An effort should be made to dispel the misunderstandings that still prevent the much-needed synthesis and mutual supplementation of science and the humanities. This reconciliation should not be too difficult once it is recognized that the separation is primarily the result of a basic misunderstanding of the philosophical foundations of both science and the humanities.
Some humanists still identify science with an absurd mechanistic reductionism. There are many who feel that the scientist is interested in nothing more than “bodies in motion,” in the strictly mathematical, physical, and chemical laws that govern the material world. This is the caricature of science drawn by representatives of the humanities who are ignorant of the nature of modern science and also of the scientific outlook in philosophy. For example, it is claimed that science either ignores or explains away the most essential human values. Those who believe this also assert that there are aspects of the human mind, manifest especially in the domains of morality, religion, and the arts, that contain an irreducible spiritual element and for that reason can never be adequately explained by science.
Some scientists, on the other hand, claim that the humanist is interested in nothing more than emotion and sentiment, exhibiting the vagrant fancies of an undisciplined mind. To such men and women the humanities are useless because they serve no immediate and technological function for the practical survival of human society in the material world. Such pragmatists believe that the areas of morality, religion, and the arts should have only a secondary importance in people’s lives.
Thus there are misconceptions among humanists and scientists alike that are in need of correction. This correction leads to a much more acceptable position that could be called “scientific humanism,” attempting as it does to combine the common elements of both disciplines. Both science and the humanities attempt to describe and explain. It is true that they begin their descriptions and explanations at widely separated points, but the objectives remain the same: a clearer understanding of people and their world. In achieving this understanding, science in fact does not depend exclusively on measurable data, and the humanities in fact profit from attempts at controlled evaluation.
Scientific humanism can combine the scientific attitude with an active interest in the whole scale of human values. If uninformed persons insist on viewing science as only materialistic and the humanities as only idealistic, a fruitful collaboration of both fields is unlikely. The combination of science and the humanities is, however, possible, even probable, if we begin by noting their common objectives, rather than seeing only their different means.
1. Which one of the following best describes the main idea of the passage?(A) Scientists’ failure to understand humanists hinders collaborations between the two groups.
(B) The materialism of science and the idealism of the humanities have both been beneficial to modern society.
(C) Technological development will cease if science and the humanities remain at odds with each other.
(D) The current relationship between science and the humanities is less cooperative than their relationship once was.
(E) A synthesis of science and the humanities is possible and much-needed.
2. Which one of the following would the author be most likely to characterize as an example of a misunderstanding of science by a humanist?(A) Science encourages the view that emotions are inexplicable.
(B) Science arises out of practical needs but serves other needs as well.
(C) Science depends exclusively on measurable data to support its claims.
(D) Science recognizes an irreducible spiritual element that makes the arts inexplicable.
(E) Science encourages the use of description in the study of human values.
3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?(A) Scientific humanism is characterized by the extension of description and explanation from science to the humanities.
(B) A clearer understanding of people is an objective of humanists that scientists have not yet come to share.
(C) Controlled measures of aesthetic experience are of little use in the study of the humanities.
(D) Humanists have profited from using methods generally considered useful primarily to scientists.
(E) Fruitful collaboration between scientists and humanists is unlikely to become more common.
4. According to the author, which one of the following is the primary cause of the existing separation between science and the humanities?(A) inflammatory claims by scientists regarding the pragmatic value of the work of humanists
(B) misunderstandings of the philosophical foundations of each by the other
(C) the excessive influence of reductionism on both
(D) the predominance of a concern with mechanics in science
(E) the failure of humanists to develop rigorous methods
5. Which one of the following best describes one of the functions of the last paragraph in the passage?(A) to show that a proposal introduced in the first paragraph is implausible because of information presented in the second and third paragraphs
(B) to show that the views presented in the second and third paragraphs are correct but capable of reconciliation
(C) to present information supporting one of two opposing views presented in the second and third paragraphs
(D) to present an alternative to views presented in the second and third paragraphs
(E) to offer specific examples of the distinct views presented in the second and third paragraphs
6. The passage suggests that the author would recommend that humanists accept which one of the following modifications of their point of view?(A) a realization that the scientist is less interested in describing “bodies in motion” than in constructing mathematical models of the material world
(B) an acknowledgement that there is a spiritual element in the arts that science does not account for
(C) an acceptance of the application of controlled evaluation to the examination of human values
(D) a less strident insistence on the primary importance of the arts in people’s lives
(E) an emphasis on developing ways for showing how the humanities support the practical survival of mankind.
7. In using the phrase “vagrant fancies of an undisciplined mind” (Highlighted), the author suggests that humanists are sometimes considered to be(A) wildly emotional
(B) excessively impractical
(C) unnecessarily intransigent
(D) justifiably optimistic
(E) logically inconsistent
Updated on: 31 Aug 2020, 09:49
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