How Literature and Science Contribute to The Understanding of Individuals and Societies

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Learning can be defined as the knowledge acquired by systematic study in any field of scholarly application or more bluntly, the act of acquiring more knowledge or skill. It is impossible to acquire knowledge without the presence of either teaching or experience. School is the most common place to acquire knowledge on core subjects; the entire reason we attend school is to become more knowledgeable and consequently more productive members of society. By being taught a wide range of information in areas such as math, science, literature and history, we are in some way learning not only about events, facts or technique, but also about people. There is a person, group of people or society tied to everything we study; every concept, work of literature, portrayal of events and scientific theory has an origin tying it to the ideas of an individual or a group of individuals from a specific time period.

The concept of Newtonian Mechanics, which is often taught in physics class, for example, is the work of physicist, mathematician and astronomer, Isaac Newton. When reading Pride and Prejudice, we are exposed to the writing of English novelist, Jane Austen. Anything we are taught was at some point someone else’s idea or development. This concept creates a common thread amongst seemingly unrelated areas of knowledge, like art and the natural and human sciences. Although on the surface the two appear to be unconnected, both art and science contribute to our understanding of the world around us, the people we interact with, the relationships we have with these people, and the society of which we are a part.

When it comes to the composition of a work of literature, much of a person’s creativity is based upon their own experiences...

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...world around us.

Works Cited

- "learning." Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. 14 Dec. 2011. .

-Jonathan David Gross (2001). Byron: The Erotic Liberal. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 148. ISBN 0742511626. http://books.google.com/books?id=eklv1osnfMgC&pg=PA148&dq=%22Byronic+hero%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html.

-CDC Data "Autism Spectrum Disorders - Data & Statistics". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. May 13, 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html CDC Data. Retrieved December 25, 2010

- Charles Boyce, Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare, New York, Roundtable Press, 1990

- Silverman C. Fieldwork on another planet: social science perspectives on the autism spectrum. Biosocieties. 2008;3(3):325–41. doi:10.1017/S1745855208006236.

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