Hmm …

… The Poetic Species: Legendary Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson in Conversation with Poet Laureate Robert Hass on Science and Poetry | Brain Pickings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… the interplay of science and poetry in the pursuit of human knowledge is far from obvious, let alone celebrated, in today’s culture.

Maybe in today's culture. But, according to Plutarch, Thales wrote his treatises in verse. Parmenides' On Nature is a poem.

Indeed, one need only look at Galileo’s troubles to appreciate the poignancy of this observation and to be reminded that ignorance, not knowledge, drives science.

Actually, if one really does look at Galileo's troubles carefully, one discovers he wasn't quite the scientific hero he is made out to be. He coarsely denounced Kepler when the latter proved Copernicus was right by demonstrating celestial orbits were elliptical, not circular. Galileo insisted they were circular, even though he knew, as did Copernicus, that the mathematics of circular orbits and heliocentrism did not jell.

This piece has an aura of sentimentalism, which neither poetry nor science needs.