Questionable Motives

April 8, 2012

Does a scientific understanding reduce aesthetics?

Filed under: beauty,nature,Richard Feynman,Science — tildeb @ 9:49 am

It usually takes very little time when in conversation with faitheists to be told that in comparison to their religious filter, my ‘worldview’ is too reductionist, that appreciating the method of science to reveal how the world really is harms my capacity to marvel, to appreciate the beauty to be found in it. I often feel this is exactly backwards but have a difficult time when in back-and-forth discussion over some truth claim about nature to explain why. Although I recall being enthralled by many excellent communicators of science like Carl Sagan and David Attenborough and Richard Dawkins in their many awe-inspiring video presentations, I offer up this simple yet elegant explanation by the physicist Richard Feynman for your consideration.

 

6 Comments »

  1. Beautiful video! And thanks also for the word faitheist..hadn’t seen it before. It works like when I is the word fraud in lieu of God, as in the Most Holy Fraud.

    Comment by myrthryn — April 8, 2012 @ 11:44 am | Reply

  2. love the video!

    Comment by stilishbabe — April 8, 2012 @ 3:39 pm | Reply

    • Yeah, me too. The Bronx accent always reminds me that this kind of insight crosses all human arbitrated boundaries like culture and gender and all that stuff.

      Comment by tildeb — April 8, 2012 @ 4:22 pm | Reply

  3. Please note the BBC in the credits….

    Comment by misunderstoodranter — April 10, 2012 @ 4:14 pm | Reply

  4. You only have to watch Symphony of Science, or indeed be a scientist and see the technical beauty. I would say “scientist poetry” is something we’ll be seeing in future years.

    Comment by freeze43 — May 8, 2012 @ 11:27 am | Reply


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