a pile of stones is not a house (part 1)

This is not really about him, but, I love Joshua Foer. I don't know too much about him, but I do know I find myself reading his reviews a lot (and that he is Jonathan Safran Foer's brother). He's one of those columnists that you get lucky to find every now and again, who always seems to write about topics that strike your fancy, do it consistently, and do it well. I often don't pay attention to reviewer names, particularly with online articles, but, Foer contributes to just about every online magazine I read, and I started to recognize him. When his review of Alan Lightman’s book The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers appeared in last week's issue of The Nation, I forwarded it to a friend. And after a little back and forth email discussion, Foer's review, some of his previous articles, and my friend's responses all kind of get intertangled into the next few (?) posts (bear with me ...). It's all got me thinking a little more about how we write (under what circumstances, state of mind, etc.), what we write (fiction, nonfiction, grocery lists), and how it is perceived (why is it being read? who needs to read it?), and oh, yeah, is it art?

From what I've gathered, Lightman's book is a celebration of the artistic aesthetic in scientific writing. Foer quotes him as writing, "Like poetry these papers have their internal rhythms, their images, their beautiful crystallizations, their sometimes fleeting truths ... [they are] the great novels and symphonies of science." Foer argues that in science "it's the ideas that matter, not how they're expressed." His example is the loss of the literary experience when reading the Cliffs Notes as opposed to reading the actual text versus reading a summary of Albert Einstein's original paper on special relativity compared to an updated text summary, which he felt would be more clear. His issue with Lightman’s “Sense of the Mysterious” (also the title of another Lightman book) is the question of whether scientists have a compulsive need to validate the worth of their work through the celebration of their part in it as creators, because, “in the arts, the individual is the essence,” whereas “the most important thing about a scientific result is not the scientist who found it.” (Dr. Robert Gallo might disagree ...) Foer argues that the strict guidelines required for scientific publication don't allow for stylistic freedoms; that for authors of peer reviewed papers, the focus must be on precision rather than "artistry."

The comparison of science and art is a trope that runs through much of Lightman's writing. In The Discoveries he writes that "Einstein was an artist as much as a scientist." What does that really mean? In what sense were Einstein's discoveries art—or for that matter any of the original papers Lightman has collected—except in the most meaningless stretch of metaphor?

But is it art? Ah, that question. If a scientific paper is “enjoyable” in the sense that the author’s ability compels the reader to finish and learn something from it, then I say, yes it is. It would necessarily have to involve craft to accomplish this. It's not enough to detail facts, even the most unimpeachable data is only as good as the author conveying it. As my friend wrote in his response to me, “it's not necessarily in these sorts of experiments, where new facts are discovered, it's in the synthesis, in the ability to put together a new paradigm from bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated evidence.” There is an art to that. I get the sense that this is part of Lightman’s point.

On the other hand, and this contradicts a lot of the above, there is the danger when considering the “art” of scientific writing—which often happens when discussing the more accessible Trade titles—of the work appearing less true somehow. It’s only natural, I suppose, like cookies over broccoli, anything that's fun or easy to understand must not be worthwhile. However, I don’t buy into the belief that language made more user-friendly (write for your audience) is somehow less true. If the facts are sound and haven’t been altered, legitimacy shouldn’t be questioned simply because it can be understood by a larger audience. I hesitate to be one to rail against complexity, but, frankly, it is more difficult to write for the masses, as it were, and to have the work be universally understood and enjoyed, than it is to write for your peers, especially between those with dueling PhDs. And when I’m feeling particularly prickly, I’ll argue that this is one of the things scientists don't appreciate, and why they are so hard on their “popular” peers. I think there exists a fear that their work is somehow made less important because it can be simplified and understood, when in fact, just the opposite is true. There are multiple issues to take into account when writing outside your peer group. In addition to having to simplify language and terminologies, without changing meaning or factual data (difficult enough, surely), the hardest part as far as communicating your ideas is, you are writing blindly and can no longer assume the level of knowledge of your reader. Your words must be accessible to a much greater range without being boring or condescending to either the higher or lower levels of comprehension. That something can be understood and expressed across such a broad range, only enhances its importance. These are ideas relevant to existence, and that’s why they translate to all manner of us. And yes, that is art, in its purest form, as far as I'm concerned.

Part Two, hopefully tomorrow …