Pinker to Ma
Both Steven Pinker and Yo-Yo Ma argue that the science as a whole can not stand alone without the help of many other sources of incorporation. Where in Ma’s essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” he believes that the incorporation of arts and empathy must be used in the sciences or there will ultimately be a standstill in advances in the scientific fields. He shows this through quotes such as “values of collaboration, flexibility, imagination, and innovation- all skill sets needed in today’s world- is through the performing arts”. This shows us his believe that the idea of the science if rather than trying to distinguish themselves from the fields of art should all collaborate in order to advance the scientific fields. To be able to conceptualize the tough data and presentations of the sciences, arts are key in being able to turn that information into understandable meanings for the general public. On the other end, Steven Pinker in his essay “Science Is Not Your Enemy” argues that religion should be taken part alongside the sciences. He compares the sciences to religion with the quote “Just as reviled is the application of scientific reasoning to religion; many writers without a trace of a belief in God maintain that there is something unseemly about scientists weighing in on the biggest questions. With this he looks towards the religions in the sense that the information that is portrayed is truthful because “it is” and “it says so” and therefore that trend in some senses could be used in the sciences. Rather than having to argue and validate every single point of info and data that comes up in scientific research some of the info should just be what data was found and left there “as is”. These writers believe that the sciences is necessary in every day of life, but it can not be by itself, with the incorporation of many other ideas or arts the science as a whole could be improved.
Pinker to self
As Pinker states in his essay “Science Is Not Your Enemy” how the use of religion should be incorporated into some of the sciences, I agree with his stand to a certain degree. He Starts off his essay with mentioning innovators in the field of the sciences such as “Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Leibniz, Kant, Smith” showing us his stand on who he believes the sciences have been formulated from. With the quote “I often long to travel back in time and offer them some bit of twenty-first-centuary freshman science that would fill a gap in their arguments or guide them around a stumbling block” shows us the advances that have came about from today’s development in the sciences due to the facts of continually looking into one thing over and over finding new and important information to the subject at hand. What Pinker is arguing with this point is that in a sense they are losing their credibility because they missed key points all over their original points they had brought up. I agree upon his argument as he continues through his essay that science should incorporate the teachings of religion. Religion has a concept that no matter what the information provided “is what it is” their is no further investigation and therefore the sciences should take that into consideration so that these founders of sciences have the ability to say their findings “is that and only that”.
