Working in the glare of two cultures

Abstract

Are there two, or only two, cultures; or is this idea the result of our expectation that there will always be two parties glaring at each other? And what effect did C. P. Snow's famous lecture have on the way that historians of science have gone about their business? Science has often been identified with illumination, with an increasing circle of light before which forces of darkness must retreat; but glare, blinding with science, can also occur. In the early nineteenth century, we find a single high culture with Davy and others trying to make sure it included enough science, although even then learning was divided into liberal knowledge and professional expertise. Specialisation and training went on apace, and by 1900 even chemists and physicists might seem two cultures – we seem now to have far more than two. But Snow's essay does provide a suggestive way of looking at science as a culture, a community with its values; and goes with a new and lively emphasis upon biography, and on scientific controversy, complementing historical analysis of the evolution of scientific ideas.