Gateway to Ideas; Is Science Sterilizing Humanistic Thoughts

it's Gateway to Ideas [music playing] [music continues] Gateway to ideas, a new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading. On today's program, entitled "Is science sterilizing humanistic thought?" Earl Ubell, science editor of the New York Herald Tribune, talks with I.I. Rabi, Nobel Prize winner and physicist at Columbia University. [Earl Ubell] We rapidly approach the time when no corner of the universe, public or private, will be immune to the probes of science. The distant galaxies, the microcosm of the atom, even in the lightening of nerve cells all come under the regular gaze of the scientist. Perhaps I ought to amend that slightly. Public sensibilities seems to

want to keep scientists out of the jury room but it has failed to keep them out of the bedroom as the continuing reports of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey's colleagues demonstrate. In this proliferation of the regions accessible to science with the rather distinctive triumph of scientific investigation as a prime route to reality and with the pervasiveness in our lives of the things of science or, more properly, the things of technology, we might ask about the power of science to change the human animal. And, in particular, his mode of thought. Up to very recently. ours has been largely a tradition of humane letters of poetry, of literature, of the classics. In just one generation or, at most, two, this tradition has changed and sciences come forward to challenge that literary preeminence. In response of that challenge the men of letters have been anguished. Thus, when C.P. Snow attempted to describe the dichotomy between the two traditions, which he called the two cultures, he was promptly vilified by the literati and in some

sense disowned by the scientists. The former seem to be saying that science is outside interest. And the latter of seem to be saying that Sir Charles was struggling with a cliche. To what extent has science changed man's thought? Willing or not? This is the question for us today. With me is doctor I.I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, who is University Professor of physics at Columbia University. I do not think we should attempt, Dr. Rabi, to catalog all of the poems and the novels and plays and other things of literature which reflect the current scientific temper. Rather let us talk, you and I, about some of the differences which science has introduced into our thinking. Before we do that, Dr. Rabi, let's get the two cultures problem out of the way. Please erupt on the issue. [Dr. Rabi] First let me erupt on the title of my professorship. [Ubell]Oh, go ahead. [Rabi]It's not University Professor of physics its University Professor. The general idea is that I'm a sort of

intellectual maid of all work and roam from department to department. So far I've kept down my travels and I still have my office in the Physics Building. [Ubell]I had physics with a small 'p'. [Rabi]Now, with respect to C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures," I think he made a tremendous contribution with this happy phrase because he revived the discussion which had become dormant and more under the name of science than the humanities. He brought this up again. From an interesting point of view in the sense that as a successful novelist he spoke more from the literary camp. Perhaps not the extra-literary camp but definitely from the literary camp and was a man who could not be ignored by the literary people. As such he sharpened the issue. He made one other very important contribution and

that is he brought the issue into the moral region. That there was a moral difference between the position of the literary people and the position of the scientists and that the scientists were more morally sensitive to the needs of the world than the literary people who would or after talking about it did not try to do anything about it, whereas the scientists really did. [Ubell]Actually, that point of view was taken by Martin Green, who was somewhat more sensitive as a literary man, to Snow's point of view, than say Leavis who attacked Snow violently. Green in his "Science and the Shabby Curate of Poetry" points out that the literature, at least modern literature, is just terribly against society and for the individual. [Rabi]I think that something terrible has happened. The great prestige of science and the mathematical language in which so much of it is written

has prevented literary people from understanding what it's all about. Their education has been faulty. They do not have the mathematics which would enabled them to enter this language more easily. And as a result, they find themself in the position of living in the world which is continually being changed by science without having any part of it and are alienated and they cry out in anguish but they don't do anything about it in the sense of educating themselves to know what they're talking about. [Ubell]Green attempted to do this, you know. [Rabi]Green attempted to do this and I think he is to be honored for it and he is very sensitive and a very interesting, very interesting book. [Ubell]Yes, well do you think anything can be done by the average humanist who, say, has gone through a tradition of education which includes only surveys in science, elementary algebra and perhaps geometry? [Rabi]I'm very sorry for him. If he's willing to work, all right, but he probably won't be. But he should not stand in the way of educating the young so that they get a proper education with science as a central core of the

