There’s an obvious methodological separation between science and art, which is there for good reasons, but there’s no reason why one person can’t practise both.
I’d recommend it to anyone, actually. I think it would make you more complete a person to know both scientific reasoning and artistic feeling. You’re certainly missing out on a significant aspect of human experience if you disregard either.
@jerv
“As for me, I am somewhat autistic, but not to the point that other Aspies I know are; I am actually fairly creative.”
Aspies aren’t creative?
I used to have an autistic e-friend who was creating an entire fictional nation in amazing detail.
It’s an island on an existing plateau in I believe the North Sea of Europe. They speak a constructed language based on the old Germanic languages of Scandinavia, written in runes. They’re a bit xenophobic, they’re straightforward people who like to get to the point and don’t see any use in ritual social pleasantries, and they’re deeply conservative in everything, gathering in mass protest when the street signs are replaced by a new design.
He had detailed maps of the land, and photos, names and biographies of its politicians, and he made a recruitment video for its army. And he wrote a foreign businessman’s account of his visits to the island, and he kept a blog of the news items that happened there.
Find me a neurotypical person who can have that much fun with their imagination.
@Snarp
If he meant that literally, I have to disagree with him this time.
I agree that scientific findings more often than not have great artistic value. Much of this universe literally defies human imagination in size, intricacy and cleverness. If you’ve ever seen the Hubble Space Telescope’s photos of the Pillars of Creation, tried to imagine the size of the star VY Canis Majoris or struggled to wrap your head around the complex workings of the human body, I think you’ll agree to that.
But this is not science. Science is only the methodology of finding and systematically mapping that reality. You don’t compliment the glass for the flavour of the wine.
I can’t watch videos here, so I don’t know what Professor Dawkins has to say for it. I’ll watch it when I get home.