tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post4535234201005946318..comments2024-02-28T02:22:20.886-08:00Comments on homunculus: Science and wonderPhilip Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09986655706443117158noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-28250338192380861672012-05-14T13:45:27.587-07:002012-05-14T13:45:27.587-07:00I guess it's like having your cake and eating ...I guess it's like having your cake and eating it. As long as 'wonder' is something you yearn for, its charm is diminished when sated.<br /><br />And like a good joke, it is never as funny a second time. And if we do laugh, it's possibly an act of nostalgia for the first occasion.<br /><br />Similarly, poets re-package the ordinary things of life, with exotic vocabulary, so as to induce the reader to 'see' that ordinary thing anew; proactive nostalgic wonder. Is public science trying the same thing in reverse, from aping wonder to induce nostalgic scientific scrutiny?<br /><br />The problem you allude to "appropriating wonder to sell science", is then the well known spoiler of giving the punch line first. And what makes Brian Cox's enthusiasm so troublesome is the comedian who laughs at his own jokes. It's like watching other people have sex; it's not as good as doing it yourself, preferably with another.<br /><br />And just as our sexual powers differ from one another, so must are capacity to scrutinize. Hence a Richard Feynman can cascade his curiosity from one aspect to another of the flower, so that it becomes more than a flower, it becomes a point of expansion of many associated ideas. Whereas Joe Public (and to a small extent Bacon) may stop at "look at the pretty yellow flower". Wonder is in the Brian of the beholder.<br /><br />Public science may encroach on the sensibilities of private science, in the same fashion that locals in a picturesque mountainous area, rarely climb the peeks themselves, and hold a certain quiet grudge towards the visitors that do. This jealousy may account for the artists 'snobbery' regarding 'wonder'; and more importantly, the stern warnings from the church, not to steal their thunder.<br /><br />And 'wonder' can be seen as planting the flag on a problem, robbing it of its virgin status; once victory is tasted by another, it's now a dirty cup. This brings together the two problems of the Bacon notion of wonder, as 'the full stop', and the Descartes notion, as wonder being a utility; as these would make the enthusiasm of public science stymie the fun of private science.<br /><br />In the lab, a scientist deals with the wonders of his own private science, such as the raw data, its winning through well designed novel experiment, and the creative intellectual joy of deriving many hypotheses prior to the 'trained' scientific scrutiny of weeding out the duds, and presenting a dry-as-bones litany in 'standard form', to the public science. The last bit is what looks dead to the uninitiated, and its that turd which the evangelicals shine, missing out the real everyday drama of the labs (cue East Enders music).<br /><br />"<i>You might say that we first emancipated curiosity at the expense of wonder, and then re-admitted wonder to take care of public relations.</i>"<br /><br />It seems you knew all along!<br /><br />For me the wonder in science was the journey to understanding the 'thing', as much as the thing itself. After all, science is a process, like a good game of football, the score is just the proof of the game.JimmyGirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01548795180321590463noreply@blogger.com