April 07, 2019

Week 1: Two Cultures

               The concept of two cultures is one in which scientists are separated from "literary intellectuals," as Charles Percy Snow terms it. The idea gained traction during the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, but has transcended to today's culture, and now we find ourselves torn in what Professor Victoria Vesna calls a "transitional stage." Professor Vesna and C.P. Snow perceive it as one world split into two, but they are both optimistic of a third culture emerging out of "a triangulation of arts, sciences, and humanities," that could sew the divide sometime in the future. Possibly, that third culture could be one rooted in technology like Kevin Kelly, the executive editor of Wired, suggests.

Visual representation of science being portrayed as art

               Whatever this third culture may be, I could not agree more that soon there will be a bridge between the two. "Culture begets culture" as so wonderfully put my Steven Pinker (a Canadian-American cognitive physiologist), and we have started to see this new revitalizing pattern of the two disciplines colliding.

             Transitioning from high school to UCLA, I wanted to immerse myself in the world of finance. I knew I wanted to be an investment banker, which is why I chose economics as my major. However, I never quite understood how science and art could relate until I was posed a startling question in an interview: how is company valuation both an art and a science? This is when the debate of two cultures really came to light for me.

Presentation slides made by Rebecca Chang (CFA at RBC)

"There is art in understanding and designing certain things to appear the way they are. There is science in knowing how to digest and use that knowledge for financial benefit." - Warren Buffet (billionaire investor and founder of Berkshire Hathaway)

Our school system ensures that we are convergent thinkers,
but to be creative we have to adopt divergent thinking

               I gained more of a perspective into this issue when I took DESMA 19 last Spring. From that course, I first learned that the methodologies of individuals studying either art or science are fundamentally the same, but now I recognize that our education system forces us to believe that they are instinctively different. We as a student generation, have become cogs of our own education system in which we are entrapped in a continuous cycle, and the only opportunity for "divergent thinking," as Noelle Chiang (a social psychologist) puts it, to arise is with a break in this pattern.

             
           

               When I think of this debate, the term 'separate but equal' comes to mind. UCLA literally divides the two concentrations into opposite ends of campus, associating a dissimilarity between them. Economists, like myself, have the opportunity to play a vital role in becoming this third culture that Professor Vesna and C.P. Snow seek. I am excited for the challenge ahead!

Photo of me taken by Ray Filler

References

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1959. Print

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo. 34 (2001): 121-125. Print

Buffett, Warren E. “Warren Buffett: Annual Letter to Shareholders 2018.” Berkshire Hathaway, 23 Feb. 2019, www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html.

Noelle C. Chiang (2017) Benefits of Incubation on Divergent Thinking, Creativity Research Journal, 29:3, 282-291, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2017.1360058

Kelly, Kevin. “The Third Culture.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 Feb. 1998, science.sciencemag.org/content/279/5353/992.full.

“Two Cultures with Steven Pinker.” Seed Magazine, 18 May 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUbVc7qVpg. Accessed 7 Apr. 2019.

Bates, John. Science as Art. Photograph. 2011. https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/species-world-thinks-there-clear-division-between-basic-and-applied-science

Chang, Rebecca. The Art and Science of Valuation. Photograph. 2016. https://www.slideshare.net/SebastianHaworth/clipboards/my-clips?rftp=success_toast

Unkown. Divergent and Convergent Thinking. Photograph. 2016. http://thekhalstudio.blogspot.com/p/professional-practice.html