Science and Art
Welcome to Robert Whittle’s web site
last updated on 10 July 2010
MY OWN ART
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Some of my poems
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NEW!
Giants and snooker?
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Darwin returns to London to debte the artificial cell issue in 2009
A CREATIVE WRITING
WORKSHOP
in French
in Port Cros, France 2007
MY
PUBLICATIONS
DARWIN AND
THE
UNDERGROUND
To celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth in 2009, as well as the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, I have written an extended poem on Darwin and the London Undergound.
It has its own website.
Click to read this poem
Science and art
This web site contains my own and other's thoughts, ideas and experiments at the borderline between science and art.
I am a geneticist by training and profession, so I also offer links on my site to the world of science.
There are core differences between the working practices in science and in art, and the expectations or 'deliverables' from these two areas of human endeavour are not identical. Science has an evidential basis and its discourse includes logic. Its conclusions and insights depend upon reproducibility, and it is possible to make judgements about the success of the outcome. In contrast, within the world of art, both the process and the path to the endpoint maybe less transparent. Judging the 'success' of a work of art is a far more uncertain affair.
Even so, facinating and intellectually stimulating outcomes may arise through collaborations across this borderline, or as the result of excursions made from the world of science into the world of art, or the converse, by making the mirror-symmetric journey.
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The goals of 'science and art' activities whether fortuitous or planned, may include any of the following:
• personal inspirations and awareness gained by the participants
• conceptual insights that may inform or stimulate future activities separately within the realms of science or art
more on this
• engagement by other publics with the issues and themes examined, leading to an increased curiosity, a changed understanding and cultural perspective, heightened awareness and increased participation in decision-making.
In my view, the science and art borderline does not represent a genre of its own, but might be thought of as a arena in which many ideas can be explored productively.
See my recent publications in this field
DEMOCS
the game to improve democracy.
Discuss stem cells, or genetic testing?
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The canoe trip
July 2006
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OUTPUTS
from the Metamorphosis project
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Click the cover to download a pdf version of Promise or threat?
