Science vs. Humanities

Do you agree with Henry's faith in science? In terms of the problems presented in Saturday, what can science solve, and what can it not? Can the humanities step in where science is limited? You must give at least two examples from your reading.

Henry’s belief in science is justified – he explains things that occur during his “day” and in other people’s lives with his knowledge of science. The conclusions he makes about other people – the girl outside his window in the early morning, Baxter, his mother – come from his scientific observations and hypotheses. He can predict what will happen to these people very precisely, based on his scientific observations. The humanities, though, can predict how other people will act, but not with total evidence; science – as presented by the narrator on account of Perowne – is more concrete and hardly conjecture at all. However, science cannot solve all the problems that occur in Perowne’s society and requires the humanities to step in.

Events in the book provide evidence as to why the humanities do have a role in people’s actions and the consequences that result from societal problems. When the airplane crashes, Perowne makes multiple assumptions about what it could be – a hijacking, a warning from a Middle Eastern nation; yet, none of these turn out to be true. Based on the current events, it would make sense for him to interpolate that the crash could be a result of the beginning of the war. However, he is not using scientific reasoning when he considers these possibilities. Later, he finds out the plane crash was actually caused by technical malfunctions. The plane crash can finally be explained through scientific reasoning – the way Perowne likes it. However, the consequence of the crash is the fact that more and more people are frightened by the onset of a war. Yet, so many – almost two million – are anti-war protesting in the streets. The problems that result from the crash are the point where the humanities must step in.

Another example that requires the humanities to step in occurs when Perowne visits his mother, an Alzheimer’s patient. He knows the course of the degenerative neurological disease – the decreased amount of memory, the loss of emotions, the confusion. Perowne, a neurosurgeon fully aware of the disease’s course, finds it hard to cope with his new emotions. He knows that in the coming months his mother will drift farther away, until she drifts out of this life. How does he cope with these new emotions of fear, uncertainty, and sadness? The humanities must step in because science does not solve these problems; it can explain the disease, but it cannot explain how one is supposed to react.

Extra Credit Blog

Focus on McEwan's description of the media coverage following 9/11, paying particular attention to the way in which he describes and imagines the effect mass images had on individual psyches. Can you relate anything McEwan says to Perowne's experiences in Saturday? To receive extra creidt, post your response by 11:59PM Sunday, 17 February.

September 11th affected people all around the globe emotionally and mentally. Certainly, those related to victims of 9/11 suffered immense pain with which I cannot identify. We all, though, instinctively felt compassion and fear for those who were involved in the attacks. Could it have been me? What would I have done in that instance?

McEwan describes the images associated with 9/11 as chilling and bleak. When talking about people jumping from the building holding hands, he says that it had to have been out of "utter desperation..Jumping to certain death rather than dying in pain in a fire. It spoke to me of sheer panic" (Frontline Interview). McEwan describes his feelings and reactions to the events, which I think are almost identical to any of those watching the event.

Phone Call from the Twin Towers.

I think that Perowne's experiences in Saturday are very similar to the events that occurred in 9/11. Certainly, there was a plane accident and Perowne expected that passengers were injured and or dead, just as in the attacks on 9/11. However, Perowne did not actually see the victims of the plane crash nor was he able to feel any deep remorse for those people when he first saw the airplane going down. Later in the novel, after Perowne discovers that the plane only carried the two pilots and cargo, he felt less affected. At this point, this situation seems hardly comparable to that of 9/11. However, in the initial stages, when Perowne didn't have any better idea of what to think, McEwan does provide some insight about how he felt from the 9/11 attacks and externalized those feelings through Perowne.

I had a cat named Schroeder

Why is "thought experiment" of Schrödinger's cat (btm. 17- 18) so fitting an end to the first section of the novel? Why does Henry reject it as a thought experiment? How does the image of the cat in the box address the idea of disasters that occur outside the range of our own consciousness? In other words, why after hearing on the radio that the plane has crashed, does Henry think "Schrödinger's dead cat is alive after all" (36).

At the beginning of Saturday, McEwan introduces us to Henry Perowne, the main character of the novel. McEwan details Perowne's daily life in the first chapter by providing anecdotes from the hospital and Perowne's own opinions of how he works. At work, Perowne works with precision and confidence, knowing that everything will go smoothly and as planned. He has few mishaps or failures, and knows how to guide junior registrars with a parent-like authority. Yet, in the middle of the first chapter, Perowne is reminded of Scrodinger's cat experiment, but it not convinced that it was actually a thought experiment.

Perowne rejects Schrodinger's cat experiment as a "thought experiment" because "it seems beyond the requirements of proof: a result, a consequence...whatever the score, it's already chalked up" (18). Perowne does not think that this makes any "human sense." He says, though, after the radio reports that the plane has crashed that "Schrodinger's dead cat is alive after all" because it turns out that this event ended with a cat alive and not dead, yet he could only know that after someone opened the box. McEwan uses this image in order to simplify an event and relate it into layman terms so that the audience can understand why Perowne feels a certain way. Yet, it seems odd that Perowne would consider the people on the plane dead when he himself performs countless, perilous procedures every day and does not even question the possibility of failure at all.

Perowne, as a neurosurgeon, performs invasive, risky procedures every day, but does not question the outcome of these events. When relaying the many surgeries he does in a day, he does not once question the possibility that these surgeries could result in death. Don't all his surgeries mimic the cat in the box in a certain way? Two possible outcomes can result from his surgeries: life or death. They are both equally possible, yet Perowne does not even question the latter possibilty. Why is he so quick to assume that the passengers (when it was actually a cargo plane) on the flight have died, when they actually end up surviving without minor injuries? McEwan creates this end to the first part of the novel because it characterizes Perowne as a round character in the early stages of the novel.