Carla Champagne
February 2018
Professor Emerson
English 110
Arts role in the sciences
Art does not have a role in the sciences. The arts should only provide a role in the sciences through background knowledge. The sciences are revolved around the scientific process and facts. Art is reliant on the interpretation of creativity and expression. Scientific conclusions can be thought of the same way for each person, since they are facts rather than opinions. Arts however, brings in the idea that each person can interpret an art piece differently and therefore the conclusions from art can be changed or perceived differently. With this being said, the arts and sciences are extreme opposites, and therefore they only benefit from each other in small portions. Although science could benefit from more creativity and new ideas, I believe that this would be better provided through the intermixing of sciences with other topics such as psychology and engineering. Psychology would make students learn about the bigger picture and the reasons behind it. Engineering initiates creativity but in a way that is beneficial to society. A background of arts is beneficial to sciences because it helps invoke creativity, but this is not a strong enough reason to intermix the two opposites or to conclude that the sciences need the arts.
In the context of science, using art to provoke creativity would be interesting and would bring some different questions to the table. However, for neurology specifically, the goal is to see the bigger picture. Psychology aligns more with these goals. By learning about how the brain functions and by using the powers of the brain to learn more about the brain, it will be easier to see the bigger picture. Neurology is defined more as the anatomy and physiology of the brain and how the chemicals interact within the it, whereas psychology focuses more on the complicated ways the brain works, functions and impacts the way people act. By combining these topics, the creativity and new ideas could be brought into neurology.
Engineering paragraph
In the context of sciences other than neurology, initiating creativity is much harder. Providing a background of arts could be beneficial, but not necessarily combing them. Therefore I believe that STEAM instead of STEM is a good idea for primary and secondary education but not necessarily higher education. For example, by providing students with a background in arts can influence them to maintain their creativity throughout higher education and hopefully later on in life. The sciences often lack creativity and could benefit from some new ideas, but these ideas aren’t always from the arts.
STEAM instead of STEM may also help provide students with a way to escape the intense atmosphere of the normal schooling environment. Many students have found that the arts provide them with motivation to go to school since they enjoy these topic more than traditional studies. I believe that arts can be beneficial in this way because it influences students to continue education and keep and open mind. I believe that you can never have too much knowledge, therefore learning about arts will not harm a students’ education in any way. Just because it does not benefit the student as much as many other topics do in my mind, it may make an impact.
By making students take a variety of courses, we can provide students with a wholesum view of their curriculum. This is why the liberal arts model for colleges are popular. Not only does it expose students to all different fields of study, it initiates innovation based on topics other than their major. For example, by taking courses on psychology and sociology, a student can better understand and comprehend the complexities of neuroscience. By introducing new ideas from other topics into students within science majors, they can tie these ideas back into the things they learn in science and bring new ideas into their minds.
Although the arts can be used in education by providing students with different and unique ways of learning. Since every student learns through different processes, arts can be used to better represent concepts. For example, many scientific processes are explained in a simpler fashion through diagrams and pictures. In chemistry, models of molecules and reactions can make a student better understand the overall process.
However, by learning solely through arts, you aren’t really learning about concepts. I think this is an important point to consider because the sciences can only benefit from the arts in the form of initiating creativity, not by making a better scientist or by improving the ideas of science. The arts dont really initiate learning. You aren’t gaining actual knowledge from the arts, just ideas and interpretations that are different for each individual. EXPAND ON THIS. ItAnother point that is important to consider is that some “bigger pictures” will never be seen. Some of the world’s problems will never be solved. Some of the scientific questions will never be answered. Although this is pessimistic, it is also the actuality. Intermixing arts with sciences will not solve all these problems like the authors of these essays seem to conclude.
By learning about the arts, a student can use their full brain to solve problems.
Photography is a special kind of art in my mind that could be used to benefit the sciences. For example, in providing evidence of global warming, a guy photographed glaciers melting over time and provided visual evidence of the scientific processes occuring. I think this is more beneficial to influence a population rather than influence scientists though. It is not cold, hard evidence, but it provides the public with images to think of that are easily accessible and this makes it easy to see the impacts.
