I think that we choose to explain the world around us using science because that is what we as a society have grown accustomed to. From very early on, children are taught the rules of science and we are taught that these rules govern our world. By contrast, in schools that do choose to offer art, it is seen as a creative way of expressing one’s self- not as a means of explaining one’s surroundings. People have chosen to pay so much more attention to the sciences because sciences are a safety net. Sciences are predictable, based on factual information, and are uniform throughout a population. We know that a fact is a fact, and there is no room for interpretation. When it comes to art, how do we know that the feeling something evokes in us (or the degree of that feeling) will be the same among different people? We can’t be sure because art and the way a person views art will vary and cannot be quantized or measured. There is one thing I must point out though. I think science and art are becoming more and more interconnected. We soon may be able to “measure emotions” as Professor Weinroth has mentioned in her post. If we get excited, we can measure our heartbeat. We can also measure certain hormones that our bodies release. Soon enough, with the help of science, our perceptions of art may be able to be analyzed just how scientific data is analyzed now.
But in my opinion, science and art are already much more similar than people believe. I think that science and art share the same goal- to help us give meaning and build an understanding of the world around us. Both art and science need creativity. Scientists need creativity to develop new ideas that can explain certain phenomena and artists need it to create their works. The reason they are perceived to be so different is that people apply them in such different ways.
