Modern thinking about the way we learn about the world is neatly divided into four „great divides“: science, social science, humanities and arts. We have become very familiar with this way of thinking, even to the extent that each of these branches has its own methods, own approaches and even its own language. But, it is less than 200 years ago that the great universities of the world did not teach science as a stand-alone subject at all. So, what does this mean for the modern scientist? Do our divides hinder or help when it comes to understanding the world?
This talk explores this subject. It takes the audience on a personal path of a working scientist who realised that the „great divides“ hinder thinking, who sought to bring visual art into his world of scientific thinking and was led then to embrace social science and it methods for tackling one of the great injustices of our age–gender inequality. It explores how gender inequality in sciences can be viewed through art and also how that can then be used in educating us in unconscious bias. We further explore how unconscious bias affects our thinking and what we can do to correct for it and drive more equality in our workplace.