Dovina2 Jul 2004

"To represent a (scientific) concept in a precise and cogent way," or to relate it to other aspects of life is the poetry of science. Much of science borders on mystical - string theory, quantum mechanics, evolution - and thus attracts metaphor and image. A poet who understands a scientific topic is not likely to make the science more vague, but rather enhance others' understanding of it. Furthermore, "to read things into scientific findings in the aesthetic and philosophical world," if done artfully, expands our understanding of both the scientific and the aesthetic. Poets can and do abuse science, but they often enhance it.