curriculum. To enable people to live in the twentieth century rather than in another century and bandy sensitive feelings and cliches amongst one another. [Ubell]You know, it's interesting that Sarton, who is a historian of science, really went the other way and worked devilishly hard to understand greek and latin in order to do his work. [Rabi]Oh, there's nothing against that, that is fine. [Ubell]No, I'm talking about a scientist who... [Rabi]Quite. He was writing a history of science and he was not going to take sources at secondhand and he really wanted to understand what he is writing about. Nothing I've said is against scholarship what I'm talking about is the education of the young in order to enable them to understand the world in which they live. I would love to see people with a good grounding in science go into archaeology, go into a literary criticism. But they should have the basic background just as I think they should have the basic background of being able to speak english language with

some personal distinction. [Ubell]Well, I don't want you to define science for us because that's sort of one of the undefinables, in a way, like art and music. What is good music and good art. But I wonder if you would just talk for a moment or two about what you think are the essential ingredients in science which makes it somewhat different from a literary scholastic point of view. [Rabi]Basically, we would like to know what were talking about. I would like to be able to subject our ideas to verification by comparison with the universe. We are basically revolutionary in the sense that we are very happy if an established system of ideas is upset. There is great distinction in that, which is, in a certain sense, the opposite of the humanistic culture. We do not look to the past, we look to the future. We're creative, we're

optimistic, we're progressive. We build on the past but we look toward the future. Whereas, most of the literary culture is partly in the present with tremendous nostalgia for the past and can hardly accept the present. [Ubell]Much less the future. [Rabi]They have no idea of the future, except the direst of expectations. [Ubell]Of course it was on this point of view that Leavis attacked Snow most violently. Namely, Snow said that scientists had the future in their bones, so to speak, and Snow pointed out that people like Orwell hated the future and didn't want any part of it and again this seemed to be particularly irritating to the literati. Do you think this is part of the idea that as science itself perforce pushes us into the future? [Rabi]Oh, there's no question that is perhaps the dominating force which is shaping the future. Because pushing ourselves into future, one doesn't have to go into the future, one can step off the bus at any time.

Although it's against the law. But the future will be, more and more, dominated by the whole new set of ideas attitudes, built up by the scientific revolution since the renaissance. And even the most severe critics of science nevertheless are caught in it. In their language, in their attitudes. All one has to do is to compare a modern with a man of a century ago and you see how great the change has been. [Ubell]Well, you know Whitehead cited "Prometheus Unbound" as an unconscious use of scientific language. In fact, he quoted a transcript in which he said. "I spin beneath my pyramid of night which points into the heavens dreaming delight. Murmuring victorious join in my enchanted sleep..." and so on. And then Whitehead it goes on to

say "this stanza it could only have been written by someone with a definite geometrical diagram before his inward eye. A diagram which is often been my business to demonstrate to mathematical classes." And don't you feel that something similar is going to be happening as we go forward? That is people put into their inward eye the ideas of quantum mechanics, mechanics, geometry, the works. [Rabi]Shelley, of course, was greatly interested in science and I think he was kicked out of Cambridge. [laughing Ubell]Typical English trick. [Rabi]Typical English trick. I am worried about the second part of your point, that people of ... that quantum mechanics, relativity, will enter into the thought of our times. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to express those ideas without some mathematical language.

And, it seems, that the very people who would enjoy it have a certain block, a certain horror, of mathematical symbols. They forget that it's a language in shorthand and a precise language for conveying ideas which would be very difficult otherwise. But as soon as they see the letter x they someone get into a dither. And unless great care is taken in their earlier education to make them at home with this language they will never be able to catch on what we talk about. [Ubell]Well, willy nilly these ideas of relativity and quantum mechanics to some extent have entered our thoughts. For example, we speak now of the relativity of cultures and I think this is a phrase which was unheard of before Einstein. [Rabi]It's true one can talk of the relativity of cultures and it wouldn't make any difference at all because that was Newtonian relativity. The Einsteinian relativity is a much deeper and more subtle idea

and is as radical a displacement of the human as the Copernican theory was or as the Darwinian theory was. But I do not believe that this has entered, to any great degree, into the thinking of the non-scientific educated public. [Ubell]Why do you think that's so? [Rabi]I've seen no sign. [Ubell]You think they've simply given up? [Rabi]Simply given up. There was a great deal of interest when I was a young man, in the early twenties, which has since died out. Especially with the death of Einstein. Who was this great world figure and an interest focused on his personality and his ideas I see very little reference to his basic thoughts. [In other words?] the intellectual side of science is getting less and less attention from the educated public and from the press. Whereas, some of the tricks which

are more to the credit of engineering, are called science and the intellectual side, the deeply intellectual side, is not touched on but more the engineering, the constructional side. Not that it isn't in very great and very important but the other side is neglected. [Ubell]Well, it is if it is neglected, whose whose problem is that? Is that the problem of the of the scientists who have in themselves sort of made their own world and lived in it and said if you want to come along with us you have to jump on our bus? Have they made any attempt to reach out and to put scientific material at the disposal of humanity? [Rabi]I'm afraid the scientists haven't. The scientists have become an elite. And science has become in a certain sense a sacred cow. That does not have to defend itself. So they make their own private language and talk to one another and do not talk to the public.

