You have misunderstood what I have posted and instead of trying to understand it you wilfully misinterpret my views.

"Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you."

Matthew 7:6

I imagine some centralised Art Bureau where you fill in a mound of forms in triplicate to be issued your Artistic License.

You can do a course in Art Appreciation. There's a difference between knowing what you're on about and not knowing what you're on about. It's what people go to college for.

I might be putting it a bit more bluntly, but your general usage of strong language and bombasticism makes that fairly fitting. Your general tone of debate on this is generally that people who differ in opinion must be wrong.

Anyway, here are your relevant quotes on this thus far:

Art is not about craftmanship at all...
The artist determines the vision...
Only the artist or experts can interpret a piece of art

Thinking rigorously and logically can not create art...
Art must be admiring something...
Art must be made instinctively...
Amateurs can't be artists...
On reproduction...



As they say... always take care when debating social scientists, they'll reference anything.

To your first point:
I am very willing to consider this. Escalation of commitment is something to be wary of. I can only do my best to be objective when vetting my own beliefs. One is always going to be bias I suppose to some degree. I don't think believing in the Christian God is especially convenient though. I think I believe because it makes the most sense to me, not because of convenience or some emotional need for it to be true.

I am not sure if religion is the cause of people losing that sense of wonder. I think you have more of an issue with religion in general (rightly or wrongly). I am not a fan of organized religion myself. Even Christianity gets on my nerves often. Nevertheless, I still think the primary teachings are true

You have thrown out the baby with the bathwater by not reading the posts in the right way (maybe your social science training makes this difficult). Firstly on "bombast" I explained to you earlier that big ideas have to expressed cogently and without caveat otherwise they lose all their effect. I gave something Marx said as an example of this.


A craftsman with no artistic vision is not an artist. What's your problem with that ?

If you don't know anything about art you may not understand it. If it's difficult art then only a few will understand it.

"Thinking rigorously and logically can not create art...
Art must be admiring something...
Art must be made instinctively..."

You have misquoted and/or misapplied what was said out of context. You obviously have difficulty grasping an idea which is quite easy for most people eg people often ask of children "Is he good at science or art ?"

Amateurs by definition cannot get much money/any money for their works. Feynmann falls into this category.

I have never heard anyone ask this.

*edit* Removed to reduce noise.

So now we have yet another limitation on what constitutes art. It has to be able to make money?

I forgot to reply to that one. I have to agree, I have never heard anyone pose that question.

I, as well, have never heard anyone pose that question.

I guess that's his way of phrasing a common question regarding kids about whether they're academic or creative. I often hear parents boast about how their clearly non-academic kid is 'so creative'.

Just thought I'd throw that in there to help you out.

I may be have been a little ambiguous in my wording. I take wonder to include curiosity, in fact I think it's a vital component in wonder, and I think religion can stifle that curiosity with goddidit.

I wish it was not that way, but from experience that is often true.

It gets posed as a choice at school. Kids who want to do science take certain options and those who want to do the arts take others.

and all those kids who do both? Just ignore them.

You can't do both if you want to get to university on a science course unless you do extra subjects (which is very rare).

Even Feynmann didn't claim to be an artist ! He sold very few of his pictures under a pseudonym.

Those are really the 2 choices? The UK sounds like a very messed up place if this is true and you're not stretching things a bit.

How so ? You need quite a lot of Maths to do subjects like Physics or Engineering at university and most students only take three subjects at advanced level.

So an artist has to sell his works?

That was some fast backpedaling, from 'what a child is good at' to what subjects are prerequisites for specific university level studies, restrictions that if they even exist, they come from the university, not the student being incapable.

It wouldn't even happen if there wasn't such specialization at UK's secondary level education.

Children are chanelled into the areas they are good at. They might not even be able to take some subjects unless they achieve the grades.

It's not nearly as clear cut as Cwocwoc makes out.

In the UK the first set of qualifications are GCSE's which are taken age 15-16. I can only speak from my own experience, but I took 8-9 of these, with English Lit, English Language, Maths, and 'Double' Science being mandatory, my options were French (think you HAD to pick one language but not 100% sure), German, History and Music. You can then leave school, or take A-Levels.

A-Levels are taken ages 17-18, and you do 3 or 4 subjects of your own choice.

To go on a do a science degree at my university you need 2 'A'-'B' grades at GCSE in English and Maths, one A grade A-Level in either Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science (or Computing), Geography, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology plus 2 other A-Levels at the 'A' grade. So there's nothing to stop someone doing something like Biology + Music + Philosophy and doing a science degree at a good uni in the UK, as long as your grades are good.

tl;dr it's not exactly like you have to pick either science or humanities, but your choice of degree may constrain your choices at A-Level somewhat.

Pro-parenting tips from Cwocwoc: if your child is bad at math, no worries, if they're good at finger-painting just 'channel' them into that.

It is quite clear-cut if you want to do a traditional science subject like Physics. Mathematics is also mandatory for that (two separate Maths "A" levels would be even better). For those who are taking three "A" levels this doesn't leave much choice. Throw in that it is impossible to make some subject choices due to timetable clashes and that makes it pretty clear-cut.