C. P. Snow

Analyzes the problems and consequences of the lack of communication between scientists and non-scientists in the modern world

The Two Cultures

Nelson Zagalo

Portuguese extended-version: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
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This book was made from a talk by CP Snow, in 1959, that made lots of ripples throughout the academy, much of them against Snow, condemning him for contributing to augmenting the divide between science and humanities. I must confess how surprised I feel reading such condemnations, even more when by people like Stephen Jay Gould.

It's strange how even today people approach this book defending, it states the obvious, but then saying the world should not be like this, because things are very simple, and we should be able to understand each other! I'm sorry for not entering the same wagon. Maybe some years ago I would agree, not today.

The two cultures here presented exist, because humans have different motivations, different drives in their lives. We can't all like the same things, because we're different. Of course we could say that much more than 2 cultures must exist, which is true, however trying to understand, at least, these groups and accept them, would make much good than just keep saying that all of us should understand the world in the same manner, or share the same world-views.

About the book itself I must say it doesn't help, because Snow doesn't help. There's no method, no true definition is presented of both sides, no characterisation of the different profiles is presented, no sociology even less a psychology is developed. Thus the argument becomes almost indefensible. And because of this Snow committed a big error, he just used to characterise the poles, the domains: science and humanities. The problem is that this is the same error of trying to classify anything as man or woman oriented, the Bell curve will say men are like this, and women like that, but beyond the mean of the curve, exists lots of men and women not identifying themselves with the labels. The same happened here. A lot of scientists love to read literature, and lots of literary people manifest interest in the sciences. 

Saying this, I'm just saying the book is weak, not that the divide between mathematic and literary oriented minds don't exist.

The Two Cultures

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