SUNY Binghamton’s Evolutionary Biologist David Sloan Wilson, who captivated audiences last year in his performance on identity with Waterbear, is featured in a NY Times article today about a new curriculum linking art and science.
Jointly conceived by David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology, and Leslie Heywood, a professor of English, the program is intended to build on some of the themes explored in Dr. Wilson’s evolutionary studies program, which has proved enormously popular with science and nonscience majors alike, and which he describes in the recently published “Evolution for Everybody.” In Dr. Wilson’s view, evolutionary biology is a discipline that, to be done right, demands a crossover approach, the capacity to think in narrative and abstract terms simultaneously, so why not use it as a template for emulsifying the two cultures generally?

“There are more similarities than differences between the humanities and the sciences, and some of the stereotypes have to be altered,” Dr. Wilson said. “Darwin, for example, established his entire evolutionary theory on the basis of his observations of natural history, and most of that information was qualitative, not quantitative.”

The new program will bring together humanities, arts and sciences across the campus, as a way to explore the chasm that often divides the disciplines. Sounds familiar, no?

Kudos to Wilson and his collaborators.