C.P. Snow

The NewScientist recently blogged about C.P. Snow’s idea of “two cultures”: those trained in the sciences and those trained in the humanities.  In this 1959 lecture, Snow proposed that a communications chasm between these groups hindered the effort to solve the world’s problems with new technology.  He concluded that the two groups essentially spoke different languages that made it impossible to identify common goals.  Snow’s lecture captured the proverbial differences in “left vs. right brains”, and showed us that scientists need to be better at communication while non-scientists need to be more conversant in basic technical and scientific concepts.

Fifty years later, Snow’s original idea that these “two cultures” are not communicating still holds true. In my work at various medical technology companies, I’ve often heard engineers and scientists complain that the business folks don’t grasp the technical ideas.  Similarly, those on the business side get frustrated with the engineer’s or scientist’s obsession with small inconsequential details, rather than stepping back and looking at the big picture.

How does this issue relate to The Decision Tree?  In previous posts, we’ve talked about the necessary behavioral changes that individuals must make in order to put the concepts of The Decision Tree into practice — and I realize that’s asking for a lot.  From collecting and analyzing your body metrics to increasing your medical/scientific knowledge, implementing your decision tree will no doubt be demanding.  At the same time, both physicians and scientists should translate their work into insights that resonate with the general public.  In a previous post, we talked about MedEncentive’s interest in improving doctor-patient communication.  Similarly, a better scientist-patient relationship will enable better health decision-making. This way the scientific professionals  and general public could find a middle ground to address the rift described by Snow, thus bridging “the two cultures”. More after the jump. Read more…