{ still waiting for science }

Below is a brief correspondence between myself and a friend. I have decided to post it in an attempt to clarify what I was attempting to communicate in the previous post.

Quoting Katy:

So I gave a quick look to your thoughts on CSI (I'm in between recording grades and getting my lecture notes together)-- very interesting! My initial question would be, how does this affect (if at all) the (often hostile) relationship between "hard" science, social sciences, and liberal arts-- which is admittedly an entirely other article? (I've tended to feel more of an antagonism between the latter two than anything else.) And what role does science play in determining the legitimacy of not only artistic modes of thought, but how we think about "the everyday"? (It seemed that you were getting at this, but I think I'm moving more in a criticism of scientism sort of direction, a la Neil Postman's Technopoly and such, and additionally into its monopolization of all realms of thinking, especially where global capitalism is a reality both fostered by encouraging of such a take-over).

Katy

*****

Reply:

Katy,

Thanks for the read and criticisms! Your antagonism is definitely justifiable, and its really what I first intended to write that peice with (frustrated, as I was, with the presumptive claim that we have to "wait on science"). But as I was writing, the piece just kind of started going another direction, and after about 2050 words, I really didn't feel like taking on the task of defining "art" and "science" to the degree I felt that it might take to really flesh out that antagonism.

You're suspicion of science "determining the legitimacy of not only artistic modes of thought, but how we think about 'the everyday'" is rightly raised, especially as the one character does not seem willing to assess the truth of ANY kind of claim until "science" shows up. There is an authority we tend to give to scientific claims that becomes totalitarian, it "has the last word."

On the other hand, one thing that was kind of an undercurrent in my post was that science's "last word" is sometimes artificial (represented in the show by the two characters using the label "mob," and thus were not entirely holding out for whatever science may provide) and/or misplaced (seeing that the conversation was about motive, how would science affirm that the act was racially motivated?).

There is also the curious fact that their and our "waiting for science" is answered in the end only by Greg's "art." Of the two ways to read this, I chose to take to it that "art" is often all we can come by, and that that's sufficient, and actually a better understanding of what science, in itself, is. So, by that reading, "art" incorperates "science." The other reading would be that Greg's "art" is subsumed under the label "science," such that science is the broader, more encompassing category.

The dilemma is that "art" has the final word on a show that presents itself as all about science and its sovereignty. But is there really a dilemma? I mean, CSI is a "show" after all, and as such, is an art-form itself. What the writers, producers, and actors do is art, not science.

I am not saying that the other reading is unfounded, and the episode definitely holds that possibility and prompts such a discussion as this. But by my reading, the episode holds a strong possibility of a different, "counter-cultural," reading.

I know this hasn't fully answered your question, which is more of a cultural criticism than I was going for, though your questions and their answers are likely needed (because I think they're right) as a reason why my reading of CSI might matter. Thanks!

-Thomas