> Fifty years ago, educated people could be expected to identify the likes of Saul Bellow, Buckminster Fuller, and Jackson Pollock. Today one is expected to kno

> Fifty years ago, educated people could be expected to identify the likes of Saul Bellow, Buckminster Fuller, and Jackson Pollock. Today one is expected to know about the human genome and the debate over global warming, but nobody is thought ignorant for being unable to identify the architect of the Freedom Tower or name a single winner of the Tate Prize (let alone remember the name of the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature). Artists have failed to keep up with the times in terms of scientific knowledge. Humanity's understanding of, and relation to the universe is completely different compared to a century ago. Those on the soft side of CP Snow's Two Cultures have responded to their waning relevance by denying the importance of their technical counterparts, however, world culture cannot be fooled so easily. Scientific literacy is now as necessary as the ability to use language, and there's no going back. Our artists will now have to keep up or else they will become obsolete.