What is yet missing in education and research? And what might arise out of current complex crises?

Current affairs develop fast. Deciding whether and when to make an intervention is difficult. (This Opinion Piece was offered to selected press media on 17th and 19th June 2020. Now superceded, I yet wish to make certain points, hence my publishing it here.)

Two aspects of the current COVID-19 story have come to the fore in recent days.

On 7th June was the following exchange on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Interviewing the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, Andrew Marr commented: “I was going to say that this is, in a sense, art not science, because these are old figures you are getting. There is a time-lag and so forth…” Mr Hancock replied: “Well. It’s actually science. It’s not art. It is science on which we base these decisions. And science is necessarily looking at uncertainty.” Canadian, Sir William Osler (1849-1919), described medicine as “A Science of Uncertainty and an Art of Possibility.”

On 11th June, interviews with Linda Bauld, Professor of Public Health, Edinburgh University, and with Greg Clark, MP, as Chair of the Select Committee on Science & Technology, both emphasised the complexity of the relationship between scientific advice and political decision-making; especially the conflicting demands of social distancing and getting back to work, both important for health and even saving lives. Yet, the need and demands for simple and consistent communication has been a bone of contention.

Complex dynamic systems present the greatest challenges in the present century. This is compounded: for we are facing a complex of complex dynamic systems: the COVID-19 crisis, on top of the climate crisis, and now the collateral economic crisis. Each of these are interrelated, and yet, we do not adequately employ what means there are for studying and addressing them in an integrated fashion.

What has the study of historical and contemporary relations between arts and science to do with all this – what I and others call “artiscience”? At its simplest it is defined as “the integration and harmonisation of arts and sciences.” Omniscience is not attainable; artiscience is.

In the case of Marr and Hancock, the questions are of the art and science of Government: of decision-making, policy-making, and policy implementation. (As I write, Stephen Sackur on HardTalk takes this up with epidemiologist, Dr Ian Lipkin, New York, scientific advisor on the film Contagion.)

Those listening have had a rapid exposure to the many sciences feeding into the art of governing: virology, immunology, epidemiology, and mathematics, which serves these sciences, especially statistics. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but total absence of knowledge is even worse. All citizens should endeavour to take a view of the efficacy of our representatives’ policy decisions and implementation in this context.

Let not the phrase “political science” confuse. One might recall Bismarck’s remark: “Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft” (Politics is not an exact science). Consider then how the German government has chosen to involve philosophers and humanities scholars in current deliberations. International comparisons are worthwhile, and we should not fail to look at North America.

Speaking in Edinburgh in 2011, but addressing Britain, Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, said: “Over the past century the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together.” Yet the examples he gave were limited. His appealing to polymathy was welcome; but this is not a binary matter, art versus science. It is not STEM, nor even STEAM (including “art”), but it must include the arts & humanities. So SHTEAM? (I can hear Sir Sean Connery voicing that!)

More recently, in the USA, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Mathematics published a Consensus edited by David Skorton and Ashley Bear, entitled The Integration of the Humanities and Arts Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education: Branches from the Same Tree (2018). The title says it all, but it was hardly noticed it seems in the British press.

In Canada, most worthy of study is the Arts and Science program at McMaster University, running since 1975. (https://artsci.mcmaster.ca/).

Prior generations had to deal with HIV/AIDS, BSE/CJD, Ebola. The Director of the Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar said in 2016: “in truth there wasn’t a solely biomedical solution to Ebola, just as there isn’t a single scientific solution to climate change, to drug-resistant infections, to the challenges of demographic shifts, urbanisation and feeding an ever growing population.” He called for “bridges across disciplines” and “a holistic approach to science and society.”

In recent days, David McCoy, Professor of Global Public Health at Queen Margaret University of London wrote: “We have lots of scientists who are expert in one or two things, but perhaps not enough who have breadth and the confidence to straddle the divides between the natural sciences and the social sciences and the humanities. For me, that is what is required, and that is what is missing.”

Approaching complex matters from an artiscient point of view (Weltanschauung), raises questions that are rarely if ever raised by other specialists.

So, while many are asking what should happen post-COVID; and viewing it as a time of opportunity. The challenges are great, yet, whereas it would be no panacea, one development which colleagues and I wish to see, is the establishment of an Institute for Artiscience, as an effective centre for artiscient research and education. That, briefly, is the “What”, and the need is “Now”. The “Where and the How” remains to be seen.            

Colin Sanderson, Director, The Artiscience Library, Edinburgh