Monday, August 5, 2013

What Has More Value To Society, The Arts or the Sciences?

As an undergraduate, I was a science major and expected to become a scientist. But then I sold a novella to a major publishing company. It was a tough decision whether to continue to a doctorate in science, or to study writing and be a writer. I always wanted to contribute something to humanity, and until then I thought science (and technology and medicine resulting from it) was of more value. Perhaps in self-justification for making the decision I did, I decided that the arts add pleasure to life, and increase humanity's understanding of humanity. So perhaps the arts is of equal, or maybe even greater value. But I've continued to ponder the thought ever since my undergraduate years. Is Beethoven's work, or Rembrandt's, of any less worth than Newton's, or Edison's? What value does music or painting add to society? Is Hamlet any more or less of an achievement than the theory of relativity? I don't know. Does anyone know? Can anyone know? That's why I am posing the question. What has more value, the arts or the sciences?

2 comments:

angela said...

You'd have to travel back in time and ask a caveman: What's the best part of the fire -- the delicious, roasted squirrel, or the charcoal it left for you to draw on the cave wall? (Then again, without the fire...)

(-oldbag,from QT forum)
www.getahubby.com

Ashok kumar said...

Human values towards elders is more value than anything. More people showing values through social media only but in reality they just become a statue or as stone?