Crossing the two cultures Yesterday in my 2oth Century class I discussed C. P. Snow's "two culture hypthesis" and I hinted at some of the way that the divide is still with us. In particular, I mentioned some scientifically oriented intellectuals who have been making commentary on culture and values, the so-called third-culture.

What I didn't mention is that there have always been traditional humanist who have been both knowledgeable and engaged in science. Among the giants, James Joyce comes to mind and you can't really understand Gravity's Rainbow without some knowledge of physics in general and the second law of thermodynamics in particular (note: having that knowledge does not mean that will be able to understand GR).

Fortunately, there are also more contemporary writers taking science seriously. Richard Powers is a personal favoritie. His most recent, The Time of Our Singing is about race, but his earlier books, especially The Goldbug Variations and Galatea 2.0 are serious literary meditations on math and science. David Foster Wallace is a more famous example of the same impulse.

There's an obvious tension between this literary approaches to science and the third culturist's appraoch to value commentary, I don't think either Powers or DFW will pass the test that Steven Pinker constructs for literature in The Blank Slate (which seems to be that a novel should be read in one sitting and not thought about again).
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