The Two Cultures by C. P. Snow

Historically, there is ample evidence that science has progressed steadily for thousands of years starting in astronomy from the Egyptians, Babylonians and Chinese c 3000 BC; to Pythagoras’ Music of the Spheres, c 580 BC; to Aristotle who many believe was the founder of science, c 384 BC; to Euclid’s mathematics, c 325 BC; to Archimedes practical discoveries, c 290 BC; through years to Copernicus’ sun-centered universe in 1503; to Kepler’s laws of planetary motion in 1609; to Galileo’s planetary discovery in 1609; and the list goes on and on including scientists to the present. This vast listing of scientists continues throughout time and fills volumes of books with thousands of scientists who have contributed in all fields of science to the present. (This initial listing of scientists is included in The Science Book, 2001, edited by Peter Tallack.) Science teachers call this huge collection of scientific discoveries over the years by thousands of scientists the ‘house-of-cards’ that science is built upon where one discovery, theory, law, etc. builds upon and supports another discovery in an endless chain which is ultimately categorized as the sciences of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. or collectively, science. The actual use of the word scientist first appeared in an article in 1834 by a Mrs. Summerville. (Quarterly Review, 101, 1834, 59)

Over time the benefits from science seemed to level the playing field between science and the literary world giving hope for a better future for mankind. The book by British chemist, novelist, and government official C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures, is frequently referenced to illustrate the division between science and literature. He defined these two cultures as polar groups: on one side the literary intellectuals who identified themselves as true intellectuals to the exclusion of the other group, the scientists. Snow summarizes:

The non-scientists have a rooted impression that the scientists are shallowly optimistic, unaware of man’s condition. One the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight, particularly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential moment. (page 5)

In the famous Rede lecture/debate at Cambridge in 1959 between Snow, the advocate for scientific education and F. R. Leavis, a leading literary figure, Snow titled his lecture The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. His address focuses on those two polar groups - literary intellectuals (natural Luddites) and scientists. Snow notes scientists’ optimism and moral component to ‘get things done’ to improve the plight of humanity versus literature which changes more slowly being more content to document the human condition. His frustration is clear, in response to the attack by the literary intellectuals on the illiteracy of scientists, when he asks how many non-scientists know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Snow states: “Their response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?” (page 15)

The transformation of society from agriculture to an industrial-scientific one led to many advances in improvements in health, nutrition, and overall well being that dramatically benefited humankind. But as Snow points out that as science organizes a society for industry, leading to positive benefits for mankind, science also makes it easier to organize mankind for war and other negative outcomes. The continued change, via science, from an industrial society to an atomic, electrical, technological society and soon a nano/robotic/genetic one is truly a scientific revolution, and one that continues to yield both positive and negative results. One question is how ignorant have scientists been in respect to the applications of their discoveries? In 1933, Ernest Rutherford, the scientist who discovered the nucleus of the atom, did not believe that nuclear energy would ever be released, yet a few years later at the University of Chicago, the nuclear scientist Enrico Fermi started the first controlled chain reaction of uranium which ultimately lead to the development of the atomic era. This single event epitomizes the inability of great scientists to foresee the application of their discoveries. This is undoubtedly why Leavis, of the other culture, would question those who believe that science will solve all of our problems.