Sciences and humanities more similar than many think

At first, it was hard to accept that I possessed two completely different passions —  it was as if I was diagnosing myself with split personality disorder. 

Throughout college, people have always responded to my microbiology and writing dual degree with something along the lines of: “Oh, what an odd combination! Which one are you going to go into?”

I always wanted to respond that the two subjects aren’t all that different and that I wanted to be both scientist and writer. But science and the humanities remain at a standoff in the context of our larger society. 

But think about it: Successful patrons of the sciences and humanities are characteristically similar. Determination, curiosity, a strong will to look at things the way no one else does and the ability to overcome common failure centers on the study of humans.

Science — encompassing chemistry, physics, biology, math and engineering — is generally taken as the “harder,” more prestigious field. The humanities — language, history, classics, philosophy, writing and art — are stereotypically and, as my parents are always telling me, are the skill-less, unemployable, dispensable, waste-of-money majors reserved for those who see college as a four-year vacation rather than a step towards a career and financial independence.

For two and a half years, I have been on the frontline of the war between the sciences and the humanities. At first it seemed easier to try and pick one. But what I have found is that the two complement each other exceedingly well.

The creativity that drives scientific research and discovery, also fuels artistic production. It is much easier to align creativity with artistic expression — the two are simply synonymous. However, many people who are foreign to scientific research might not know that creativity drives discovery.

As an undergraduate research assistant at UPMC traumatic brain injury lab, I have seen firsthand that research requires you to look at the problem from a different angle than anybody has done before. Science in the real world isn’t simply about reading complex textbooks and knowing difficult mathematical formulas. Most of the time, researchers find themselves without a textbook, without a formula, without even a return on a Google search, as they push the boundaries of what we already know.

Artists do the same thing. They create books, paintings and poems that explore aspects of human life in novel ways. 

The dichotomous standoff between the fields comes from a misunderstanding of the overlapping values of the sciences and humanities. 

There is a contemporary and somewhat romantic notion of what an artist does or what an artist is. Is he or she a bundle of talent who bleeds on a canvas or sits down at a computer and composes a novel? Art is recognized for its product, but it is actually more about the process.

Science, on the other hand, seems to be constantly stuck in the process, such as the constant research required to move toward cures and knowledge. Science disrupts itself and refutes itself, and somehow that is okay. But the non-science world expects products — a cure for cancer or a vaccine for Ebola. In science, products don’t come in the same way as they do in art.

Take for example the golden ratio that drives STEM fields. Phidias, a Greek sculptor, discovered and investigated it, while renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci popularized it. Take, for another example, the discovery of DNA, the genetic material that makes human life possible. James Watson and Francis Crick abandoned the microscopes and the lab bench and cut out paper blocks, fitting them together until they recognized a uniform and consistent shape that we scientists now know as the double helix.

It is commonly believed that very few people exist at the crossroads between science and the humanities. Art people often fear the seemingly unabashed complexity of science. Science people often fear the abstract, open-ended subjectivity of art and creation. What neither realize is how similar the other is, and more importantly, how much the human race could achieve if the two branches finally collided with one another.

Write to Jess at jnc34@pitt.edu