TWO CULTURES - Classes Dma Ucla Edu

TWO CULTURESDESMA 9:Art, Science and Technology"the further art advances the closer itapproaches science, the further scienceadvances the closer it approaches art."Buckminster Fuller, 1938

TOPICS:• CP Snow’s lecture• Stereotypes• Evolution of Universities• Specialization• Economies of Culture• Paradigms• Methodologies• Frank Malina: Leonardo journal• Third Culture

C.P. Snow said that these two statementsshould be equivalent:"I know what theSecond Law of Thermodynamics is,"and "I have read a playof Shakespeare's."You should be acquainted with both.

The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary recognised that this wasa fairly recent development, with no example given before the 1860's:"We shall . . . use the word "science" in the sense which the Englishmenso commonly give it; as expressing physical and experimental science,to the exclusion of theological and metaphysical." (Snow, 1964 pg. xi)William Whewell, a philosopher and historian of science who used'science' in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences of 1840,is credited with establishing this term.The first time it was recorded as an idea, however, was at theAssociation for the Advanced Science in the early 1830's when it wasproposed as an analogy to the term 'artist.'

STEREOTYPEste·reo·typ·i·cal /"ster-E-&-'tip-i-k&l/ also ste·reo·typ·ic /-ik/ adjectiveFunction: noun: something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially :an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize thetypical individual of a group —A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplifiedand often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.

Question:What is the one thingthat these media stereotypeshave in common?

• EVOLUTION OF TEACHINGINSTITUTIONSHarvard UniversityChapel at Boston University

Church at Yale UniversityLecture at Princeton University

Harvard Library

Art building at Yale University

Broad Art Center, UCLADesigned by Richard Meier

California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), UCLADesigned by Rafael Vinoly

• ECONOMY & CULTURE @ UCLA

THIRD CULTURE –what is it?

Thomas Kuhn - Paradigms

Thomas Kuhn (1962)Why should a change of paradigmbe called a revolution?In the face of the vast and essentialdifferences betweenpolitical and scientific development,what parallelism can justify themetaphor that finds revolutions in both?

Paradigm Shifthttp://www.knowledgejump.com/knowledge/popper.html

Karl Popper (1966)FALSIFICATION

Karl Popper (1966)• Objective Knowledge• A Realist View of Logic, Physics, andHistory (1966)

Twenty One Definitions ofParadigm: Anything Goes• Science is an essentially anarchistic enterprise:theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian andmore likely to encourage progress than its lawand-orderalternatives.• This is shown both by an examination ofhistorical episodes and by an abstract analysisof the relation between idea and action. The onlyprinciple that does not inhibit progress is:anything goes.

METHODOLOGY• Against Method: Feyeraband• "All Methodologies have their limitationsand the only 'rule' that survives is 'anythinggoes.' (Feyerabend, 1975, pg. 296)

Frank Malina• Founded Leonardo journal, 1968