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 One thing I was pretty shocked about during discussion this week was the reaction to descriptions of science. It seems that there is a direct dichotomy between the humanities and science majors in the classroom and their opinions on the subject. Although a science major, I have am fascinated with literature and hope to get enough classes to do an English minor. This being said, perhaps I am just able to see the close relationship between the sciences and the humanities better than someone with experience in just one of theses areas.

When asked if science was objective, I was a little offended to hear everyone respond so strongly with a ‘no.’ I was surprised to hear science described as ‘limited,’ ‘fact-based,’ and ‘empirical.’ I don’t think people always think about the fact that although science is based on “facts,” these facts were originally created by humans. Science is really just an agreed-upon set of explanations for processes which were previously unable to be explained by humans. In the same way that a main interpretation of a poem is usually agreed upon by literary critics. In this way, science cannot possibly be objective. 

 

In addition, I was very intrigued by the idea that everything is a construct of the brain, but I'm still a bit confused by it. Saying that everything is merely created by the brain does make sense, but what about things that have not been able to be explained by humans yet? If our own brain is doing the construction, if everything is indeed within our own 'minds,' shouldn't this make all knowledge and understandings more accessible for humans?