Friday, December 18, 2009

Problems of communication ...

... Climate scientists could learn something from U.S. poet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Implied throughout this piece is that the science is settled and the only problem is that things haven't been explained properly. But I would think that the notion of "settled science" is itself not very scientific Exactly how much science has been settled, and about what? Because once the science about something is settled there is obviously no need for continued research into it, right? Would Cokinos approve of this piece: Climate Change Is Nature's Way, which strikes me, as far as it goes, as clear and well-informed (I'm no scientist, but I'm not exactly scientifically illiterate, either)? Maybe there's another poet all scientists should pay attention to - Robinson Jeffers, whose poem "Science" concludes thus:
A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle,
A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed this infinitely little too much?

1 comment:

  1. I think of Jeffers in this context, too, and I also think of Loren Eiseley.

    There is a great moment during the visionary wormhole travel sequence in the movie "Contact," in which the Jody Foster character, a hard-headed scientist if ever there was one, breaks down and says to herself, "They should have sent a poet." She has gone beyond her ability to say what she is experiencing and feeling.

    Which is one thing Eiseley was supremely good at, was articulating those experiences poetically and scientifically.

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