Episode 1149: Why Science and Art are Not Opposites

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,149 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:08] Dr. Kelly Henry: I'm Dr. Kelly Henry. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to deliver excellent customer service is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: you understand both the science and the art of the rainbow, then your understanding is deeper and richer and fuller. And that goes, whether you're talking about learning the skills of coaching that learns, whether you're talking about learning, how to communicate with your spouse. Goes, whether you're learning how to work as a leader, or just do something else that you want to [00:01:00] do welcome.

[00:01:01] And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in your. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:27] And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about what art and science really are. I also share why art and science overlap way more than you might. And I share some of the reasons why understanding that life is both a science and an art is important.

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[00:02:08] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible. To get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. This week, I'm talking a lot about art and science art and science.

[00:02:33] When I use those words, people probably have kind of a vague idea of what they are, but at the root, we're not always clear on what's the same and what's difference between them. What's what overlaps and what does. Science is an objective theoretical model, our mode of looking at the world and making explanations based on that you make theories and [00:03:00] hypotheses and you test in science.

[00:03:02] It has the concept of support or proof as the idea that it revolves and changes over time. Art on the other hand is a subjective model and it's a conceptual idea and it requires no proof because it is something that you just see art, one person may love and someone else may not, but science, at least in the best case when it's working the way it should, eventually science proves out itself and become supported by lots and lots of evidence and agreed upon.

[00:03:38] Most, if not all. That's the difference between the two, but there's actually a lot of similarities as well. Both science and art are ways of describing the world around us. They have different traditions, different audiences, different types of behaviors. [00:04:00] And motivations and goals at some level, but fundamentally they're both ways of looking at the world and saying, this is my experience with the world.

[00:04:13] That understanding that allows us to see that many things that we think of as one or the other, have some parts of. We tend to look at the world and we're scared by it or intimidated by it or confused by it. Then we want to explain that we want to figure out this thing that bothers me. Why is it, why does it exist this way?

[00:04:38] W we want to make the unpredictable, predictable. We want order. And both science and art are ways of bringing order to the world. They're not the same way. But they both have that kind of viewpoint or fundamental idea behind them. And we can make up stories [00:05:00] about why it makes sense for us to be social creatures that are invested in storytelling and explaining the world.

[00:05:08] But at the end of the day, we don't really know why we just know that's true. We are this way. So making this kind of X automation around what we do in trying to see the world in a new way, and then communicate that vision or that way of seeing the world with others is fundamentally both what art and science does, what artists and scientists do.

[00:05:38] If they're successful, then we can suddenly see something in the world that we weren't a. To see before if you are working in science or art and you have nothing new to say, then you're not really considered an influential scientist are artists. If you have something new, but you're not able to [00:06:00] communicate it You're also not considered successful in these fields.

[00:06:05] It involves both seeing the thing or understanding the thing, and then being able to present it and communicate it with others, whether that's through the scientific method and experimentation and hypothesis. And the communication tools that are already set up in the science method of peer reviewed journals and all of these sorts of things, or whether it's an artist going out and creating something and then trying to present it in a show and get feedback and understanding from others.

[00:06:39] They're both ways of showing and communicating the world. And it's important to understand both of these it's important to understand. The subjective nature of art, as well as the objective nature of science. When you're learning a new skill, when you're trying to develop something that you want to [00:07:00] do are put out into the world.

[00:07:03] I would argue that some of the best scientific communicators are also fundamentally artists in some way, not necessarily they paint or they present visual arts or other kinds of things, but in the way they present and tell stories about the world, that communication fundamentally involves getting. Out there and showing people the art behind the science, they show people the emotional connection to what's going on.

[00:07:38] It's not just a story about some technology or some experiment. It's showing that how this fundamentally gives us a new picture of the world. Yeah, there's a argument that was made back in the day about how, if you scientifically understand how a rainbow is produced, the [00:08:00] prism effect of the water droplets and all of these things, then somehow or another, that makes the rainbow less beautiful.

[00:08:08] But I would argue if you understand how the rainbow is produced and you can appreciate the fundamental beauty of the rainbow. You understand both the science and the art of the rainbow, then your understanding is deeper and richer and fuller. And that goes, whether you're talking about learning the skills of coaching that learns, whether you're talking about learning, how to communicate with your spouse, that goes, whether you're learning how to work as a leader, or just do something else that you want to do, whether it's raising kids.

[00:08:48] Or whether it's simply learning to understand yourself, there's always an art and a science to everything. Thanks for.[00:09:00]

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