?- “They give a pitying chuckle at the news of scientists who have never read a major work of English literature. They dismiss them as ignorant specialists. Yet their own ignorance and their own specialization is just as startling.” (14)
This makes me wonder what Snow considered himself to be. Snow provides criticisms for both and also talks about the dangers of splitting in to two groups. That being said, I still feel like there are some practical reasons why one would choose to categorize themselves. Furthermore, the solutions that he provides is very vague. I don’t quite understand what “rethinking our education” means.
!- “Compared with the rest of the intellectual world, considerably more scientists in this country and probably in the U.S. come from poor families.” (10)
I understand most of the generalizations that Snow points out between scientists and literary intellectuals. I feel like this statement comes out of nowhere. This statement doesn’t have much backing evidence. Not only that, but I feel like that’s just not true. I’d always imagined that people who are exceptional in the sciences come from a richer background.
Theories I Recognized
- Heliocentrism
- Evolution by natural selection
- Plate techtonics
- Quantum theory
Experiments I Recognized
- Robert Millikan electron
- Pavlov’s dogs