Galileo said that he had to spend eleven months doing philosophy for every month he could do science because he had to defend itself against the clerics. Now the scientists don't have to defend themselves against a body, except the budget cutters, and, therefore, have no direct connection with the public. There are science popularizers, but they rarely come from the ranks of the scientists, themselves. Mr. Ubell has done very well. [Laughter; Ubell]Thanks for the compliment. [Rabi]But it's not... the scientists say that they themselves have done very little. There's this little book of Einstein and Infeld. There are a few, but no real attempt has been made to make all this understandable. And the only way I think that would really do it is if the top people were obligated to teach freshman in the universities. Not only

freshmen who are going to be scientists but freshman in general. Then they would have to make themselves plain. [Ubell]Well, you know there are many top people who have undertaken just this task for example Dick Feynman at Cal Tech. And Teller has also undertaken to teach freshman. But I agree with you these are few and far between. [Rabi]There was another element not only to teach the subject tp freshman. Teaching science to freshman in the sense of giving them a tool is one thing but connecting it up with other elements of life is another. I think the first is rather ineffective for those who are not going on in the science. It simply withers away in time since they are not going to use it. If it's connected up with other elements of their lives, if it's connected up with biography the way literary people connect up writers, if it's connected connected with philosophy, if it's connected with

history, if it's connected with technological results, with sociology then I think it's real meaning and effect would become clearer and the impression would probably be a lasting one. [Ubell]Martin Green, whom I referred to before, just published this book "Science and the Shabby Curate of Poetry" makes exactly this point of view. And, as a matter of fact, he draws a parallel between Edison and Mark Twain for their time which is very much to the point. And points out that Twain and Edison are essentially duel figures of the bombastic days of our industrial revolution. I think this could be promoted, generally, in our modern times. The biographies of Bohr, Oppenheimer, perhaps yourself, might mean something to a new generation. [Rabi]Well, it is very interesting to me that there is a four volume biography of Henry James, who certainly was no very great writer. But yet there is no real biography of

Einstein. A near definitive biography, not one which starts "one day little Albert said to his father..." and that sort of thing. And as far as I know there's no such biography in progress. I don't know lets say on the American side where there's a biography of Henry Rowland one of the great physicists of the nineteenth century. And one can go on in this way. T.H. Morgan... [Ubell]Well there is a biography of Joseph Henry but it's only a slim volume. [Rabi]Slim volume. I'm going on. If you take literary figures of equal dimensions, you'll find libraries about them and this is, again, a situation where the scientists are not compelled toward that kind of scholarship and the literary people don't know how to approach it. And, therefore, for the public hasn't been educated to it. Although I think if it were well done there would be a public just as there was for Jones'

biography of Freud. [Ubell]I think that's certainly true and it's kind of interesting that even minor biographies of scientific individuals have had their influences. For example, Paul Decrives 'Microponters' was read by a generation of high school students. And it seems to me very interesting that every time I meet a microbiologist who is, say, of the ages between forty and fifty-five which they would've been in high school at the time when it was published and I ask them what got you started in microbiology or biochemistry or even science, they say I read Paul Decrives' "Microponters". And that was not a depth biography-- [Rabi] Yeah, that's right. Well Pupin's "From Immigrant to Inventor" had a wide sale and we had students who came to Columbia after reading that long after Pupin was dead. [Ubell]Well isn't the fact here though that the reason that we have more biographies of literary people than we do of scientists is a twofold thing mainly that, after all, writers can write and their interest is in other writers

and not and not necessarily and scientists so they're no more likely to write about things of their interest and about other things and secondly in order to write a intellectual i'm definitive biography of a scientist you really have to come to grips with the body of his work while and this pamphlet this is very difficult for people in the literary field well scholarship was no word novelty of people want to become scalia history a lot of other fields study and really dig very deeply and learn new languages and then when i see no reason why anybody wanted to write a biography of our psyche and lemon of mathematics and physics to begin to have a feeling for what it did of course in addition to that you have to give the dimensions of the man luca wrote a long life her books on their experiences in different

