"Melancholies of Knowledge. Literature in the Age of Science", M. A. Safir (ed.)

Frankly I have a limited knowledge base of "literature" and what is popularly considered the same. Sometimes I wonder if literary criticism, at times, is more about creating much ado about nothing, than simply enjoying a good book. That said, I do have some interest in how science is portrayed in the public sphere, as in literature. But who knows anything about Michel Rio and his assemblage of literary takes on science and how it plays in the broader human arena of experience? His books are not commonly in print in English, which makes it even more difficult. Yet, editor Margery Safir obviously does, assembling noted writers of culture, including a scientist or two, to pick apart a Rio's books to see how it all plays out - science and literature.

Frankly (again) I only read the introduction and one chapter. I agree with her that "Rhetoric, textual analysis, questions of style, and modes of expression are recognized in History and Philosophy of Science as crucial to the life of scientific concepts." Science is beyond white lab coats and test tubes. It is a human construct to understand the world around us. However, I disagree with Safir that science has special status in culture. That literature has to make up ground. "Are authors of fiction" she asks "seeking to share in the power and authority that contemporary society accords science?" Because of our collective ignoring of science, as a society, this is simply not true (a rant best saved for a specific essay).

Still, I wanted to hear what Stephen Jay Gould had to say. A follower of his, one who appreciates learning through his digressions on science and culture, I found his essay on Rio's Dreaming Jungles. Gould states the obvious of literature and science: "This form of "iffy" history [the incorporation of the two - I won't say cultures] can be so fascinating as a source of conjecture about alternative plausible pathways for our cultural lives." Where I found pause to concern is his final statement. "We need the integration of our disciplines, the end to false and extreme dichotomizations, the recognition that we cannot grasp human uniqueness unless we both practice art and understand science." That we as a society must all participate in art, but only understand and not participate in science. Here again a scientist has lofted science to a higher status. For this is a failure of society: to appreciate the technological and basic science that surrounds us, and a failure too of scientist in successfully translating and incorporating the ACT of doing science.
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