Actually the course I'm taking is called "Autonomous Robots", but in my honest opinion the first lesson didn't quite reflect this. We are going to build an autonomous robot, so that's at least what I expected, but next to that there's a lot of discussion about art.

The fluffiness and arrogance of the whole situation is revolting. During today's meeting I felt like fleeing. The teacher once explained how scientists use one brainhalf and artists the other, how there are 'alpha' and 'beta' people, but I have come to realize this is not true. There are sain people who use their whole brain, and insane people who use only one half of their brain.
The tragic view he has of the world (where artists are gifted and scientists are boring, narrowminded people) pisses me off. He claims the term creativity as defining for artists and the thing scientists lack. There's no way this is true of course, for science can only exist because people get new ideas and try crazy stuff sometimes.

Artists... tsk... tree-hugging hippie-scum!

posted by Marian @ 5:38 PM 7 comments

At 10:14 AM,  Anonymous said...

I know the feeling, I have an associate professor for ethics with similar views.
What I think is, that you should try to understand their point of view.
They try to teach you to not be too narrowminded and look at the matter at hand from a different angle.
This will, in the long run, only make you a better scientist. A topic which we could discuss (but we don't) could be the "invention" of nuclear energy.
Should we (want to) "invent" a source of power which in the long run only creates a different problem.
Or similarly, should we condone;
* The invent of savior siblings
* Abortions
* GMO's
* Widespread use of cochlear implants on (healthy) people.
All of these questions are non-legal but vital and critical for being able to come up with radical (new) designs.

It is better to be safe than sorry...