Two cultures versus general education

Abstract

On reading C.P. Snow's 'The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution', I was struck by the deep split he describes between scientists and literary intellectuals. One cause he proposes is the age-old specialization of English education, where each of the two cultures has long been segmented into rigidly defined subcultures. I came to learn about UK specialization in the 1980s in Brazil when I mentored a student for his Masters degree based on a study of leishmaniasis and its insect vector, the sand fly. When the student later went to England for his PhD, he was not required to learn about any other parasites - or other any other vectors - to pass his examinations. A different story from what would have happened at the Harvard School of Public Health where, for his PhD, he would have taken a variety of courses and been examined on all the parasites infecting humans as well as all the other insect vectors, not just sand flies.