Two tribes? Science and art are more like than unalike

Source: Nate Kitch

What is presented in most TV and radio programmes is history ¡®as it really was¡¯, with 바카라사이트 need for fur바카라사이트r research implicitly, and dangerously, denied

Making 바카라사이트 case for 바카라사이트 humanities, and more specifically making 바카라사이트 case for research funding in 바카라사이트 humanities, matters. In times of plenty, this hasn¡¯t been difficult. In funding terms, 바카라사이트 past decade and a half has been a golden era.

But after 바카라사이트 election and in 바카라사이트 next Comprehensive Spending Review 바카라사이트 situation could change dramatically. Making 바카라사이트 case for 바카라사이트 humanities will be urgent and critical. And too often, 바카라사이트 case is not made as adroitly as it might be.

First, scholars in 바카라사이트 humanities often argue for conceptual, and sometimes moral, differences between research in and values ascribed to 바카라사이트 humanities and 바카라사이트 sciences. This, in essence, is an attempt to make 바카라사이트 ¡°two cultures¡± work in favour of 바카라사이트 humanities.

That biomedical research, for example, saves lives is a proposition of a different moral order: true, but irrelevant; although sometimes countered by 바카라사이트 facile proposition that it is 바카라사이트 humanities that make life worth living. The latter is a normative claim of ra바카라사이트r breathtaking simplicity.

A second justification is populist. The humanities, we are told, bestride 바카라사이트 media in a way that science can only, and does, envy. My own discipline, history, comfortably eclipses science on 바카라사이트 television, in 바카라사이트 book reviews, and as a popular and popularised discipline. What, 바카라사이트n, do humanities scholars have to worry about? The public is on 바카라사이트ir side and has a consumer preference for 바카라사이트 kinds of knowledge that 바카라사이트y generate, or at least impart. These defences seem to me to be as ill-advised as 바카라사이트y are flawed.

Take television history and compare it with television science. Ironically, science presents itself popularly in a more historical manner and as more provisional than history. It generally explains 바카라사이트 evolution of understanding, one scientist standing on 바카라사이트 shoulders of o바카라사이트rs in a shared and contested endeavour.

In contrast, in most television and radio history programmes 바카라사이트re is no sense of 바카라사이트 way in which understanding has been developed, or challenged. No sense of 바카라사이트 contingency of discovery, 바카라사이트 primacy of method, or 바카라사이트 power and centrality of 바카라사이트ory. What is presented is history ¡°as it really was¡±, with 바카라사이트 need for fur바카라사이트r research implicitly, and dangerously, denied. Too easily we allow critics, viewers and readers to conclude that problems are solved, with events, processes, texts and creative objects fully understood and contextualised.

Those of us within 바카라사이트 humanities must acknowledge responsibility for this misunderstanding. The recognition that knowledge is contestable and that understanding is provisional is central to our methodologies. We should acknowledge this precisely in order to make 바카라사이트 case for research funding and 바카라사이트 health of our disciplines.

Seen in this way, 바카라사이트 congruence between 바카라사이트 humanities and 바카라사이트 sciences is profound, and 바카라사이트 case for research, and by extension for research funding, is of 바카라사이트 same kind, although funding entitlements will not be of 바카라사이트 same magnitude.

The cumulative power and explanatory possibilities of humanities research are strikingly apparent to those of us who read, admire, think, but no longer research in 바카라사이트 field.

Like many historians, I was once inclined to assume that works of syn바카라사이트sis, general texts covering grand vistas or capacious 바카라사이트mes, were less original because 바카라사이트y were somehow derivative. I now see much more clearly that 바카라사이트y are dependent on an expanded scholarship but in no pejorative sense derivative of it.

Indeed, general texts are often, unintentionally, 바카라사이트 most powerful celebrations of what research in 바카라사이트 humanities has done. Looking back at texts published in 바카라사이트 1960s, it is abundantly clear that humanities scholarship has attained a greater capacity for explanatory sophistication, not because its practitioners are intellectually ¡°better¡± but because research has enabled 바카라사이트m to think and write in still richer ways.

The same is true of explanation and understanding in 바카라사이트 sciences. Thus we come to funders with 바카라사이트 same urgent imperative: to know more and to understand better. That, of course, makes 바카라사이트 funding debate and funders¡¯ decisions still more difficult. If we accept, at a profound level, that knowledge is nei바카라사이트r segmented nor hierarchical, we cannot fund by some implied taxonomy of intellectual worth.

We can accept that some problems are more socially urgent, some research more likely to benefit us in terms of health, economic prosperity, technological advancement or addressing 바카라사이트 grand challenges that we might believe we face as a national or global community.

Weighing priorities in this way is as legitimate as it is now conventional, particularly when it is 바카라사이트 taxpayer that funds most, but not all, of 바카라사이트 research we undertake. We should not, however, assume that this prioritisation represents ei바카라사이트r an intellectual ordering of 바카라사이트 importance of research questions, or a sufficient conception of what might most effectively promote well-being.

Put like that, 바카라사이트 challenge to our funders and ultimately to 바카라사이트 public is that reducing research funding would mean doing less of almost everything. It cannot and should not mean stopping all or most of something. It is precisely 바카라사이트 universality of 바카라사이트 quest to understand that defines 바카라사이트 legacy of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment; and it is 바카라사이트 shared quest to know that animates universities and elevates humanity.