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The "Two Cultures" Debate: Science & The Humanities

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Brian B.
The "Two Cultures" Debate: Science & The Humanities

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We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer meeting spot in Washington Square Park. The cafe is near the corner of 7th & Walnut in Olde City. The cafe's entrance is below street level down some stairs, which can be confusing if it's your first time. Our group meets in the large room upstairs.

Since we're using the cafe's space, they ask that each person attending the meetup at least purchase a drink or snack. Please don't bring any food or drinks from outside. If you're hungry enough to eat a meal, they have more substantial fare such as salads, soups & sandwiches which are pretty good and their prices are reasonable.

The café is fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Market-Frankford Line & get off at the 5th Street Station (corner of 5th & Market), and walk 2 blocks south on 5th and then turn right on Walnut Street and walk 1 block west. With PATCO, just get off at the 9th-10th & Locust stop and walk 3 blocks east. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. If you can't find a spot on the street, I'd suggest parking in the Washington Square parking deck at 249 S 6th Street which is just a half block away.

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THE "TWO CULTURES" DEBATE: SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES

INTRODUCTION:

Sam Harris is visiting Philadelphia on Sunday, Jan. 14th, to record an episode of his Waking Up podcast live at the Merriam Theater, and his guests will be the physicist & novelist Janna Levin and the blogger & literary critic Maria Popova. Levin & Popova have collaborated on several projects that explore the interrelation between the sciences and the humanities, so I thought it would be neat to set the stage for their talk by hosting a small group discussion on the so-called "Two Cultures".

For those who don't know, the phrase "Two Cultures" dates back to a famous speech in 1959 by the British scientist C. P. Snow on the growing divide between the sciences and the humanities. Snow believed that the British educational system over-emphasized the humanities & neglected the sciences, and this left the elites in politics, administration & industry deprived of adequate preparation to manage the modern technological world. Many contemporary humanists pushed back against Snow's argument as a form of "scientific imperialism", and these debates about the relative merits & proper boundaries of the sciences & humanities has continued down to today.

There's several different strands to the "Two Cultures" debates...

One major debate is over the question of ethics and politics, and whether or not science can determine objectively correct moral values and and then extrapolate this to formulate optimal public policies. We addressed these questions in a meetup last spring entitled "Does Science Need Philosophy?" which was paired with another one hosted by the Philadelphia Political Agnostics entitled "The Debate over Scientism, Naïve Utilitarianism and Technocracy". Those discussions can be considered complimentary to this discussion, but I plan to cover some different topics. If you want to check out the outlines from those prior discussions, click on the links below:

https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Skeptics/events/237565657/

https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/236906739/

Two more major epistemological debates are the "Reductionist" vs "Emergentist" debate (also known as the "Unity of Science" vs "Scientific Pluralism" debate) and the "Social Constructionist" vs "Scientific Realist" debate (also known as the "Science Wars"). The first debate revolves around whether the social sciences can ultimately be reduced to a more complex version of the natural sciences, or whether there's some "emergent properties" that prohibit this. The second debate revolves around the question of whether or not science really is able to deduce objective knowledge about the underlying reality of the universe, or whether scientific knowledge is merely a "social construction" that embodies the implicit biases & power dynamics of industrial capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. These two debates are interesting but have been covered extensively already, so I'm skipping over them for now. (We may cover them in a later discussion if there's sufficient interest.)

Instead, this discussion will focus on some relatively neglected but fascinating debates over the apparent conflicts between the scientific methods and the interpretive methods used in history, religious studies, linguistics, literary criticism, and other narrative-based disciplines.

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DIRECTIONS ON PREPARING FOR THE DISCUSSION:

The videos you see linked below under each subject heading are intended to give you a basic overview of these aspects of the "Two Cultures" debates. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles & watch all the videos prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just read the numbered videos linked under each section -- this should take just over an hour total to get through. I know that's a lot, and if you can't watch all of the videos, don't worry -- just try to watch at least one video from each section (which will cut the total time down to 34-44 minutes). The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry -- we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the 4 topics in the order presented here. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section. I've listed questions under each section which we'll do our best to address.

