Did Sir Isaac Newton destroy the beauty of the rainbow by explaining it? Yes, he did. Because of Newton we no longer believe that a rainbow is the shaft of light projected from a pot of gold, or the colorful vapor trail of a leaping unicorn. John Keats argued that Newton destroyed the beauty of the rainbow by explaining it. So what of the relationship between dance and science? Are scientists destroying the beauty of dance by trying to explain it?
Neuroscience, and brain scanners, are in vogue. The basic scientific logic is simple. If you do something in a brain scanner then scientists can tell what's happening in your brain while you are doing the doing. Several studies have examined what happens in the brain while people are dancing. From these studies we know how dancers and non dancers differ in their perception of different body movements, we know how men and women differ while they are imagining traditionally male or female dance steps and we know what happens in the brain while people are tango dancing*.
What? Did I just write that? "We know what happens in the brain while people are tango dancing"? Really? The people must have been very small to stand up in a brain scanner and dance. No, the way people dance tango in a brain scanner is like this. They lay down. They keep their head perfectly still. They put their feet on a sloped surface, wear slippery socks and they move their feet in a kind of tango-esque pattern. Now, I've done "Ballroom Tango" and "Argentine Tango" but I've never done this new form of "Brain Scan Tango".
Although I've never actually done it, Brain Scan Tango doesn't sound like any other form of tango I've done before. In fact, Brain Scan Tango doesn't sound like any kind of dancing I've ever done before. Of course, I've danced while I've been laying down and I've danced in very small spaces, but it doesn't seem at all clear to me that moving your legs while in a brain scanner counts as dancing.
The point is that if the Brain Scan Tango is not a proper, legitimate, authentic form of dance then the information that neuroscientists get from looking at the activity of the brain while people are performing the Brain Scan Tango tells us nothing about what is happening in the brain when people are really dancing. Does this invalidate the neuroscientific study of dance? No, but it does mean that we cannot (should not) draw conclusions about the neuroscience of dance, and go on to make generalizations, from experimental manipulations that ignore what it is to genuinely dance.
In this instance it is not the case that science destroyed the beauty of dance, but it is the case that scientists' lack of consideration for the beauty of dance destroyed the beauty of scientific logic.
Dr Peter Lovatt
www.DanceDrDance.com
*Brown, S., Martinez, M.J., & Parsons, L.M. (2006). The Neural Basis of Human Dance. Cerebral Cortex, 16, 1157-1167.
