As a computer science major with a linguistics minor and a healthy interest in art and writing, I feel confident that I've been exposed to both microcosms of UCLA's "two cultures". However, I personally have not experienced the divide as strongly as C.P. Snow describes. I recognize familiar faces in classes on opposite sides of campus; my computer science TAs work with linguistic theories and my linguistics TAs code better than I do in their pursuit of data. (I recognize that linguistics lands on the more scientific end of the literary-science spectrum that C.P. Snow describes, but the existence of the field, I believe, is a sign in and of itself that humanities and science may have reconciled in more subtle ways.)
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| Fig 1: A diagram relating linguistics theories to its applications. Particularly of note for the "two cultures" is most of the right side- where do you think Google Translate and Siri stem from? |
The more relevant examination of "two cultures" for me is the gulf between the scientists and the laymen examined in the material of the conference A Dangerous Divide: The Two Cultures in the 21st Century- most importantly, between science and politics. The technological boom of the past few decades is exponential in nature, and unfortunately, the public and their policymakers have fallen prey to the phenomenon examined at the conference: a lack of comprehension of scientific progress by the masses. As Snow stated, "literature changes more slowly than science" (9).
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| Fig 2: A graph describing Moore's Law, which states that technological progress is exponential in nature. | |
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| Fig 3: Compare the trends of the previous graph to this one relating to racial and political trends. Notice the difference? |
An example of this is the Mark Zuckerberg hearing, where the Facebook CEO had to cover the basics of the internet to the Congressmen who were supposed to judge him. Disinformation and virality of social media played a major role in the 2016 election, yet most senators were unable to comprehend the technology that made it possible. How are we supposed to trust in legislation about technology when the creators of the bills don't understand how millennials and later generations were shaped by these forces?
These are the questions I hope can be reconciled through a new wave of contemporary scientists. As technology and science bring about new questions- the morality of self driving cars, the rights of AI, cyber wars conducted by hackers- may the bridge of these two cultures give us answers.
References
Accelerating Growth in Technology [Digital image]. (2019, March 15). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://centristradical.com/economics/growth-sustainability/the-limits-of-moores-law-technological-exponential-growth-is-not-inevitable/
CNETTV (Director). (2018, April 13). Zuckerberg explains the internet to Congress [Video file]. Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbb5B85sd0
A dangerous DIVIDE: The New York Academy of Sciences. (n.d.). Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www.nyas.org/ebriefings/a-dangerous-divide/?tab=meeting+report
Government, T. (2019, April 08). Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg's Senate hearing. Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/transcript-of-mark-zuckerbergs-senate-hearing/
Pragmatics and the use of Language [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/linguistics
Saad, L. (2019, August 16). U.S. Willingness to Vote for a Black Nominee for President, 1958-2019 [Digital image]. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/265490/major-social-changes-years-woodstock.aspx
Significant cyber incidents. (n.d.). Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www.csis.org/programs/strategic-technologies-program/significant-cyber-incidents
Snow, C. P. (1987). The two cultures ; and, A second look: An expanded version of 'The two cultures and the scientific revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vesna, V. (2001). Toward a third culture: Being in between. Leonardo, 34(2), 121-125. doi:10.1162/002409401750184672
The lack of communication and background in science and politics is a very good point. Policy makers who are suppose to govern the high-paced technological advancement don't know the basics of how it works. It is important for politicians to be more aware of at least the basics of the internet or of how ads work. At the same time, scientists should be more proactive in being able to communicate with people who don't share the same scientific background.
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DeleteI definitely agree with you that although the divide between the sciences and arts needs to shorten, I don't notice it being as bad as C.P. Snow describes (at least at UCLA). Most of my friends dabble in both the arts and sciences. I think that most people need to explore both the subjective and the objective to live meaningful lives.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would say Siri stems from Natural Language Processing - it seems like most of the work would be processing the speech into a command. I'd also place Google Translate on the left side of the circle, stemming from Grammar and Stylistics. This one is more of a guess, but I'd think that the biggest hurdle would be translating between the grammars of different languages.
I agree that there's definitely a disconnect between science and politics and that this disconnect has caused some serious problems. Many, if not the majority, of lawmakers are not informed enough on technology or science to make proper regulations and laws on it, especially with the rapid pace at which technology and science develop. It probably doesn't help that keeping policymakers ill-informed suits the interests of giant tech-companies like Facebook as that means there will be less regulations put upon them. I definitely feel like an effort by both lawmakers and scientists needs to be made to communicate/understand how the technology and science that we have built our society on actually works.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a divide between the sciences and literary arts. However, I feel that the gap has only widened since CP Snow's article whether it may be in the separation of lecture halls or the lack of communication of the sciences to outside vocations as outlined in the article. Communication between these two spectrums of vocations are necessary in order for the betterment of the world. As for the incident with Mark Zuckerberg and the Congress hearing, I believe that it is not Congress's poor comprehension of the internet but rather the natural order of how Congress hearings work by defining the terms. Thus, I believe that as communication between these two cultures improved, many existing systems in both cultures must also change along with them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is still a divide between the sciences and literary arts. However, I think that this divide is 2-faced. It is closing in some fields, but is getting larger in other fields. As you mentioned there is a large gap between politics and science, which has caused us to be in a position where the current laws don't suffice for a technological world. However, I also see that field such as NLP have been welcoming to people from multiple disciplines. And by letting these people work together, they're able to share different ideas and understand each other. Thus, I believe that there is a need to close this gap in sectors where it's widening, but for the most part, I think a lot of progress has been made.
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