Pode ser-se culto sem se ter cultura científica?

Artigo interessante, recolhido do Rerum Natura.

O jornalista de ciência norte-americano Peter Dizikes analisa, no suplemento de livros do "New York Times" publicado hoje, o famoso discurso das "Duas Culturas", cultura científica e a cultura literária, que foi proferido pelo físico e romancista C. P. Snow (na imagem) na cidade de Cambridge, Inglaterra, há quase meio século (faz em 7 de Maio 50 anos). Ler aqui.

Extracto mais famoso do discurso:

"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."

Isto acontecia há 50 anos. Ainda é aplicável hoje em dia? Julgo que sim.

Tudo isto me fez lembrar a frase de Carl Sagan que está no cabeçalho deste blogue.