Art or science?

[Johanthemonster666]

Both, we need art and science to flourish and survive.
Without science allowing society to progress, art losses its meaning; without art, science has no inspiration to advance.

Look at all the people who've invented some of the most crucial and interesting technology in the past 20 years, they were all inspired by Star Trek and other shows, works of art and media.

 

[kypsilon]

They are both equally important. Science is the result of experimentation and quantitative analysis of our understanding of the world around us. Art is the exploration of the possibility of that which does and might exist around us. The two are not so mutually exclusive that they don't interact in guiding humanity.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Without Science, we wouldn't have the inspiration for Art.
Without Art, we wouldn't have the inspiration for Science.

I could call myself an artist, and so could others. I write a lot of short stories, all of which my friends enjoy. Without science, though, I wouldn't be able to write of a man who seeks revenge on a group of modern day nazis for attacking his mother when he was a boy. We wouldn't be able to write period.
On the other hand, if we didn't write stories of men traveling to other planets, we wouldn't have the imagination of science to attempt such things. We wouldn't try to bring extinct species back to life, or create shuttles to the stars.
Both rely on each other to work as they do today.

 

[Vicarious Vangaurd]

Science is infinitesimally more important. Art looks pretty, science invents new ways of doing things and exploring the world which we have a very limited understanding of already.

 

[The Shade]

I've known scientists who have it down to an art, and I know artists who have it down to a science.

Therefore, the only way to decide is a ceremonial knife fight. Their best man vs. our best man.

(Our best man has a wooden leg with a real foot.)

 

[maturin]

Art made us human long before the scientific method was invented by a handful of people.

Art is the natural expression of imagination, imagination being the thing upon which all human endeavor is dependent.

Imagination is the heartbeat of the human race and art is its pulse. Science is parasitic on that which was already there.

 

[DustyDrB]

If I had to live my life without one, it would be science. Most of the joy I have in life comes by way of art in its many forms. I find meaning in much of art but most often science just leads me to more questions.

In actuality, I am a man of both art and science. I write, make music, study and (lightly now, heavily in the future) practice medicine.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Scientific curiosity and a creative spirit are the two things that define humanity, there's not a choice here that I can imagine making.

More to the point, why would we have to choose?

 

[Astoria]

Personally I'm much more interested in art but I do see that science is important so I say we need to good mixture of both in this world. Life with just science but no art would be dull and predictable. A life without science would be rough and disorganised so you need both.

 

[jovack22]

Science- Most notably physics, due to it applying to EVERYTHING(on some level).

Because our current Biology is based mostly on provably false information...

Let me guess, you majored in physics and are bitter that the biochemistry / biology students are getting most of the research funding from the university.

Most of our current biology is based on vigorously peer-reviewed journals, not provably false information like you're claiming.

If you're thinking biology about biology's flawed theories that served as a stepping stone for later more sound theories, i.e. the theory of evolution, etc, then the same can be said about physics.

The way I see it --
One of the purest forms of philosophies are mathematics, from which physics is strongly based in. Chemistry relies heavily on physics. Biochemistry relies heavily on chemistry, Biology on biochemistry, psychology on biology, social science on psychology... etc

It all fits into a wonderful circle of knowledge.

 

[The Stonker]

Now, which one do you think has a more importance in this world?
For without science, sure we would't be here, but where would we be without art?
So, which one would you pursue personally and why?

funny how OP tries to make this into a super philosophical an thought provoking thread, when in reality he has no Idea what he's talking about and the two cant possibly be compared in the way he describes. art precedes science giving birth to human culture, and often goes hand and hand with science advances. Science promotes art, and art promotes science, there for you cant say one is more important than the other. They are in different fields, and virtually incomparable in the OPs sense.

It's personal preference which I'm asking about you little mong.
But personally I prefer art to science even if they're closely entwined.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

Mythbusters has shown just how beautiful science can be, and art rarely has explosions.

Yea but Myth busters is designed to please the audience with cool new things and explosions while only slightly adding in bits of science. but I guess it is better than nothing.

Science has really helped us more than art, but without art we would all be a bunch of imagination-less, emotion-less metaphorical grey splotches of paint on a grey and bland metaphorical wall.

 

[stonethered]

Not that I like to choose, but I'm more of an artist.

Creativity has always made me happier than analysis. And that is kind of the key arguement, left vs right brain.

 

[templargunman]

Science is an art, and art is a science. I would probably be dead (I mean that literally as in I would be buried in a cemetery underground, not breathing(in case you think I don't know what literally means)) without music, but on the other hand, science has brought me the ability to live more than 30-40 years, if I don't get myself killed.

 

[iLikeHippos]

Gee, that's hard. Decay or... Decay?

