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The gulf between tom godwin12/29/2022 ![]() ![]() “In many modern made-up worlds – whether fantasies or futures – the default origin of a political era tends to be revolution or founding,” she writes. Sci-fi author and professor Ada Palmer explores her own marriage of history and “hard science” in a recent Scientific American piece. ![]() With science fiction, tech-minded people explore the critical human side of science and self-styled humanists share literature with their tech-leaning colleagues, appreciating their expertise and interests. Often disregarded by literature scholars as “genre” literature, good science fiction offers exactly the platform Gleiser advocates to an audience far broader than the students who sign up for – as he himself calls it – his “physics for poets” class. Jimmy Ernst, Science Fiction, 1948, via Nowhere is this tension more keenly felt than in the discussion of science fiction or speculative fiction. In fact, armed with a little life experience, we believe that our participants are uniquely capable of reflecting profoundly on the human implications of technology and innovation, as well as the challenging human choices posed by scientific change and advancement. At we see the power of this multi-disciplinary conversation playing out in the workplace and the community as well. ![]() Gleiser sees the classroom as the ideal place to preserve the conversation between disciplines and to develop well-rounded graduates who are capable of grappling with scientific concepts and reading from original sources in philosophy, religion and literature. On the other hand, the humanities run the risk of becoming disconnected from the pace of scientific discoveries and myopic to how they are effectively transforming the world we live in.” The sciences run the risk of being decontextualized from their moral and social consequences, pursuing technologies that should be regulated and scrutinized. “We all stand to lose from this gulf between the sciences and the humanities. At a time when universities are shrinking their humanistic offerings in favor of science and technology, Gleiser comments on the weakness of an education that favors one over the other. In our Weekend Reading post last week, we highlighted a fascinating article by Marcelo Gleiser, Dartmouth professor of philosophy, physics and astronomy, on teaching at the intersection of two increasingly distinct academic “cultures” – the sciences and the humanities. To Stem the Tide: Reuniting the Sciences and the Humanities Through Science Fiction ![]()
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