My reply to science critics who are ill-informed - 2

Here is my reply to science criticism by a journalist ( you can read the original here: http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/sanbernardinocounty/ci_20147667/i... )

It takes pluck to play a Stradivarius
John Weeks, Staff Writer

I have a new motto, and I think it's my most sophisticated one yet:

"Science? Fiddlesticks!"

Several times Science fiddles around with art, trying to figure out how it works.

The latest example comes in a news report from Sweden, which is available on the Internet, where a team of scientists and engineers is attempting to replicate, in a laboratory setting, a Stradivarius violin.

Antonio Stradivari was an Italian artisan who made violins 300 years ago. He made almost a thousand of them, and they were so well-crafted, so pure of sound, so beautiful to behold, that each one was prized, treated with love, and passed down with reverence from generation to generation.

Incredibly, most Stradivarius violins still exist, and each one is famous, and worth millions.

Stradivari, working by hand and ear in a pre-industrial age, gathered special woods, treated them in special ways, then carved and shaved and shaped them with special skills.

He made violins of such consistent, superior quality, no one has been able to duplicate them. Ever.

The Swedish team is the latest to try. Scientists will use a supercomputer to build a digital violin model, then manipulate it electronically until it sounds like a Stradivarius.

"The violin is easy to measure geometrically. You can measure how it vibrates, look at the frequencies and other parameters," says Mats Tinnsten, a Swedish structural engineer involved in the project. "Violin makers reduce the thickness of the wood with a knife, and do it in different places until they are satisfied. We use the same method, but in the computer. We take an electronic blank and carve it."

In my opinion, a team of scientists attempting to figure out a work of art has the same chance of success as a team of poets attempting to build a working rocket ship. ( I don't agree with the author here, poets might not be able to figure out how rockets work because it is highly complicated science but I am pretty sure scientists will be able to figure out how art works could be created - that is the power of science! - Krishna)

Let's face it, scientists and artists play on different teams. We need both, heaven knows, in this game called Life, but each team has totally different win strategies.

Artists love magic and mystery, the very things that vex scientists the most (because all magic an be explained and all mysteries can can be unlocked by science - Krishna).

What vexes artists about scientists is the way they always are pulling apart things, to see what makes them work (That is trying to make complex things simple and study - in case you don't know about it -  science is the process of making complex things simple and art is the process of making simple things complex - Krishna)

Almost 200 years ago, essayist Charles Lamb complained that Isaac Newton, in solving the mystery of how light is dispersed to form a spectrum of color, had "destroyed all the Poetry of the rainbow." ( In fact it added more beauty to the rainbow by showing the whole picture - you need special vision to see it - Krishna)

Lamb was overreacting, as essayists sometimes do. Science didn't wreck rainbows, after all. Rainbows still are with us, and doing quite nicely, thank you.

Just like Stradivarius violins.

But I can understand why Lamb was worried. He didn't want the magic trick to be explained. He didn't want the surprise to be spoiled. He didn't want the illusion to be shattered. ( Yes and keep everybody in the dark so that they can be cheated in which ever way you want to - Krishna)

I'm the same way. I love the fact that there are things of beauty and art in the world, and there always have been, that science never will understand or explain ( Science can but it will take time - science is still in its infancy - let it grow and show its real capability- Krishna).

How, and why, did prehistoric humans on different continents carve immense, artistic pictographs on the ground that can be viewed only from space ?( Then they didn't know that one day man can go to space to view it from there, it just is their  interest to create big works - that is all - Krishna)

What brilliant ancient architect designed the pyramids of Egypt? (by using scientific methods  in case you don't know see my art work titled "Science and Technology- Then and Now" - Krishna).

How could Beethoven write great symphonies even though he was deaf ( Beethoven was not deaf from the beginning. He learned music, could hear it and knew what sounded great before becoming deaf. So he had an idea how to write symphonies  even though he became deaf in the later part of his life - there is difference between who are handicapped since birth and who became handicapped after learning things. Moreover, according to some scientists, a heart  rhythm disorder called arrhythmia reflects in his works. He might have been reflecting his own physical sensations in his compositions - in a sense  setting an arrhythmia to music (1)  - Krishna )

These are wonderful mysteries (Not at all to scientists - only to those who cannot understand the world properly - Krishna )

And what also is wonderful is that even today there are works of great beauty and art being made that the science of tomorrow also will be unable to understand or explain ( No way- these are words said by people who don't know how science works. Science has already explained a few things - if you read the articles I posted in the group "Research", you will realize this - Krishna).

Gifted musicians right now are composing songs so enthralling and individual that even the mightiest computers of the future cannot deconstruct or demystify them ( No way- these are words said by people who don't know how science and scientists work - Krishna)..

Great works of visual art are being created that are so enchanting and distinctive that technicians in lab coats never will be able to assimilate, clone or improve upon them( My answers same as above - be in that dream world if you please but your dreams are going to be shattered because they are unrealistic- Krishna).

The same can be said of novels, poems and essays of surpassing power and vision that are being written right now.

Maybe even newspaper columns, I might venture to say.

In fact, I could throw down the gauntlet right here, right now, and challenge science to figure out, and explain, how a single newspaper column can be so witty, wise, and true that it tests the very boundaries of blazing glory ( Neuro-science is trying to figure out exactly that - wait for science to grow enough to give  a reply- don't be in a hurry- Krishna).

And I know what science would say in reply: "First, write one. Then we'll talk."

Science? Fiddlesticks!

(Sorry, science disagrees with all that you say and with mild irritation at your lack of knowledge or dumb humour that belittles us  a lot - yes, Fiddlesticks , but at your words that are derived from partial picture paralysis, why not?! - Krishna) :)

References:

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-beethoven-tugs-at-the...

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