It is certainly true that people will flock towards science when given the choice between these two. Why? Let’s start out with the basic reasons. Science is something grounded in facts and experiments; if you have a theory, you must form a hypothesis, and then list the materials and what experiment you will conduct with constants and variables and come to a logical conclusion. Art…is more about the interpretation. With science, you can have supporting evidence and references, while with art, you can have similar styles but never the same piece of art ever again. It cannot be proved or supported in any tangible way, just by feelings and interpretation. Most people are not okay with this because they need security, they need to be sure about what they know and thus, science is the place to go. The question does always come back to “what is art” since this is where art jumps into ambiguity and the unknown. There is no formula to create art, and no table of requirements to surely say that yes, this painting is art.
If one can release the need to be grounded and have everything confirmed, however, art is clearly the better choice (or maybe I feel this way because I hate science). Art provides much more freedom for expression and while nothing is for certain, that’s not always a bad thing. Art allows room for others’ opinions and beliefs while science doesn’t really do this. While both methods are representations of the outside world, I feel like art gives it more meaning because it asks how each person perceives that outside world, while science simply provides explanations for why the world is the way it is (also very useful.)
