A Fascinating Discussion

One of my regular podcast listens is The Darkhorse Podcast hosted by husband-and-wife Biology professors Drs. Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein.  Though our general worldviews are definitely not overlapping too much I enjoy their conversations immensely as they are informative, gracious, and usually good-humored.  Their quiet earnestness and quest for truth (with little tolerance for b.s.) keep me listening.

Recently they discussed the inter-relationship between science (I loved how it was described as a tool rather than a sacred totem) and the structured problem solving inherent in artistic creation.  Part of the reason for my interest is fairly obvious, my career was spent occupying the space resulting from the intersection of materials science and artistic and cultural artifacts in the world’s largest museum complex.  At one point of my career trajectory, I was a principal in a project to create a high school interdisciplinary curriculum merging the hard sciences with the world of artifacts and art.  As I said in the funding proposal for the beta-test, “When the scientific analyst describes a material as having such and such properties and the artist says he wants art materials to accomplish this or that expression, they are talking about the exact same thing but from a different perspective.”  My organization’s priorities changed with new management and the project was never brought to fruition.

I think you just might find Bret and Heather’s comments to be interesting.  This specific topic begins around the 23-minute mark.