You are likely to respond, Not true, there are also the social sciences and humanities. I know that, of course, I’ve heard it a hundred times, and I’ve always listened carefully. But how different at their foundations are the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities? The social sciences are converging generation by generation of scholars with biology, by sharing methods and ideas, and thereby conceding more and more to the realities of the ultimately biological nature of our species. Granted that many in the humanities, as if in a bunker, fiercely defend their isolation. Moral reasoning, aesthetics, and especially the creative arts are forged independently from the scientific world view. The stories of human relationships in history and the creative arts are potentially infinite, like music played upon only a few musical instruments. Yet however much the humanities enrich our lives, however definitively they defend what it means to be human, they also limit thought to that which is human, and in this one important sense they are trapped within a box.
What do You think about Letters To A Young Scientist?