world met with it top statesmen crowned heads of the world and others to dissipate and many movements what's on amanda's this the head and they leave the force why before he had children what happened to the miners relations all the things you'd want to know about a human being but the scientists into the human family now this has not been done the scientists is the soul somewhere at the moment were no signs the matter what else he is he's become a specialist and apart from the rest of the non scientific world what's that one of the big problems in the spot of the century is to bring the scientist back into the human that you can get into the family of humans well maybe we have to wait two hundred years or so after all of the kind of definitive biography has been done for kepler and from others yes we have had it with three hundred years for the conference of what

this was you could see the front of the brain and the last envoy the but probably the greatest scientists the absence that quote perhaps overshadows vigilance if a real influence there will be no and hold on the new book well just to go back to the influence of this so of the kind of science which has been done in modern times are on the way we think what the great deal has been made of the problem of aesthetics in science we sort of give lip service to it and very few people who have not done a scientific experiment which has never been done before and seen the results come bouncing out out of the equipment or out of the page or whatever you can really a in my view really feel this this a static experience was or any way do you think this experience can be made real to them on side it's very very difficult but certainly i don't think literary

people for example have made the experience of a poet who has written a successful poll revealed to those of never tried to write a verse so some particular feelings can be communicated only to those who had similar experiences and i think one can get radio a sense of it but one can't really get the thing itself and solving that sense as a different from any other creative act i mean if you read the though a mineral and what was the area then christoph army and the air and he has a he's a great life but you don't get the feeling of his excitement creates goes along i think this is essential songs that but i think the scientists can totally composer

and they will both have had a similar experience and perhaps the totem pole and and the shape views about the moment of insight the feeling when you've had written something and that's exactly true when you do an experiment a complete a piece of work and feel that this has a kind of solidity and quality and which will carry i've had that experience only once it's you know my it's scientific experience is limited but i remember once a working on a crystal structure model and deli had a computer set up to compute the fourier patent on the idea of a molecule and out they're all i was watching in that instance after weeks of work was just a teletype write a punching out numbers and after the first twelve numbers you realize that yes i finally had the answer to this intricate puzzle and you could hardly contain yourself yes exactly exactly i think of the scrub a beautiful area yet this kind of

experience is really described in the literature and family and the non scientific literature talking about a snow attempted and a search record i you know i get out last year opened with an aggressive national gallery of science but those two sites the scientists and i did try to describe the situation we just so to speak amongst friends and got to the general public as it was on their adventures yes i agree with you but but nevertheless this is high drama and in a certain sense it's the act in the moment of creation the fulfillment of weeks if not years i only work weeks but some people work is and then suddenly see this a congenial you know all things come together and yet the times which has it been described in the literature citing trivial for years you know having experienced that maybe you'll go up and down right well and there are practical problems as you know i was just wondering if

there's anything one can say about the ways in which shows scientific research and the way science has going has changed our values in any way nothing's done a great deal to change a foreign news or think has brought a great piece of clarity into situations which didn't they exist for for instance for example the yearling take three word in something that's illegal word that now psychiatric ward we've probably enough into the human mind to understand the gradations which exist and i'm not for the weddings the mine to look at things quite differently from the rather odd moment legal and travelers i mean this is an example so the thing which occurs and love of their license because from a newspaper reader and i think this is a classic

example i think we've gone far enough to show that in these various ways the way people experiment the concepts of science the future looking ideas in science that these are going to and controversially incomparably continue to have a kind of pressure against modern thinking and that will push modern thinking into new malls which is which to pre caucus for siebert never less worker and perhaps if the world of science made more of an outreach into a day of the world the changes will be more controlled and for the better you've been listening to gateway to ideas a new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading today's program is science sterilizing humanistic thought has presented balanced science editor of the new york herald tribune talking with i've got the nobel prize winner university professor and physicist at columbia university to extend the dimensions of today's

program for your list of the books mentioned in the discussion as well as others relevant to the subject has been prepared you can obtain a copy from the local library or my writing to gateway to ideas post office box six four one time square station in new york he's in close as stamps self addressed on the right about six four one time square station in new york gateway to ideas has produced the national educational radio under a grant from the national home library foundation the programs are prepared by the national book committee and the american library association in cooperation with the national association of educational broadcasters technical production by riverside radio wypr in new york city this is a national educational radio network fb