Art or science?

[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

 

[Spencer Petersen]

When something only happens once, its art, when it happens twice, its science. One is studying unique phenomena, one is studying patterns and relationships. Ultimately, science seems more important, but both are essentially the same thing.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

What people call 'science' is only, at best, 200 years old.

Well, as long as humans have observed patterns in nature, science has existed, so science is as old as humanity itself.

Modern science is about 400 years old, but that's a discussion for another day

 

[ApeShapeDeity]

Both, baby, both!

I'm educated in both areas. Would you ask DaVinci to choose between the passions?

Fuck no! Aside from the fact that he'd have told you the two aren't that far removed, he'd tell you to go fuck yourself.

Technical and creative abilities are independent of one another, but in ideal, work in unison. Typically, this is how we breed our genius minds!

 

[Spinozaad]

What people call 'science' is only, at best, 200 years old.

Well, as long as humans have observed patterns in nature, science has existed, so science is as old as humanity itself.

Modern science is about 400 years old, but that's a discussion for another day

That definition of 'science' creates a backdoor that allows people to maintain this retarded Art Contra Science battle. When people use the word 'science', they generally use it to refer to a vaguely determined realm that ranges somewhere from 'people in white coats in labs doing... sciency things...' to the almost religious ideas of scientism and positivism.

You're right that people have tried to explain nature ever since they were around, but the divide between 'science' and 'art' is only about 200 years old.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Science, I think. Think about the theory of evolution, for example; its beauty surpasses that of the most intricate and elaborate painting or piece of music. Its implications delve into the human condition on a deeper level than any novel, and the study of its mechanisms combines elements of speculation, history, creation..
I chose biology because I'm not very well-versed in any other scientific field, but I'm sure the same applies across the board.
I do believe that art serves a purpose, however. As a celebration of what we have and can become, as a means of spreading ideas and of introspection on an individual and species-wide level.

 

[WhatHityou]

Science as it's basically the rules of everything.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

What people call 'science' is only, at best, 200 years old.

Well, as long as humans have observed patterns in nature, science has existed, so science is as old as humanity itself.

Modern science is about 400 years old, but that's a discussion for another day

That definition of 'science' creates a backdoor that allows people to maintain this retarded Art Contra Science battle. When people use the word 'science', they generally use it to refer to a vaguely determined realm that ranges somewhere from 'people in white coats in labs doing... sciency things...' to the almost religious ideas of scientism and positivism.

You're right that people have tried to explain nature ever since they were around, but the divide between 'science' and 'art' is only about 200 years old.

Observing phenomena in the physical world and then breaking it down into relationships and patterns is the basis of science. The white lab coat persona is just a pop culture justification, but when you really get to the heart of science its as simple as possible. Would you not consider Plato a scientist? He observed many things about his world and he sought to find relationships between them. In his time people would perform theater, and it was unique in that each story was told through subtle actions and styles of the actors, organizer, writers, investors etc, and even different in how the audience interpreted it. People here are right is saying that Da Vinci was both a scientist and an artist, but not because science was art. He was a scientist in that he observed the world and derived relationships. He saw that the human body has similar proportions in his Vitruvian Man diagram, but he used this knowledge to create art. He saw that art by definition was unique, so he utilized his own personal form with his own personal style to make the Mona Lisa, what is considered to be a representation of himself as a female.

Point is, even though in the popular culture the distinction may be stupid, it doesn't mean the argument itself has to be. Science and art are simply the difference between plurality and singularity, between 2 and 1. Art is by definition a one-time occurrence, because there will never be another being that thinks exactly like you, lives in the same environment as you, and behaves the same as you. But science is its opposite. When you mix Sodium and chlorine you will assume that they will form salt in the right circumstances, because humans have done it again and again and seen the pattern.

Because they are opposites, to lose one would result in the loss of another. Without knowing the patterns of the physical world how can we tell when something is unique?

 

[Magic Muffin Man]

I'm voting for art, although I'm a bit biased as I'm studying to be a filmmaker, am deep into the local theater scene, and write poetry.

 

[Whitenail]

I'm going to go with art. Science is cool (I mean without it this forum wouldn't exist) but I love that which is art by our own definitions.

As to which has been more important in society's progress...I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to be honest.

 

[Wilko316]

My perception of the world is that everything is an art in one way or another.
Sure science has answered alot of things, but isn't the fun in the theories? We get alot more opinionated about art than science.
I think science is more important when you get right down to it but my life revolves around art and the creation of art.

 

[Hamon]

I conceive in science only..