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Thor (and Jerry): I couldn't agree more. In fact, I
would say that it is no accident that there is a much greater interest in art of
all forms among scientists than the other way around. Snow became famous writing
books about the two cultures and while there certainly seems to be serious
distaste for science amongst nonscientists, the exact opposite is true of
scientists. Being one of the latter, I've always found it striking that such a
great percentage of scientists are really serious amateur musicians, painters,
or writers. Of course, the number of scientists and medical people who have gone
way beyond amateur status in literature is huge.
A lot of people seem to think that science is
restricted to drudge work --- reducing data to tables and statistics. There
certainly is that kind of work, and lots of it, in most areas of science, but
that usually follows the purely intuitive/creative work that produces the
hypotheses that are then refuted or supported by the hard data reduction.
Imagine the mental process leading to the double helix hypothesis for DNA. If
that wasn't an "artistic" creative process, then nothing that sculptors do is
either.
My 2 cents....
Bert
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