Aesthetics

Key Findings

Where do scientists experience wonder, awe, or beauty?

Overall, we found that most scientists regularly experience wonder, awe, and beauty at work, and consider such experiences as important for science. Further, more frequent aesthetic experiences at work are associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and better mental health.

We also identified three tensions regarding aesthetics in science:

Aesthetic experiences are integral to scientific work, but aesthetic criteria are not always reliable guides to good science.

The aesthetic dimensions of scientific research and teaching should not be overlooked
Aesthetic judgments should not bias empirical analysis

Aesthetic experiences motivate scientists, but institutions get in the way.

Many scientists are drawn to their fields by encountering beauty in science
Aesthetic experiences help sustain scientists through difficult times
Institutions create pressures that stifle aesthetic experiences in science

Scientists believe beauty is key to communicating science, but it may not overcome public mistrust.

Conveying the beauty of scientific discovery can improve scientific understanding and appreciation
Overcoming public mistrust and biases will depend on the public’s ability to value the beauty of a new insight or of understanding something new

Notes to Consider

Disciplinary differences in the identification of beauty in science:

Physicists are more likely to associate beauty with symmetry and simplicity
Biologists are more likely to associate beauty with complexity and pleasing colors or shapes
Physicists and biologists almost equally associate beauty with the inner logic of systems and with hidden order or patterns

Aesthetic experiences in science occur in several ways:

Discoveries or insights that help explain how reality works
The sensory experience of much scientific research, such as patterns that can be seen under a microscope or images of deep space.
Employing aesthetic criteria in theory choice, although survey respondents expressed concern that this practice is not reliable

Benefits of encountering beauty in science:

For 62% of scientists, beauty motivated them to pursue a scientific career
For 50% of scientists, beauty helps them persevere when they experience difficulties or failure in their work
For 57% of scientists, beauty improves their scientific understanding

67% of scientists agree with the statement that it is important for scientists to encounter beauty, awe, and wonder in their research. Conversely, 11% of scientists indicate that the pursuit of aesthetic considerations like symmetry and elegance is bad for scientific progress.

Implications from the Findings

Research Culture and the Future of Science

Implications for Institutions

Aesthetic experience is associated with job satisfaction, mental health, and well-being. Yet, institutional culture often drains the beauty out of science, and the wonder out of scientists. Institutional pressures perversely incentivize scientists and push some out of academia altogether.

Institutional reform is crucial
Reimagine science without the perverse incentive structure
Prioritize nurturing wonder and creativity at work

Implications for Scientists

Scientists want the public to share in the aesthetics of science. Yet, scientists are ambivalent about the value of aesthetics for improving public trust in science

– The value of aesthetics here may not be primarily for improving public trust in scientists or even in “science” understood as “facts.” Rather, it may be to help cultivate a more adequately scientific posture towards the world: a taste for the aesthetic of understanding that comes from appreciating surprise, changing one’s priors in the face of evidence, and learning from the collective efforts of the community of inquiry.

Such a scientific posture would reflect the actual intrinsic motivations of scientific inquiry: the drive to improve one’s understanding of reality (e.g., cultivating wonder in pursuit of “aesthetic recognition”) rather than simply reinforce one’s opinions.