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Summer 2008: Table of Contents
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Arts and Sciences (Two Cultures) Back to top
Language Networks as Complex Systems
Max Kueiming Lee and Sheue-Jen Ou
Abstract
Starting in the late eighties, with a growing discontent with analytical methods in science and the growing power of computers, researchers began to study complex systems such as living organisms, evolution of genes, biological systems, brain neural networks, epidemics, ecology, economy, social networks, etc. In the early nineties, the research gradually spread into the language field. Linguistics began to simulate language networks as complex systems at word, syntactic and semantic levels. This is in contrast to the conventional Chomsky’s hierarchy structure and analytical approach. Some researchers even tried to simulate the origin of language, a topic which used to be suspended in European academes a century ago. The numerous researches indicated that language networks are showing some properties of complex systems: scale-free, small world, self-organization and emergence. In this presentation, the author will argue the effects and the implications of choosing language networks as complex systems in language acquisition.
Bringing the Two Cultures together through A World of Light and Color
Shabbir M. Mian, Jeffrey D. Marx and Vasilis Pagonis
Abstract:
In the United States, the undergraduate general education curriculum by and large requires students take courses from the arts and humanities as well as the sciences in order to produce well-rounded or liberally educated individuals. This educational philosophy is in line with C. P. Snow’s recommendation for increased communication between the “two cultures”, though the exchange of ideas may not be optimal as one would like. Most colleges and universities expect undergraduate students to take introductory science courses, sometimes designed for non-science majors. In our experience, many of these students are inadequately prepared in science and mathematics, and have weak attitudes about the nature of science and scientific inquiry. We find students in traditional lecture classes eventually lose interest in these content-driven courses, fail to see the relevance of the material they learned, and miss out on the excitement of scientific discovery.
To address these concerns, we created a single-theme, general science course with the help of government and institutional funds in which non-science students engage in simple activities designed to help them understand basic light phenomena. In our course, A World of Light and Color, students learn how to think like scientists rather than simply learn about science. It is this sense of student ownership of learning coupled with carefully crafted curricular material inspired from physics education research that has made our course very successful and measurably effective. In this paper, we will present our development model, outline the structure of a typical class, provide examples of activities, and discuss assessment strategies and results.
Mathematics and Literature: Educators’ Perspectives on Utilizing a Reformative Approach to Bridge Two Cultures
Suzanne J. Nesmith
Abstract
The existence of two distinct cultures within our society, the arts and the sciences, was introduced by physicist C. P. Snow in his 1959 Reed Lecture at Cambridge University and was further illuminated by Snow in The Two Cultures, a Second Look (1964). Lamenting the existence of the cultural chasm while also fearing a widening of the schism, Snow opened a dialogue with the hope of reconciliation between the cultures. Fifty years later, although the chasm still exists, numerous entities and individuals within the cultures work to formulate the means by which the cultures may be bridged, and, subsequently, the chasm narrowed and eliminated. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is one such entity, and leaders of the group have worked since the council’s establishment in 1920 to research, promote, and improve the teaching and learning of mathematics through innovative, reformative approaches.
Reform-oriented curricula are built upon constructivist perspectives aimed at assisting students in utilizing their own unique backgrounds and experiences to develop a personal understanding of mathematical situations. One means of infusing personal experience into the mathematics curriculum, while also bridging the aforementioned cultures, is through the incorporation of children’s literature, yet there exists great variance in the type, format, structure, and success of the methodology’s implementation. Subsequently, while the reformative approach of mathematics literature integration presents as a means of building understanding by bridging the cultures of mathematics and the humanities, it is the educator’s choices relevant to the approach which have the greatest impact on the outcomes of the approach.
Evolution of Priorities in Higher Education and R&D in the European Union: Case of Poland
Ida Musiałkowska
Abstract
After joining the European Union, many aspects of economic and social development are changing in Poland. Change is necessary in many areas, including the areas of research and education and their links to practice as it is broadly understood practice. Some areas seem neglected by the policy-makers. This article will refer to the question of “two cultures,” showing the development priorities present in strategic Polish documents, with the focus mainly on research and higher education policies. It will comprise the following aspects: priority setting referring to “two cultures,” identification of different sources of finance, expenditure on particular research areas in Poland, as well as the impact of the Europeanization process on the policy making.
