Creation in Art and Science

Abstract

The proposition that the creations of art are unique (in the sense tbat we would not have had Timon of Athens had Shakespeare not lived), whereas the creations of science are inevitable or commonplace (in the sense that we would have had the DNA double helix even if Watson and Crick had not lived), has little philosophical or historical merit. For, this proposition conflates works of art and science (the texts of the play Timon and of the paper A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid), both of which are unique, and their semantic content (the insights into human affects provided by Timon and the concept of the DNA double helix), both of which are commonplace as well as unique.