Is science or art more important to society?
Science is what allows us to survive, but art makes the survival bearable. Science is numbers and facts; art is sense and feeling. And yet, the two inevitably influence the other.
Science is what allows us to survive, but art makes the survival bearable. Science is numbers and facts; art is sense and feeling. And yet, the two inevitably influence the other. Science stems from creativity, such as in design and engineering, and great art is often made with a mathematical precision, such as in the careful placement of bodies in “The Raft of the Medusa,” or the Renaissance fascination with vanishing points. But which is more driving? Which one is more essential to our existence, or which one cannot live without the other?
Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Both science and art are forms of imagination; the tools we use to realize the discovery are just different. At Northwestern, where such clear lines are drawn between individual schools, often separating the world of art or science from one another, the question bears special relevance. As a Northwestern student, which do you choose? As a human being, is science or art more important to society?
I think science is far more important to the advancement of society. Science is the process through which we formally ascertain knowledge. And knowledge is the foundation of progress.
I think art is more important to society. Creativity is the basis of any discovery. I don’t look at this question as: is a painting or a medical breakthrough more important. I look at it more as a way of thought. I think creative, original thinking is how we survive, not by numbers.
Art is an important source of enrichment in our lives that makes us happy, but science makes our lives easier. i don’t think we can have one without the other.
i think this is analogous to the chicken and egg conundrum. both are essential to the making of the being. science is the egg and art is the chicken. the egg actually came before the chicken, as did science in my opinion. this is not to say that science could survive without art, because the egg would basically have no reason for existing. art enriches life and allows science to be.
I like restraint, if it doesn`t go too far.