Invention, Technology, and the GI Bill
Robert E. Parkin
Abstract
The era of industrialization was also the age of invention, which spurred technology that in turn required skills not provided by existing educational institutions. In particular, the traditional elite higher education centers could not, or would not, provide the training in the numbers needed for a technical and increasingly global economy. The GI Bill in the United States changed this entirely, making higher education available to 2.2 million veterans returning from WW2: few of these had previously the chance of a university or college education. The economic benefits to the United States were immense.
From community college to university, higher education enrollment burgeoned, so that by the new millennium two thirds of high school seniors expected to get a bachelor’s degree. Other countries, including Britain, followed suit. Given this it is difficult to understand the impact of C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” argument about a cultural divide between a tiny cohort of cultural intellectuals and scientists, since at best it was a generation too late to be relevant and at worst focused on an increasingly irrelevant, class-based society.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin—Embodiment of the Two Cultures: How His Example Continues to be Relevant in Today’s World
Viola Ruck
Abstract
Dr. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an American genius phenomenally successful as scientist, literary writer, civic leader and diplomat. He is a counter example to the image of the rift of the “two cultures” postulated by C. P. Snow in his 1959 Rede lecture in Cambridge, England. We give a short synopsis of Franklin’s brilliant life, and using his achievements as an example, emphasize the need for public policy and education to strive to bridge the gap between the two cultures, because today we have a greater chance then ever.
Everyone but Rizzo: Using the Arts to Transform Communities
W. Alan Smith
Abstract
Issues that contribute to the conversations about the connections between religion, peace, and conflict are clearly complex. The majority of discussions on this topic have been conducted at the theoretical, meta-level as scholars debate the “concept” of peace and the roles religion can play in conflict and the search for peace.
The paper suggests it may be more rewarding to study specific communities where conflict has been resolved and community has been enabled than to engage in yet another theoretical construction of the nature of peace. Using a “postmodern hermeneutical theology” as the form of analysis, the paper investigates ways the arts have been used in three very diverse international communities as a means of giving voice, identity, and value to those who have traditionally been at the “margins” of society. The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has engaged in community organization as well as artistic activity to transform gang-ridden and graffiti-spoiled neighborhoods with expressive, meaning-filled murals. The “Mother’s Clubs” of Lima, Peru’s slum area known as the Pamplona Alta have transformed incredibly poor, voiceless women into persons of worth and dignity through the production of colorful three-dimensional fabric art called cuadros and arpilleras. And a non-scripted, improvisational approach to theatre called “Playback Theatre” has given attention to the stories brought by members of the audience as means of experiencing truth, grace, and redemption around the world. These three examples each illustrate the claims of postmodern hermeneutical theology that it is in the small, local, personal experience of peacemaking and the practices of redemption that peace can overcome conflict.
The Symbiotic Relationship between Liberal Studies and Science
Jim I. Unah
Abstract
The Artistic and Humanistic studies (liberal studies) and the science and technology disciplines (science) constitute the two dominant cultures in a modern university. Subsumed in these cultures are the professional disciplines of law, architecture, engineering, medicine, accounting, administration and a few others. Essentially, the university idea emerged from the desire to integrate all academic cultures. However, an emerging trend of erecting a dichotomy between these cultures, is beginning to spin controversy, brew academic suspicion and slice off the integrative intentions of the university idea.
The responsibility of liberal studies is to develop the academic disposition, to awaken human curiosity, inquisitiveness and creativity, by promoting human values and expressing the spirit of man. Science and technology culture is to leverage on the artistic and humanistic orientation to elevate our standard of practice, our ways of doing, to higher pedestals.
This paper argues that neither the liberal orientation alone nor the scientific technological culture exclusively could guarantee the well being of humankind. While it is the responsibility of the humanities to elevate the individual to freedom, it is the obligation of science and technology education to catapult humanity to its proper comfort and happiness.
While artistic-humanistic productions should more radically envision a world of mutual interdependence, of shared values, of reciprocal solidarity and a commitment to the aspirations of a common humanity, scientific-technological studies and proposals should demonstrate how outputs-outcomes are adverted to the promotion of human values and virtues, and how they assure the survival of the human race.
This paper likens the emerging dichotomy between the two cultures to the dichotomy between mind and body, a dichotomy that developments in cybernetics and parapsychology appear to be grappling with. The two cultures have the obligation to develop the two parts of human nature. To develop one part to the detriment of the other is to demonstrate prejudice in examining the mind-body relationship and, by extension, to seek to abolish a vital part of our humanity.
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