the-beauty-of-science
Original: the-beauty-of-science on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (curly hair): Do you think scientists appreciate beauty more than artists?
Man (light hair): Huh?
Woman: Have you heard Richard Feynman's god-about-flowers?
(Sign on building reads: BIOLOGY DEPT.)
Panel 2 (the man delivers a monologue):
Man: I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty.
Panel 3:
Woman: That's the dumbest shit I ever heard.
Panel 4:
Man: Look, that kind of thing might fly in a physics classroom, maybe even with some artists, but try it at my dissection table.
Panel 5:
Woman: You think zoologists see extra beauty because they also know about the worms living in a dead possum's butt? How about the ubiquity of STDs in the animal kingdom?
Panel 6:
Man: You're the artist! Gaze upon the beautiful creature, but the scientist also knows about the diseases produced by its untreated calamydia!
Panel 7:
Woman: Please stop screaming.
Panel 8:
Woman: Beauty and truth are cumulative in math, physics, art, and LITERALLY NOWHERE ELSE!
Votey:
Hand-lettered text: IT'S CHLAMAGICAL!
(Below, a sketchy drawing of two figures embracing/entangled in bed.)
Woman (curly hair): Do you think scientists appreciate beauty more than artists?
Man (light hair): Huh?
Woman: Have you heard Richard Feynman's god-about-flowers?
(Sign on building reads: BIOLOGY DEPT.)
Panel 2 (the man delivers a monologue):
Man: I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty.
Panel 3:
Woman: That's the dumbest shit I ever heard.
Panel 4:
Man: Look, that kind of thing might fly in a physics classroom, maybe even with some artists, but try it at my dissection table.
Panel 5:
Woman: You think zoologists see extra beauty because they also know about the worms living in a dead possum's butt? How about the ubiquity of STDs in the animal kingdom?
Panel 6:
Man: You're the artist! Gaze upon the beautiful creature, but the scientist also knows about the diseases produced by its untreated calamydia!
Panel 7:
Woman: Please stop screaming.
Panel 8:
Woman: Beauty and truth are cumulative in math, physics, art, and LITERALLY NOWHERE ELSE!
Votey:
Hand-lettered text: IT'S CHLAMAGICAL!
(Below, a sketchy drawing of two figures embracing/entangled in bed.)
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A curly-haired woman asks a light-haired man, outside a building labeled BIOLOGY DEPT., whether scientists appreciate beauty more than artists, and brings up Richard Feynman's famous 'ode to a flower.' The man delivers a long earnest monologue paraphrasing Feynman: an artist friend says a scientist taking a flower apart makes it dull, but the man argues a scientist can appreciate the flower's beauty AND see more, imagining the cells and complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. The woman replies flatly, 'That's the dumbest shit I ever heard.' He escalates: that kind of thing might fly in a physics classroom, but try it at his dissection table. She fires back sarcastically that zoologists must see extra beauty because they know about worms in a dead possum's butt and the ubiquity of STDs in the animal kingdom. He shouts back about gazing on a beautiful creature whose untreated 'calamydia' (chlamydia) produces diseases. She says 'Please stop screaming,' then concludes that beauty and truth are cumulative in math, physics, art, and LITERALLY NOWHERE ELSE. The joke skewers the Feynman 'added beauty' argument by applying it to gross biological realities. Votey: hand-lettered words 'IT'S CHLAMAGICAL!' (a chlamydia pun on 'it's magical') above a loose, scribbly drawing of two entangled figures in bed.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.