Inquiry into the Impact of Polygamous Marriages among Academic Liberal Arts on Scientific Achievement

In the early days of my academic journey, I found myself captivated by the music of Charles Ives, an American composer who dared to experiment with polytonality, dissonance, and unusual spatial arrangements in the early 1900s. His unusual dynamics and poetic sensitivity offered a remarkable contrast to the structure of baroque and classical music, teaching me that it's possible to introduce new ideas and be ahead of one's time.

My encounter with Ives' music was not the only eureka moment in my non-science courses. During my freshman year, academic life was disrupted by political protests and bomb threats, yet it was an introductory anthropology class that exposed me to the origin of human warfare in light of combat in small-scale societies. My anthropology professor applied evolutionary thinking to explain human conflict, proposing that war evolved to control population size.

This evolutionary model, called group selection, was a concept I later encountered in my anthropology class. It suggested that individuals give up their potential to reproduce for the benefit of the species as a whole, a theory that was discredited with Darwinian reasoning. However, the idea of intellectual hybridization in science, such as cross-fertilization between disciplines, left a deep impact on me.

As I delved deeper into my studies, I realised that the scientific theories introduced by my anthropology professor were not taught in my biology courses. This may have been because they likely fell outside the specific curriculum focus of biology, which may have emphasized different methodologies or topics distinct from those in anthropology.

My career in science was significantly influenced by a liberal arts education. I was inspired by Ives' "Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-1860," and later purchased the score. The movements of the sonata were named for American novelists, poets, and thinkers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Henry David Thoreau, further emphasising the connection between natural science and the liberal arts.

In today's world, states are proposing to cut funding for the humanities and encourage students to study STEM subjects. However, there is a growing advocacy for greater emphasis on liberal arts training in STEM fields. Some argue that it can broaden scientific thinking and foster creativity, while others question its impact on scientific progress.

Regardless of the debate, one thing is clear: natural science is one of the liberal arts, united by the same creative pulse of the human spirit. It is this spirit that drives us to question, to explore, and to push the boundaries of what we know. And it is this spirit that I believe will continue to guide us in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

Inquiry into the Impact of Polygamous Marriages among Academic Liberal Arts on Scientific Achievement