“I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view
which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look
how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can
see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and
it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of
all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me
too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as
he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I
see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells
in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I
mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's
also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the
processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to
attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects
can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also
exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting
questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the
mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it
subtracts.”
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