After two frustrating days of visiting local gaming stores, I’ve given up on trying to find a copy of Spore for the moment. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock, Spore is the new epic evolutionary based strategy game by Sim City and The Sim’s designer Will Wright. You get to take a living cell all the way through the chain of evolution- where you actually build your character to adapt to the environment- from a single-celled organism to a galaxy-faring explorer.
As frustrated as I was, I cooked some breakfast and sat down to watch one of my favourite shows here in Canada, Daily Planet on The Discovery Channel. To my hasty amazement, they were doing a week-long feature on the science behind the Burning Man festival in Nevada. What was Daily Planet, a show that focuses on science, doing at the world’s biggest hippy festival? They were doing exactly what is often overlooked in science…art.
Art, Science, Art, Science…. The word’s from an article I read about Spore came to mind “Spore is a work of art.” A quote from Will Wright crawled up from the deep reaches of my mind.
““There were deep motivations in the early phase from the work of a lot of evolutionary biologists, like Richard Dawkins and Edward Wilson.” And “We wanted to convey the sense that evolution can bring up a surprising diversity of weird, interesting, strange things.”
Spore, a game based on science, is art. The artistic installations at Burning Man can only be built with a deep knowledge of science.
In a way, science is an art in itself, but I want to look at the more common definition of art.
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. It often elicits a specific human emotion or response desired by the artist. In this respect, an artist is always trying to convey something through their art.
I want to take this idea of Art is Science, Science is Art, and apply it to atheism. People often complain about the lack of atheist inspired art, but when you ask them what they would consider atheist art, a few muddled words are the only sounds that follow a long mournful pause. Since atheism is simply the non-belief in God, I want to focus on art that represents the new-atheism. That is, atheism as an end result of the methods of scientific naturalism, inquiry, and skepticism. Here – with examples – are what I consider to be the different ways that art can be classified as new-atheist art:
1. Art that is made for the purpose of expanding knowledge and/or visually experimenting with representations of science.This section rejects art based on appeals to faith or tradition. Rather, it focuses on the future. Often, the art is the end-result of a specific tool, developed by science.
2. Art that is made for the purpose of representing a passion for science and its promotion.Most often, the science is biology.
3. Art that is made for the purpose of representing non-belief and the philosophy behind it.A subsection of the first two sections can be the art on the covers of science-fiction novels. Why? Because they often represent scientific ideas, and they are meloreolistic.
Often, religious art doesn’t even need to be changed – Poe’s law personified in art.
8. Art that glorifies the exploration and understanding of the cosmos
(could be classified as a subsection of the 2nd category, but I figured it was so widespread that it merited its own number).
This post has only shown visual examples. I understand that I left out music, sculpting, architecture, literature, comics, and anything else you would consider art.
I have seen atheist poems and poetic atheist quotes that could be classified as art, but what about books promoting atheism and science? There is much merit in disseminating the ideas of atheism and science in a way that influences people. Carl Sagan’s work often borders on poetic. He uses writing skills and a creative imagination to create metaphors of science that are appealing to a wide audience. I think this constitutes art. And Christopher Hitchens is an exemplar of fine literary talent, while Richard Dawkins holds his own with his metaphors and literary talent. What do you think?
But then, what about more rigorous scientific works like peer reviewed journals? Surely they are not art. They have no appeal to human emotion, no poetic literature, and no aesthetically appealing visual representations that convey anything more than the intent of the paper. Peer reviewed journals are cold, rigorous, and precise. Within the scientific community this is ideal, but a general populace wants an appeal to emotion. It is the job of the science journalist to promote science with a human edge. It is the job of the science journalist to be an artist.
…I look forward to hearing your ideas on this.
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Actually, the Jesus on a dinosaur is form a real Christian coloring book…so I hear.
Yeah, I said that. “Often, religious art doesn’t even need to be changed – Poe’s law personified in art.”
…it’s what makes it even better
Amen brother. This is my goal in life: to show science as the art it is. It is truly beautiful. Your post resonated with me!
Thx Tauriq
I personally am looking forward to hearing the rest of this work of science inspired art:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/origin-opera-oratorio-inspired-by.html
Cool list Ty, great subject for an article…
Out of the list, I think the pale blue dot is most inspirational to most ~ perhaps even to the religious.
Another addition to the list under the first category is ‘Noble Ape.’ It’s a cool simulation of brain development in simulated apes that runs under linux/pc/macs and can go from pretty simple to fairly complex.
And don’t forget the very cool micro/nano pics of organisms and objects that keep coming up these days.
Abhi, can you post the link to the Nobe Ape simulation
http://www.nobleape.com/sim/
Linux users, you can download the 0.688 instead of the 0.682 if you’re willing to compile from c @ http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Science-and-Engineering/Visualization/Noble-Ape-Simulation-5724.shtml
Thank you for including my Flying Trilobite gallery and Darwin Took Steps piece in this important post, Tyler.
I hope you don’t mind if I add that proceeds from the sales of Darwin Took Steps shirts, prints and cards goes to the Beagle Project in support of their noble and educational work.
This is an interesting topic I wrestle with daily. I am sorely tempted to create some overtly atheist art; for me, I find it hard to think of anything other than satire or horror of religion. So instead, I focus on the wonder of science. Do other artists have this problem?
jesus totally rode raptors, i read it somewhere in a science magazine. and by science i mean creationism. and by creationism i mean totally not science
Maleszyk
in The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, we have interesting defintions:
RELIGION: Another word for SCIENCE
SCIENCE:
1. An inconvenient discipline that tends to undermine our most cherished beliefs.
2. A tiny cabal of powerful people who ignore what the majority of humanity believe.
3. A civil religion.
TRUTH
A quaint, old-fashioned word, like bustle or barouche-landau or button-hook. No longer needed.
(all posted from http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/dictionary.php)
See we do have Atheist Comedy!