# Science's Most Influential Midwife: Art or Religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2003, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354 "2003-09-08T19:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Blonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blonde)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/21 "2003-09-10T01:35:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Grey \* > \*\* No one is making beautiful pots when they’re starving. . \*\* What?? I’d have to disagree – let me guess, you want a cite. I’ll just run off and find one. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/22 "2003-09-10T01:41:27Z")
I’ll take one if you’ve got one. 🙂 I’m just saying that function tends to come before form when you lack the time/energy/resources needed to create art. Though now I’m wondering if these proto-artists even considered it art. ---
**Author:** ![Blonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Blonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blonde)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/23 "2003-09-10T01:52:34Z")
[http://cavemanchemistry.com/](http://cavemanchemistry.com/) I curse you for making me go through that search, **Grey**. Art has been an expression since the beginning of time - and if you want me to throw in some brilliant artists who died poor, I can do that as well. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/24 "2003-09-10T01:55:13Z")
How the hell did you find a site called caveman chemistry? No, I don’t want to know. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/25 "2003-09-10T02:06:05Z")
> [@](#): > > _Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes… there we enter the realm of Art and Science._ > Albert Einstein Enough said. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/26 "2003-09-12T17:32:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blonde \* > \*\*[http://cavemanchemistry.com/](http://cavemanchemistry.com/) > > I curse you for making me go through that search, **Grey**. > Art has been an expression since the beginning of time - and if you want me to throw in some brilliant artists who died poor, I can do that as well. \*\* Alright I read the whole thing. I’d love to get a copy of the actual book the guy wrote rather than wander through the web book but it was worth it. 28 projects ranging from making obsidian arrowhead to mead. Why is it I never got Profs like that? The thing is, the cite doesn’t support the Art or Religion sides in this debate. It throws its weight to meme induced technical progress. Basically a good idea flourishes and paves the way for better/different ideas as time goes on. We still need an example of Art driving scientific thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/27 "2003-09-12T18:05:39Z")
Well a recent example is Star Trek. Many people who work today as engineers at places like JPL or NASA will cite watching Star Trek as the inspiration to take the careers they did and gave them the disire to explore the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/28 "2003-09-12T18:16:12Z")
I’d agree that art can inspire career choices/perspectives but I still haven’t seen anything that backup the idea of Art having a larger impact on the development of Science than Religion. I guess **Zenster** is talking about these ideas as archetypes so I’m capitalizing. ---
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/29 "2003-09-12T20:10:40Z")
**Zenster** , that’s great and all that we have older cave drawings which may or may not be religious in nature than we do obviously religious artifacts. What I dispute whole-heartedly is that cataloging = science. Cataloging is accounting, not science. Science is a search for explanation, not a search for fact. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/30 "2003-09-12T20:16:15Z")
Everything is either physics or stamp collecting, eh **g8rguy**? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Tertius01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tertius01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tertius01)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/31 "2003-09-12T20:16:17Z")
(Condensed version of eaten post) The example of cave drawings seems to imply Science driving Art, not the other way around. The cave artist using his picture to transmit information he had obtained about critical kill points or what have you seems far more reasonable than that same artist going out to figure out critical kill points so that his picture would be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/32 "2003-09-12T20:40:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by erislover \* > \*\*Everything is either physics or stamp collecting, eh **g8rguy**? 😛 \*\* Well, duh! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/33 "2003-09-13T05:47:59Z")
Massive amounts of cuneiform tablets have been found to deal almost strictly with accounting. Cataloging does not necessarily equate to accounting. Cataloging of images is also a method of accumulating knowledge or coordinating it in a way that is not readily available. Consider some still life pictures that show a group of blossoms which _never_ are in bloom at the same time. The cave drawings may have protrayed animals that never come into contact yet are all sources of food. I’d like for **Tertius01** to elaborate more on the idea that the cave paintings are science driving art before making further comment. (The hamsters seem to have developed rather refined tastes of late.) ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/34 "2003-09-13T05:51:40Z")
**g8rguy** , would you say that the work of [Carl Linnaeus](http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html) is not scientific in nature? ---
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/35 "2003-09-13T20:52:30Z")
To an extent, I _would_ say so, yes. Do we need to gather data in order to do science? Yes, of course. But when _all_ we do is gather data, without making any attempt to explain it… we’re stamp collectors, not scientists. If we decide that we want to classify various plants and animals, that’s great and all, but has it made any attempt to _explain_ anything? If it has, it’s science. And if it hasn’t, it’s not. These days, of course, scientists spend lots and lots of time gathering data. But before it gets published, we always try and explain our observations. And if we can’t, we make our observations available and the community as a whole tries to explain them. It’s that explanation we’re after. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354/36 "2003-09-13T21:04:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > \*\*Great points and ones with a lot of merit. However, I still maintain that art was around for a very long time before religion made the scene. I continue to think that art may have laid some extensive groundwork for even religion’s own ability to take root, not to mention science. \*\* I have to disagree. Unless you define ‘religion’ as ‘organized religious institutions and practices’. But what I disagree with most is your basic assumption that the three are separate, oh what is the word I want, practices? All three are means by which humans reach beyond themselves and their communities to embrace the universal. Art express the self and the self’s awareness of the world; science observes and measures everything there is a way to measure (and then looks for new ways to measure); religion seeks to understand the universe and the place of an individual in it. Sounds like highways, backroads and cross-country to the same destination to me. Only mediocre scientists and people who follow a narrow religious path find real contradiction between the two. And art is part of everything we do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sciences-most-influential-midwife-art-or-religion/200354.md?page=1)