Part of the debate "Poetry is beautiful, but science is what matters"
Proposer: Professor Peter Atkins
My challenge is to bring you to my side when so many hearts are ranged against me. Hearts are so hard to do battle with, for the only weapon that can draw blood from them is sentiment. Hard-nosed heads might thunder at the walls of the heart, but the heart is immune from rational onslaught, fighting off the attack with claims of arrogance and insensitivity. The heart, the heart maintains, is the navel of existence, the head, claims the heart, is merely an enabling encumbrance.
Although at first sight the motion appears to set head against heart, it should find a happy home in the thoughts of members of both cultures, for on deeper reflection it can be seen to give to each side due acknowledgement. It promotes the view that poetry is the heart's balm, so pleasing the big-hearted, yet it acknowledges that science is an extraordinary human endeavour that has ramifications spreading into every aspect of human existence, so pleasing what I hesitate to call the big-headed.
I cannot imagine that any, neither big-headed nor big-hearted, will deny that some poetry is beautiful and that science, like it or not, does indeed matter to us all. The greater challenge of the motion is to accept that science matters more than poetry, where poetry in the course of the debate has turned into some kind of code for that elusive entity the human spirit. Yet science is a product of that very same inquisitive, thirsting spirit and is itself a kind of poetry, a poetry that can be held up against nature and, to those with ears to hear, seem beautiful. The scientific pursuit is in fact one of great humility, for by cautious, collective probing, allowing Nature to be the referee and not imposing on it the arrogance of presupposition, shows that human beings are capable of exposing the heart of matter. As such, there is no conflict between the halves of the motion, for science, like poetry, is beautiful, and science, a form of constrained poetry, certainly matters deeply to us all.
I urge all of you to allow your head to speak without being traitor to your heart: in your heads you know that science - human knowledge, understanding, and achievement - matters more than the single artform that poetry represents; but the head's life would certainly not be worth living without that heart.