Re: Barbarians vs All Blacks 1973

Rob Stradling wrote: 
Martyn Winters wrote:

This doesn't get away from the basic argument that artistic endeavour is undervalued compared to the science robots' achievments.


So more people know who invented the Internal Combustion Engine than know who wrote "Imagine", do they?

Da Vinci (now here's a great artist), Brunel, Einstein - died richer than Elton John, did they?

Ah, now we're confusing entertainment with art. Anyway, Van Goch and Carl Sagan is the contrary argument. There will be many examples on both sides.


Sorry big M - but in a world of rock'n'roll gentry and seven-figure movie deals, where university science departments are closing because no-one sees a future in a laboratory, this postulation is utterly daft.


We're talking about genius and regard, not remuneration. Anyway, I reckon that just as many Arts departments have felt the pinch over the years.


As to the "robot" slur, I'll just wheel out the old chesnut. When a scientist goes home, he reads a book, or listens to music, or goes out to see a play. Scientists consume, enjoy and discuss "art" all the time. Conversely, when was the last time a poet or painter solved an equation?

Doing equations are just a matter of training and mindset. It is just as valid to ask when a mathematician last created a great work of fiction?

I'm not a scientist, by the way. Used to be one, wasn't good enough. I could console myself that they're all soulless morons who wouldn't know Shakespeare from Sinatra. Thankfully I know the truth; that they appreciate Shakespeare and Sinatra just as well as I do, but unlike me, they can *also* do equations. And while I sit humming "Strangers in the Night", one of them is closing in on the cure for Cancer. Even though he'd be better off singing in a boy band.

Rob, you've mistaken my intentions here. I don't want to slur the great body of scientists, far from it - they're doing a job - admittedly more of them are engaged in the latest colour eyeshadow than cancer research, but let's not spoil the image. Scientists are like the rest of us, they enjoy Mozart and Westlife, Giotto and "Sleepless in Seattle", but my contention remains that Mathematicians are often disproportionately highly regarded in terms of genius than artists are.

The ability to "do" maths is given more emphasis than painting a portrait. Solving equations is considered more important than writing a great passage of prose.

I agree that writing a little ditty, looking "good" and squeaking out repetitive tunes are very much overpaid occupations, if the marketing is right, but so is booting a spherical ball around a park, or standing in front of a camera uttering platitudes. There are many over paid occupations in entertainment and sport, few of them have anything to do with art and fewer still have anything to do with genius.

Perhaps I used the wrong term; "undervalued", which is more often used to denote financial matters. Perhaps I should have used "esteem".



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