Both are just politically incorrect to me.

What on earth do you mean by that? How in the hell is science "politically incorrect"? In what way is it a decay?

To explain this would be to explain the whole phenomenon of the big picture here.
...But I don't feel like it today.

Instead, just take two seconds to analyze just what the dire consequences would be if you'd remove just one of them, taking even the smallest pieces of detail into consideration.

I found one answer; It's just politically incorrect, as it strides against ideas and behavior of society no matter what of the two you pick.

Hope that answered your questions.

 

[AvsJoe]

Now, which one do you think has a more importance in this world?

Science. Art sits at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, whereas science helps provide and/or maintain the bottom, important stuff, like health.

For without science, sure we wouldn't be here, but where would we be without art?

Space, probably. Or dead. We would most certainly be more robotic and probably soulless.

So, which one would you pursue personally and why?

In spite of my views, I'm pursuing art rather than science. It's where I feel I can make more of a difference and it's also where my passions lie.

 

[IndianaJonny]

stupid question, our society needs both, art stops us living in a dystopian 1984esc shitbreak of a world and science stops us catching cholera and gets us to work in the morning. you've got to have balance.

Although if I really had to choose; science (I really like not having cholera.)

Sorry, but that is an uneducated perspective. Medical science is one SMALL aspect of the sciences, and even then, germs, viruses, diseases, etc, an even smaller group.

Space travel? Fusion power? Robotics? Chemical engineering? Biological Engineering? Altering the human genome alone has potential to revolutionise what it means to be human.

The chemistry of the ink that the cavemen used; what was it made of, and how was it preserved for so long? Please explain that without using science.

Circuit experiment: you've never thought of how electricity works, how it flows and interacts with different mediums, as art?

Where would we be without science? About 70 years ago.
Where would we be without art? ... Colosseum. Really, art, whether music, visual, etc. has always been what entertained people. (Other than mindless violence and... you know.)

First of all; this tired argument again! What is people's flag-waving obsession with the need to cry out 'art/science trumps all!!!' when this fanatical crusade for superiority of one field over the other doesn't take place in responsible academia. While the Escapists who I've quoted have been mature and sincere in their comments (which I respect) and direction of argument I feel this reliance on examples of 'products' in these snippets reflect a wider endemic attempt to commit the cardinal sin of both fields - you're confusing cause and effect.

Poems, vaccines, novels, great feats of enginnering, etc. are only the end result of great inventors, artists, discoverers and creators. Anyone who deos their homework into the lives of Blaise Pascal, George Mendel, Francis Bacon, Georges Seurat, Jules Verne, Ray Brabury etc.- great men (and women) throughout Art and Science history, will see that they recognised and embodied the inherrent qualities of both fields and saw no need to trumpet one field over the other. Why? Because they recognised that both fields hold equal right to being manifest expressions of Man's imagination. Does the author who predicts the use of fibre optic cameras assault the drive and motivation of the naturalist who's bird drawings line the walls of the Natural History Museum? The wider academic community acknowledges and reflects this belief in a shared root and quality of purpose - a fact reflected in the name of one of the highest academic qualifications (shared across both fields), the PhD ('Doctor of Philosophy'). So can we stop with this inane 'our side did this, this and this and implies us better than you' that DOES NOT OCCUR in responsible academia, get off our high horses and go and learn something new, challenging and, God forbid, alternative about a field you've been bashing away at out of complete ignorance for that subject's impact on the key figures within your own 'beloved' field.

(Point of Clarification: I'm not addressing the arguments posited by the refenced quotes, their 'examples' content was simply useful and representative of a wider problem in this ill-concieved debate)

 

[Spinozaad]

I've clicked 'Art', reasoning that if someone would put a gun to my head and ask me this false dilemma, I would give such an answer.

Personally, I think the two are different sides of the same coin. And, initially, there was not such a great divide as people here seem to think. What people call 'science' is only, at best, 200 years old. In any case, I think that the human species wants to understand and to explain the world. In its broadest terms art would fall into the former, science in the latter category.

We need both, we want both. A world full of adherents to scientism would be an unimaginable horror, but so would a world with only artists.

Personally, I prefer understanding over explanation. But that's a personal preference.

 

[Verlander]

I didn't vote as it's an unfair comparison. They are completely unrelated.

Actually in a lot of ways they are closely related. Just ask Leonardo da Vinci.

Yea, I'm not going to vote either. In my opinion although they serve different purposes on the surface they are mutually dependant. I'm at uni doing computer science and one of the books we need to read is Godel Escher Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Bach's music, Escher's images, and Godel's maths all mirror each other in really unusual and interesting ways. Also that book is MELTING MY BRAIN.

I was referring to the application of them more than the creation, but you're right