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Articles

Beauty & Science

Marilyn Kane wonders what scientists mean when they say nature is beautiful.

The advancement of scientific knowledge doesn’t result from any single research method, but is the combined effect of several different approaches, which have been summarized as follows:¹

1) “careful refinements in measurements to uncover anomalous behaviour,
2) mathematical extrapolation of existing theory,
3) critical re-examination of apparently obvious but untested presuppositions,
4) argument by symmetry or analogy
5) aesthetic judgement,
6) accident,
7) hunch.”

The first four look reasonable; the last two are serendipitous and fortuitous effects. But what of approach 5, aesthetic judgement? This seems out of place, perhaps somehow in the wrong list. Can it really be that scientists rely on aesthetic judgements when analyzing data or developing hypotheses, and that beauty plays a role in their work?

Voltaire wrote: “Ask a toad what beauty is… He will answer that it is his female, with two large round eyes sticking out of her little head, a large and flat snout, a yellow belly, a brown back. Question the devil: he will tell you that the beautiful is a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail.

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