ambitiously, i propose a series

While I always enjoy seeing what everyone in the Collective is up to (and may be somewhat guilty of substituting web-monitoring for actual contact with many of the members), I was especially interested in a line of discourse opened by Hali late last month. What I present to you here is the first in what I hope to be a series of brief essays inspired by your members’ perception of, for lack of a better term, the “conflict” between science and art.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to make something completely clear: I am a scientist. I have, like many of you, already made a vocational decision that reflects my ultimate opinion on the subject more than this series ever could. That said, I became a contributor to the Collective because I believe that there is value is maintaining an interdisciplinary dialogue along the art/science continuum. (Where architecture falls along this spectrum is not really for me to say.) I am less interested in drawing conclusions from these writings than in provoking discussion, so if something I say offends your sensibilities (artistic or otherwise), you should let me know why. I’m living in Baltimore these days: I’m fairly resilient.

(Click on to read the rest...)

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future--must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.
Hippocrates

A great deal more is known than has been proved.
Richard Feynman

The toughest part of approaching any problem, I think, is to figure out where to start. Taking the advice of Julie Andrews, I have decided to begin at the beginning (but not, as it turns out, to seduce and marry my employer or to make my clothing out of draperies. We can’t all be so lucky.). In response to a fundamental issue that I perceived in the conversation, I’m going to go ahead and call this installation

Science v. Medicine: the qualifying round,

which I hope will serve as a delicate reminder that, not only are the professions of science and medicine disparate, but the people who practice them are motivated by different philosophies and evaluated by different criteria, even when the end is the same.

While the goal of both a scientist and a physician may be the same (to end Terrible Disease X, let’s say), the fundamental approach to those goals is different. (For the sake of simplicity, I’m leaving money out of this. Mo’ money, mo’ problems, longer essay.) To the scientist, we stereotypically attribute a drive related to the thrill of discovery (“Oh! That’s how Terrible Disease X works!”); to the doctor, a humanitarian desire to help people overcome illness (“Did you know that 98% of deaths from Terrible Disease X are actually preventable?”). Medicine is a field based upon the treatment of patients, a treatment that, if all goes well, results in the restoration and maintenance of that individual’s health. Doctors who treat their patients as human petri dishes are, categorically, bad at their jobs. Medicine is not the investigatory element, the component that delves into causation and other complexities; the value of medicine is not judged by whether or not the treatment prescribed is rational, but whether or not it is effective. Thus, it is hardly relevant to the advancement of medicine whether the mechanism of a drug is known or a particular disease-causing agent is isolated so long as the drug works and the disease is effectively combated. Consider aspirin: while its production for public consumption began in 1899, it was nearly seventy years before the precise mechanism of its action was elucidated and then, it was not physicians who did it: it was scientists.

Science, unlike medicine, is not merely a trade: science is a philosophy. This statement may make you sort of uncomfortable, especially if you are accustomed to watching movies, since Hollywood is pathetically preoccupied with the idea of Scientist as Very Severe Mischaracterization of a Utilitarian, whose ends always justify his sinister means. This perception not only does science an injustice, it grossly oversimplifies utility (hrm...do I smell another topic?), so I’m going to go ahead and encourage you to stop thinking of all scientists this way. No, the common philosophy of science is not utility, but an assumption: that all phenomena have natural explanations. This assumption is called, appropriately, naturalism, and you might say that it is one thing (the most fundamental, although not the only) on which all scientists must agree. Without it, the scientific method basically gets thrown away because, well, God could keep interfering with your data set, and no number of experiments could ever appear to be conclusive. One consequence of naturalism is the stunning number of scientists who, when asked, report themselves as atheists. In a 1996 study published in the scientific journal Nature, 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences (a group of elite American scientists) surveyed defined themselves as such. A 2001 survey directed by Dr. Ariela Keysar of the City University of New York put that number at about 16.1% for America as a whole*.

Where do physicians fall on this spectrum? According to a survey conducted in 2005 by the University of Chicago, about three quarters of doctors believe in God. You may be tempted to make some sort of “there are no atheists in foxholes” argument; most people would, to the chagrin of atheists everywhere. This, however, ignores the point: the philosophical mandate that is the cornerstone of the scientific method is not one embraced by physicians. As such, physicians don’t feel conflicted about practicing their trade and believing in God. For a research scientist, the conflict in unavoidable.

All right, so science and medicine are different. Still, why Science v. Art rather than Medicine v. Art, besides the fact that the former is the historic framing of the question? Rest assured, this option has been considered, and on the basis of several points, medicine has been ruled out of the debate. First of all, the outcome of a physician’s work is usually evaluated fairly simply; that is, if a patient makes a recovery, he is successful. Both science and art have more subjective ends. Although science has profound breakthroughs, most scientists will never make earth-shattering discoveries and don’t have to; that is, science benefits as much from experiments that don’t work as from experiments that yield new discoveries. Art, I have a feeling, will turn out to feel very similar, with varied criteria coming into evaluation, making a consensus difficult (and maybe even resulting in some relativism). Additionally, strong arguments have been made (that are definitely worth evaluating) for both science and art for their own sake; medicine for the sake of medicine is, by definition, impossible.

Okay, maybe. But what exactly is the “sake” of science? Of art? Do such practices benefit either field? Is one “sake” nobler than the other? Stay tuned, kids. It’s going to be a long ride, and this is only the beginning.

*If you’re interested in the sources that I used, I can provide them for you. I thought it best not to link to academic sources when not everyone reading has access to academic journals online.

Cross-posted to my blog