Conclusion

Summary

This chapter uses historic examples – the Enlightenment origins of modern computing and the methods of medieval painters – to juxtapose the modern and pre-modern everyday experiences of work. It acknowledges that the official (albeit impracticable) disqualification of human intuition, aesthetics and proprioception in the pursuit of modern science has been responsible for significant technical advances. However, it also recognises that exactly the same disqualification also limits the modern scientific worldview, excluding much of what it means to be human. That impact is not restricted to specialist behaviours in the scientific laboratory but also has impoverishing consequences for those who interact with the scientific laboratory’s everyday technological products. It suggests that moving beyond the territorial disputes of ‘science and religion’ will require re-engagement of the whole human in the structured pursuit of material knowledge, methodologically complicating post-modern science but simultaneously enriching post-modern everyday lived experience.