Economics Isn't Science or Literature

In 1959, British physicist C.P. Snow gave a lecture called "The Two Cultures," in which he lamented the cultural divide between literary intellectuals and scientists. Having been a research assistant in a physics lab and a published novelist, he knew a thing or two about both. The upshot of his argument was that literary types tend not to know anything about science or technology, while science types tend not to know anything about high culture, to the detriment of the nation as a whole. Since 1959, Snow's dichotomy has become common knowledge; at Stanford, we talked about "techies" and "fuzzies" as if never the twain shall meet.

As a physics major who wrote short stories for fun, I was a little bit like Snow. But since I went to grad school in economics, I've discovered something Snow never even noticed -- a third intellectual culture.