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-----Original Message-----
From: Informal Science Education Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of chuck howarth

Mac is right about this, guys.  Observation is equally important in art

and many other disciplines as in science.   Observation is necessary  
but not sufficient to define science.  Chuck
--------------------------

See, I'll agree that observation is not the >entirety< of science, not
by a long shot. But then - and I'm not going out on much of a limb here
- I don't think any one facet of the process can be sufficient to define
the whole shebang that is science.

I'll also note that just because it's equally important in art, doesn't
mean it's not a key part of science, too. Off the top of my head, a few
other things common to the scientific + artistic processes:

* Creativity/challenging orthodoxy. (What, you think Einstein or Darwin
didn't come up with radically original ideas?)
* Trial + error/practice
* Researching previous bodies of work
* Visualization (hellooooo, Feynman)
* Practicality (art may exist for purely aesthetic reasons but it could
try to make a socio/political impact, too; science may exist purely for
knowledge's own sake, or it make try to have practical applications)

I guess that just as observation alone doesn't equal the entirety of
science, the absence of any one facet of the process doesn't mean it
isn't science. I wouldn't say that the ancient astronomers of the world
who mapped the stars/planets and their positions/movements somehow
weren't doing "real" science, just because they didn't devise the laws
of gravity that govern those movements. Or that a kid walking in the
woods checking out the birds/mushrooms/rocks in a back yard isn't doing
science just because he/she has no theories on how the rocks formed or
whatnot.

Jonah Cohen
Outreach & Public Programs Manager
The Children's Museum


"If you hear only one song this year, there's something terribly wrong
with you."
    -They Might Be Giants

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