Science and the humanities: bridging the gap

A little more than two decades ago, the late C. P. Snow ignited a worldwide academic controversy with publication of his Rede lecture, "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution." Scientists and technologists loved it because the essay scolded the humanities for their ignorance about science in a world shaped by it. Literary scholars, however, said the book was too narrow, too biased in favor of the scientific world view, and too simplistic to be convincing. Worse, they said, the essay itself was bad literature. "It is unfortunate that C. P. Snow gave us these two cultures," said Johns Hopkins classicist Richard Macksey at a recent conference on science and literature, "because he had a shallow concept of science and literature. From reading Snow, I don't know what he meant by culture." But haggling over the meaning of words is the way it always goes in the humanities. And with good reason. Without agreement on ...