# Can you tell masterpieces from junk? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138 "2013-10-24T17:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/101 "2014-02-10T07:41:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You’re the one who’s not getting it. The question is not whether some random person can tell the difference. The question is whether actual art aficionados can actually tell the difference. If those who claim to be able to tell the difference cannot do so in controlled settings, that heavily implies that there is no difference. Of course, there is no difference—there is no physical quality inherent in a piece of art that makes it a piece of art, rather than any old artifact. But that’s true also for classical representational art: somebody not steeped in the context needed to ground the references—some alien being wholly different from humanity, say—will be as mystified by the Mona Lisa as one might be by a Rothko. It’s just that this context was much more widespread with ‘classical’ pieces of art, enough so that we could pretend it was universal, if we don’t look too far beyond the edge of our plate. In truth, what’s art and what’s not always was a social judgment, and the attempt to judge that judgment just produces meaningless results, since there’s no independent layer of reality to judge it against. > [@](#): > > Of course, there’s also the argument that there is no such thing as “junk” and that anything can be art. You can argue that art is not about the object but the experience of the viewer. But then you have to wonder why some art is worth a lot of money while other art is not. If everything is art, where does the extra value come from? Context. A urinal is not art, but placed in the proper context, it is, precisely becaue it does not conform to preconceived notions of ‘artiness’, and thus, makes you question them. But otherwise, atom by atom, it is not different from any other urinal. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/102 "2014-02-10T16:39:27Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You can argue that art is not about the object but the experience of the viewer. But then you have to wonder why some art is worth a lot of money while other art is not. If everything is art, where does the extra value come from? Art emerges in the intersection of a work with a viewer. Works that successfully engage with lots of viewers tend to be worth more. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/103 "2014-02-10T20:40:17Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > And when I said that typically, more good than bad papers are among the highly cited ones—in contradiction to your claim that there’s no difference between the two, and in disagreement with your statistical model—you implied that I only considered some papers to be good because they are highly cited. So which one will it be? Either your model doesn’t work, or you can’t tell good from bad research, making your claims meaingless. You misrepresent the situation. I said that highly cited papers are no better than the uncited ones. You said that I said that there is no difference between good and bad papers. From this follows that for you good papers are equivalent to highly cited. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Or is it that only you can tell good from bad papers, and I lack the necessary faculties? From your comments it is evident that you lack elementary logic. Besides you proclaim degenerate art to be great. So it indeed could be just like that. What do your facilities allow you to accomplish besides producing peer-reviewed research? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/104 "2014-02-10T21:24:08Z")
> [@Don\_Simus](#): > > You misrepresent the situation. I said that highly cited papers are no better than the uncited ones. You said that I said that there is no difference between good and bad papers. From this follows that for you good papers are equivalent to highly cited. Not really wanting to get into a game of he-said-she-said, but I said that there is a difference between good and bad papers, and that thus, we can tell that the highly cited papers are typically better than uncited ones; hence, your model is inappropriate, as it fails to account for this fact. Alternatively, there’s no difference between good research and bad research, and I—and the rest of the scientific establishment—am just deluding myself. But then of course one couldn’t tell whether the research on your model is good or bad, so that’s that. > [@](#): > > From your comments it is evident that you lack elementary logic. Besides you proclaim degenerate art to be great. So it indeed could be just like that. > > What do your facilities allow you to accomplish besides producing peer-reviewed research? Something more than lame insults, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/105 "2014-02-18T21:09:12Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > It’s a very well-known and basic concept in modern literary/art criticism. But it is still something which someone wrote and other copied. Just that. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138/106 "2014-03-08T23:06:23Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > the Dickens quiz is the most egregious. Dickens is rightfully lauded as many things, but a prose stylist is generally not among them. He’s famous for his well-drawn characters, excellent plotting, and keen eye for the social intricacies of his day. None of which attributes can be particularly well displayed in a single paragraph quote. Here is statistical analysis of the reader ratings of Dickens’s and Bulwer’s book. People read complete books, not just fragments. Results, nevertheless, are very similar [http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/5923581/Famous-writers-just-have-more-readers.html](http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/5923581/Famous-writers-just-have-more-readers.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-tell-masterpieces-from-junk/672138.md?page=5)