanislaw Lem who wrote a lot of essays and books (e.g. "Summa Technologica") on what can be called "philosophy of science" and was a medical doctor. Many of his novels dealt with the issue of the limits of scientific progress too.

[Martinus]

Also, there was a lot of science-related poetry in the Eastern Bloc. While a lot of it was propaganda hackery, some of these authors were very good and really believing in progress/science, especially in the early post-war era. The Polish literature Nobel Prize winner, Wislawa Szymborska, wrote some poems about this, for example.

[Viking]

It's more a case of a growing fear and skepticism of progress over the last 100 years. Yes, you had luddites who feared that going faster than 25 mph in Stephenson's rocket would cause death, just like today we have luddites who think that a tomato gene in a tomato will not cross species barriers, but that the same tomato gene in corn will.

While science literacy among the educated elite might (relatively speaking) have been greater at that time due to less science existing and thus less specialization being needed to understand it I don't think this is the case. I think there are two main factors

1- science being used for war
2- the democratization of society

Science being used for war is not a new topic, H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds and predicted strategic bombing and the atom bomb. He was, however, a lone voice. There was more hope regarding scientific progress than there was fear. Even Lenin was a science fan proclaiming that Bolshevism was Communism plus Electrification.

Once gas was used in WWI and the bomb in WWII people began to fear human extinction through science and that progress meant that at some point some ever worse weapon might come into existence. It's the kids who grew up in the shadow of the bomb that killed the hope that science represented for the future and moved the focus to what can and will kill us.

I'm pretty sure that with the bomb we reached a hump. Welles was right about some of the dangers, but he was unable to understand that we react. Just like Alfred Nobel and others were sure that the sheer firepower of an army corps in 1910 would be able wipe out another army corps in one minute of combat Welles was unable to see the reaction. Creighton has been mentioned but the problem with him is that all his science is bunk and he has descended into climate change denialism and other  bs attitudes.

The second factor, the democratization of society. In 1912 they ignored the milk maid who thought that vaccines caused harm, in 2012 she gets on Oprah. What Oprah says about cloning, global warming, fascilitated communication and vaccines and autism matters much much more than the specialists in the field. In fact combine the two (the clear fact that science has been used for evil with the need to respect the unreasoned emoting of the plebs) then we get a good reason to actively distrust scientists because either authority is bad, progress is scary or whatever.

It's been a long story from the pure optimism of Verne, to the warning flaggs of Welles to the mechanization or war in the trenches to the scientization of war with the panzers to the rise of the "mad scientist" to the shadow of the bomb and to the relativisation of the elite to the inability of the generalist to keep up with the various specialized fields of science.

Google "Ben Goldacre Daily Mail" to see the final point in this process. The think is that science fiction also died in the 1950's and 1960's, don't forget that. Since then we have only had space drama, space action and the space social commentary. All attempts since then have featured science as "the bad guy" or put the fault in the "hubris of scientists thinking they can play god".

This tells us much about today we fear the future today, while we longed for it 100 years ago.

[Martinus]

There are still many writers like Verne. The thing is, in his era he was considered a mainstream writer because there was no sci-fi genre. In the 20th century, the sci-fi has become so popular it became its own genre and, as a result, its own ghetto so it is no longer recognized as mainstream literature. There, imo, lies the fallacy of Sheilbh's original statement that modern writers are not interested in science.

[Martinus]

Not to mention, the two youngest arts - cinema and tv (that did not exist in the Victorian era, but took over a lot of the role popular literature and poetry used to hold) is virtually awash with discourse of science and its role, with some of the most popular movies and tv series being sci-fi.

And since noone really reads poetry anymore, it's not relevant to the mainstream perception of culture. But mainstream culture is *very* interested in science, imo.

[Martinus]

It's more a case of a growing fear and skepticism of progress over the last 100 years. Yes, you had luddites who feared that going faster than 25 mph in Stephenson's rocket would cause death, just like today we have luddites who think that a tomato gene in a tomato will not cross species barriers, but that the same tomato gene in corn will.

While science literacy among the educated elite might (relatively speaking) have been greater at that time due to less science existing and thus less specialization being needed to understand it I don't think this is the case. I think there are two main factors

1- science being used for war
2- the democratization of society

Science being used for war is not a new topic, H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds and predicted strategic bombing and the atom bomb. He was, however, a lone voice. There was more hope regarding scientific progress than there was fear. Even Lenin was a science fan proclaiming that Bolshevism was Communism plus Electrification.

Once gas was used in WWI and the bomb in WWII people began to fear human extinction through science and that progress meant that at some point some ever worse weapon might come into existence. It's the kids who grew up in the shadow of the bomb that killed the hope that science represented for the future and moved the focus to what can and will kill us.

I'm pretty sure that with the bomb we reached a hump. Welles was right about some of the dangers, but he was unable to understand that we react. Just like Alfred Nobel and others were sure that the sheer firepower of an army corps in 1910 would be able wipe out another army corps in one minute of combat Welles was unable to see the reaction. Creighton has been mentioned but the problem with him is that all his science is bunk and he has descended into climate change denialism and other  bs attitudes.

The second factor, the democratization of society. In 1912 they ignored the milk maid who thought that vaccines caused harm, in 2012 she gets on Oprah. What Oprah says about cloning, global warming, fascilitated communication and vaccines and autism matters much much more than the specialists in the field. In fact combine the two (the clear fact that science has been used for evil with the need to respect the unreasoned emoting of the plebs) then we get a good reason to actively distrust scientists because either authority is bad, progress is scary or whatever.

It's been a long story from the pure optimism of Verne, to the warning flaggs of Welles to the mechanization or war in the trenches to the scientization of war with the panzers to the rise of the "mad scientist" to the shadow of the bomb and to the relativisation of the elite to the inability of the generalist to keep up with the various specialized fields of science.

Google "Ben Goldacre Daily Mail" to see the final point in this process. The think is that science fiction also died in the 1950's and 1960's, don't forget that. Since then we have only had space drama, space action and the space social commentary. All attempts since then have featured science as "the bad guy" or put the fault in the "hubris of scientists thinking they can play god".

This tells us much about today we fear the future today, while we longed for it 100 years ago.

I think you are oversimplifying it for the sake of a nice thesis. There has always been the anti-technology undercurrent, but at the same time I think it is very silly to say science and technology today is only presented as a threat. Star Trek wouldn't be the most popular tv show in the world, if people were only afraid of science and not fascinated by it anymore.

Besides, science has always been used for war, so I fail to see how this makes its perception of the last 100 years unique. And democratisation of the society is not really that much of an argument either - since, essentially, culture always speaks to its consumers, but the consumption of culture spreads with the spread of education - so an average consumer of culture today is probably not less educated than an average consumer of culture in the Victorian era.

[Martinus]

So to summarize my rather choppy argument:

1. Modern fiction is so interested in science it even has its own sub-genre called science-fiction.
2. Modern poetry is not interested in science that much, but this is not because science is not relevant to it, but because modern poetry is no longer relevant for modern culture and engages mainly in useless navel-gazing.
3. The two most relevant modern arts - television and cinema - are all over science and are fascinated with it.