J. Robert Oppenheimer, in The Open Mind, published by Simon Schuster, New York, 1955, considered the role of the scientist in society. He had been called ‘the father of the atom bomb’ but, because of his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb, he was put on ‘trial’ during the McCarthy era and found, in a ‘kangaroo court’, to be a security risk. Oppenheimer found the ‘Cartesian reforms’ – that is, the separation of mind from body, intellect from emotion – ‘inadequate for our times’. [p. 129]. If that was true in 1955, when the Cold War dominated international relations, how much more is it true in the twenty-first century.

If we have no understanding of the cultures of other groups, we are likely to fail to recognise the impact of our actions and be surprised by their, perhaps, unintended consequences. Listening to the news so often tells us, in hindsight, after the event what we should have known, prepared for or done. And then it is too late.

Specialisation too early makes it more likely that such errors of judgement will occur. [Remember Donald Rumsfeld's reaction to the aftermath of the attacks on Baghdad - 'Stuff happens'.] If the primary focus  for example, is on the trinity of science, mathematics and technology in the interests of providing employees for 'defence' industries, we forget that those future employees will be friends, husbands, wives or partners, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, citizens, neighbours, sometimes volunteers working for community interests and they will have interests beyond the firm. They will have roles to play in our society outside the requirements of the industry that employs them. Preparation for those roles requires that they have an education that embraces the humanities and the arts as well.

Even C.P. Snow, in The Two Cultures and A Second Look: An expanded version of the two cultures and the scientific revolution, published by Cambridge University Press, 1964, wrote the following in his conclusion.

"The division of our culture is making us more obtuse than we need be: we can repair communications to some extent: but, as I have said before, we are not going to turn out men and women who understand as much of our world as Piero della Francesca did of his, or Pascal, or Goethe. With good fortune, however, we can educate a large proportion of our better minds so that they are not ignorant of imaginative experience, both in the arts and in science, nor ignorant either of the endowments of applied science, of the remediable suffering of most of their fellow humans, and of the responsibilities which, once they are seen, cannot be denied.' [p 100]

 In Education for the Twenty-First Century, published by Routledge, London, 1993, Hedley Beare and Richard Slaughter of the University of Melbourne Institute of Education wrote, in the section ‘The Ways Schools Treat Knowledge’, of the ‘bits-and-pieces’ approach which ‘characterised the scientific method.’ They saw this as producing ‘a distorted world-view’. They insisted ‘For the twenty-first century we had better discover quickly how schools in particular can sponsor a different orientation: in place of fragmentation, wholeness and connectedness; in place of devastation and disease, health and balance. . .’ [page 61]

Goal 2 of The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, December 2008 was emphatic.

'Successful learners are able to think deeply and logically and obtain and evaluate evidence in a disciplined way as a result of studying fundamental disciplines' and 'successful learners are creative, innovative and resourceful and are able to solve problems in ways that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines.'

**********************

Recent evidence of changing attitudes about the connections between literature and science

Call For Papers

Literature and Science

The 4th annual conference of
The Australasian Association for Literature
University of NSW
Monday July 5-Tuesday July 6, 2010

Keynote Speakers include:
Claire Colebrook (Penn State University)
Brian Boyd (University of Auckland)

As we prepare to enter the second decade of the 21st Century, it is increasingly apparent that science and literature no longer represent rival or mutually exclusive domains of knowledge. Indeed, literature has long been in dialogue with science, and science is currently offering literary critics rich and productive ways of re-conceiving literature. Cognitive science and evolutionary theory are two scientific fields that are helping reshape our understanding of the literary object. Equally, literary critics are becoming progressively more interested in understanding how scientific discourse utilizes distinctly literary thinking and technique. We therefore welcome papers on any aspect of the intersection of literature and science.

*************************

Interdisciplinary connections on this website are being suggested to help students in formal or informal education to recognise and engage in ways that such connections may help and enable young people to become successful learners. And not just young people. Mature-age students and those interested in making connections and being able to think about things, as Dr Juliette Woods suggested in her essay for Challenging the Divide, in ways they had not thought of before.