Science and Arts: Methods of Discovery

I have always been interested in both the sciences and the arts. Only recently have I been able to step beyond society’s dichromatic thinking about the two subjects to realize that they are more alike than they are different. Many scientists will tell you that science is different because it’s a hypothesis driven method of investigation. We create a hypothesis, and we test that hypothesis with experimentation, and through this process we glean insight into whether our hypothesis is supported or rejected. Scientists create knowledge. Art is far more subjective, using expressive representation to convey ideas rather than concretely supporting their claims. Objective vs. subjective. Night vs day, heads vs. tails, liberal vs. conservative.

I think there is more to be said here.

My first point being that science is not consistently hypothesis-driven. This is the method that is touted within the scientific community, and is drilled into us since grade school science class, but it is not the only means of scientific innovation. Discovery based science is probably the most notable alternative. Discovery based science is hypothesis driven science turned on its head. In hypothesis driven science, you collect data in order to support your hypothesis. In discovery based science you trove through large volumes of existing experimental data, in order to try to glean patterns or correlations that could lead to a discovery. Most scientists probably don’t even recognize that they are performing discovery based science on a day-to-day basis. I myself was surprised to learn that DNA analysis, something intrinsic to my field, is a discovery driven method. Of course, these discovery-based-methods help to form, or perhaps strengthen or redirect, your hypothesis, but the act of data mining itself is discovery driven.

So how does this relate to art?

Art is also discovery driven, in a sense. In art, we condense down all the data we’ve collected from our human experience into a single thesis. Our perspectives and experiences may not be apparent within the artwork itself, but it definitely helps form the piece you are working on. Your thesis may be small, “This nature scene is awe-inspiring”, or it could be abstract and broad, such as pieces within the Dadaist movement. The journey of creation, of precipitating your thesis, is itself a discovery.

However, art can also be hypothesis driven! Some of the best pieces of artwork produced were done as experiments. For example, Goethe’s production of the original color wheel was a result of his experimentation with the antagonistic roles of color and his hypothesis that light and dark were integral in color formation. Josef Albers, famous painter and color theorist, used his collected Homage to the Square as a lifelong experiment to test his hypothesis that the color perception of humans is far more subjective than we believe. Homage to the Square, is a collection of paintings each including three or four nested squares of differing color. The result of these artistic experiments was the revelation that how a color is perceived to humans is based more on the surrounding environment of the color itself. For instance, two compositions would use the same exact color, but due to interplay with the other colors in the pieces, the colors would look vastly different from each other. Albers methodically wrote on the back of all his pieces the precise composition of the paints he used, so that future viewers would be convinced that the paints he used were identical.

To some, these artistic experiments would seem far more discovery driven than hypothesis driven. These artists produced massive volumes of data to support their hypotheses. However, this begs a general question in both fields: what came first, the hypothesis or the experiments? Scientists would say their hypothesis came first, absolutely. Yet, in my experience in science academia, this is rarely actually true. The first step to hypothesis building is consolidating previous research. What is this other than discovery based methodology? Hypothesis experimentation and discovery methodology are so interconnected within the actual action of scientific process that to separate the two into separate actions would be like saying red and green apples are different fruits. They are both an apple, with the only difference being their shading.

I would posit that the same can be said of the art world as well. Let’s forget all this partitioning into discovery vs. hypothesis. Let us recognize that discoveries in both science and art are process-driven. The journey of discovery uses both discovery and hypothesis formation in a constant loop to propel knowledge forward.

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