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CONTRASTING THE METHODS OF APOLOGETICS (AD HOC), HISTORY (ABDUCTION) AND SCIENCE (INDUCTION): IS HISTORY'S RELIANCE ON ANALYSIS OF WRITTEN SOURCES NON-SCIENTIFIC? IF WE CAN'T FIND PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF A WELL-DOCUMENTED HISTORICAL PERSON OR EVENT, SHOULD WE BE AGNOSTIC ABOUT IT? IS IT TRUE THAT SCIENCE CAN'T TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT UNIQUE HISTORICAL EVENTS BUT ONLY GENERAL LAWS OF NATURE INFERRED FROM REPEATED EXPERIMENTS?

1a) Josh McDowell, "Legal-Historical Method - Methods of Proof" (video - 3:54 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPy01OS3z0

1b) Robert Price vs Mike Winger, "The Apologetic Method vs The Historical Method" (video - 5:52 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7UVn09IXLQ

  • Alina Bradford, "Deduction vs Induction vs Abduction" (article)

https://www.livescience.com/21569-deduction-vs-induction.html

THE "NARRATIVE FALLACY" & "JUST-SO STORIES" IN THE SCIENCES & HUMANITIES: ARE ALL NARRATIVES INHERENTLY ENGAGED IN CONFIRMATION BIAS & AD HOC RATIONALIZATION? IF SO, DOESN'T AVOIDING NARRATIVES MAKE HISTORY, ETHNOGRAPHY & CASE STUDIES IMPOSSIBLE? CAN NARRATIVES BE NOT ONLY PARSIMONIOUS BUT ALSO FALSIFIABLE? IS "NARRATIVE-BASED SCIENCE" AN OXYMORON?

  1. Tyler Cowen, "Be Suspicious of Simple Stories" (video - 15:57 min.)

https://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_stories

http://web.sas.upenn.edu/kurzbanepblog/2012/09/24/just-so-stories-are-bad-explanations-functions-are-much-better-explanations/

  • Jonathan Gottschall, "Defending Just-So Stories - Why Science Needs Stories" (article)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-storytelling-animal/201209/defending-just-so-stories

  • Jeremy Holmes, "Narrative in psychiatry and psychotherapy: the evidence?" (article)

http://mh.bmj.com/content/26/2/92

"LITERARY NEUROSCIENCE" & "COGNITIVE POETICS" - COGNITIVE SCIENTISTS AS EMPIRICAL LITERARY CRITICS & GREAT AUTHORS AS INTUITIVE COGNITIVE SCIENTISTS: CAN NEUROIMAGING DEMONSTRATE THAT READING FICTION YIELDS PSYCHOLOGICAL & NEUROLOGICAL BENEFITS? CAN SCIENTISTS DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WHAT MAKES SOME LITERATURE POPULAR & WHAT MAKES IT BENEFICIAL? WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT AUTHORS & POETS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO INFER PSYCHOLOGICAL & NEUROLOGICAL TRUTHS?

3a) Anthony Carboni, "How Fiction Makes Our Brains Better" (video - 3:07)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYpofvqVxzc

3b) Jonah Lehrer, "Proust Was a Neuroscientist" (video - 9:50 min.)

https://www.c-span.org/video/?202748-2/proust-neuroscientist

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2007/11/proust_wasnt_a_neuroscientist.html

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH VS "METAPHORICAL" TRUTH, "LITERARY DARWINISM", AND THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION: DOES THE LONGEVITY & POPULARITY OF A STORY PROVE IT CONTAINS A PSYCHOLOGICAL TRUTH WITH ADAPTIVE ADVANTAGE? IF SO, WHAT TYPES OF ADVANTAGES COULD KNOWLEDGE OF A STORY CONFER? IF NOT, COULD POPULAR STORIES SIMPLY BE MEMES THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SOME "SPANDREL" IN THE HUMAN MIND TO SPREAD?

4a) OneSpecies, "The Truthening - Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris" (video - 12:04 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h5vbnUwN5s

4b) Thales Coutinho & Samara Reis, "What's the point of monsters? A biocultural approach" (video - 7:28 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=369xuyrcJVA

  • Chris Goble, "Metaphorical Truth / Practical Reality vs. Hyper Rationalism" (blog post- overview of Bret Weinstein, David Sloan Wilson & Jordan Peterson)

http://largegroupdynamic.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphorical-truth-practical-reality-vs.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/69670/correspondence-defending-the-evolution-god

  • Bill Benzon, "On the Poverty of Literary Darwinism" (blog post)

http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2015/09/on-poverty-of-literary-darwinism.html

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Cafe Walnut
703 Walnut Street · Philadelphia, PA
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