Can Art Save the World?

Is it new?  Is it true?  Who cares?

Can art save the world?

Catherine W. Britell, M.D. 
 
When you spend your life doing applied and/or experimental science, it’s easy to assume that everyone accepts Science as the best way of getting to Truth, and that we all understand the steps necessary to make valid scientific conclusions. We make an observation, develop a question about our observation, do background research, develop an hypothesis, devise an experiment to test the hypothesis, collect results and analyze them using appropriate statistical methods, and then make a conclusion. It seems pretty straightforward.

Of course, not everybody feels this way. Maybe it’s due to failure of our educational system to ensure that a basic level of scientific knowledge and competence is attained by everyone. But perhaps more important is an American free spirit/cultural distrust of “academe” and the conviction that one doesn’t need a lot of education to be “smart” and successful. Plain common sense is enough. You get by in this world by trusting your gut. More and more, groups of people find common ground by being “mavericks” in this way, celebrating independence from the perceived tyranny of the academic elite.

In truth, the facts aren’t always obvious. While it’s easy for even a child to understand much of the science of gravity when she falls off her bike, it is much more difficult for an adult freezing in an unseasonal snowstorm to accept global warming as its cause.

So, where has this brought us? We face a cultural divide that threatens our very existence through dismissal of the facts of climate change, environmental toxins, and overwhelming infections, and construction of alternate realities that are the basis for social and political identity. Politicians have seized upon this with great success — amplifying polarization and distrust of anything unfamiliar.

How do we fix it? I think our best hope may lie in art. The effort to inform, reform, and legislate science education has not been successful. Perhaps we need to develop engaging, entertaining, and convincing media for children and adults to teach people how to determine what is real. Theater, film, music, visual art — whatever engages our imagination and makes us part of the story of discovery and critical thinking.

We must eventually accept that the facts revealed as true by the Scientific Method will affect our success as a species, our health, and our very survival — and these facts must inform what we do as a society. But people may not find this easy to do in a logical, intellectual fashion. Perhaps it will take compelling art to tell this story in an effective way.

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