Fifty years after C.P. Snow. The 'Two Medical Cultures'.

摘要

Fifty years ago Charles Percy Snow delivered a highly influential lecture that he named "The Two Cultures" at Cambridge University. He contrasted science, the one culture vs. humanities, the second culture in the context of academic and social views. The center of his hypothesis was that there was a big gulf between the cultures, science and humanities, and that there was scarce, if not a lack of, communication between these disciplines. He lamented that the division between science and humanities could impede social progress. Snow was concerned that a world without science may lead to an unhealthy society. He thus advocated a cross-talk between disciplines as a necessary way to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between the cultures. He contended that it would be necessary to find ways to translate highly complex scientific information to a nonsci-entific process of political decision making in different areas of social concern such as military or medical. He explained that the main reason for this regrettable division was that, in almost all countries, the gap was already widened by the time students enter university. Students had already been driven to one of two different paths: science or humanities.