Sir: Horace Freeland Judson in his article Has science won
the argument? makes all kinds of facile assumptions. If science 'is this century's art', what has it been in other centuries? There were plenty of 'beautiful eXperiments' being made before Einstein. Also, he overlooks the reason why art survives while science is assimilated and taken as a matter of course, why people are still much more interested in King Lear than M Newton, though the latter has had a crucial influence on their lives.
The reason is simple: science explains, art mystifies. Science deals in facts, art in ambiguities. The unknown or uncertain must have a greater inner interest than the explained. But Mr Judson would benefit from pursuing this theme: the more science explains, the less is left for art to make ambiguous, therefore the less art there is. J. V. Stevenson 15 Olney Road, Camberwell Gate, London SE17
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