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What is Science? What is Art? What’s the Difference?

What is Science? What is Art? What’s the Difference?. James P. Evans MD, Ph.D Festival of Ideas University of Alberta 100 th Anniversary 14 November 2008. Science & Art. Art and Science are Ancient Human Activities.

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What is Science? What is Art? What’s the Difference?

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  1. What is Science?What is Art?What’s the Difference? James P. Evans MD, Ph.D Festival of Ideas University of Alberta 100th Anniversary 14 November 2008

  2. Science & Art

  3. Art and Science are Ancient Human Activities • Both likely began as efforts to understand and control a frightening and impersonal world

  4. Commonality Between Art and SciencePassion & Creativity

  5. Art and Science are Ubiquitous Influences in our Lives • Science affects every moment of our lives • We seek Art in everything we do

  6. Architecture as the blending of Art and Engineering

  7. We Evolved as Seekers • We seek out science for material reasons • But we also pursue it for its own sake • Humanity is driven to create • A fact which is explicable through evolutionary theory • Seeking and answering were powerful traits that empowered human ancestors • And gave us a selective advantage • Seeking, Creating, Questioning • The job description of both scientist and artist

  8. The Artist and the Scientist as Iconoclasts

  9. Art and Science are Different • The rules of Art and Science differ, as do their product • Art is whatever we decide it is • Art flaunts rules • In the end, art is what resonates with us as humans • Whatever we call art is art in the most profound sense

  10. Art is Lawless • Its trajectory is evident only in retrospect • We cannot predict what tomorrow’s Art might be

  11. Science Has a Trajectory • Science more adequately describes the universe than what came before • There is a “right answer” in Science • That which better describes external reality • Ptolemy was wrong • Copernicus was right

  12. Science has Strict RulesThe Scientific Toolkit Observation Hypothesis Measurement Refined observation Predictions Experiment Tentative Conclusions Predictions Revision (or discarding) of conclusions Collective / Cumulative

  13. The Universality of Science & the Humanity of Art • Art is an intensely and uniquely human endeavor • It is ultimately “tethered” to the human condition and the human brain • Science is strictly tethered to the universe • It ultimately is not “about us”

  14. Science in a Distant Galaxy

  15. Art in a Distant Galaxy

  16. Science, Art and Meaning • Science is our best developed method yet for understanding and exploring the world • Science can make our lives richer • It can also impoverish or threaten our lives • But ultimately it stands apart from humanity • Science is defined by the universe • Art is the quintessential human endeavor • Its purpose is to invest life with meaning and connect us with fellow humans • Its only rule is that it must evoke human emotion and resonance • Art is defined by the human mind

  17. The Limits of Science and ArtA Paradox Science provides a uniquely powerful portal through which to know the world It can even explain (through neurobiology and evolutionary biology) why we need human connection and emotional warmth But it cannot fulfill those needs For that we need Art striatum frontal cortex hippocampus substantia nigra/VTA nucleus accumbens

  18. Science, Art and Empowerment of the Human “There is a grandeur in this view of life” “Only Connect”

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