Why Scientists Need to Read Poetry - A Science-y Explanation

A Study on the Necessity of Poetry Reading in the Scientific Community

Ana Rosu¹, Cata Lina², Asus Laptop³, Microsoft Word⁴, and Elizabeth Majerus¹

Poetry and science have long been considered to be on opposite poles of human thought – most people will rightfully claim that poetry encompasses the emotional and artistic, while science exists in a cold world of logic and technicality. The not so friendly attitudes between scientists and poets further the divide between the fields. To encourage a more interdisciplinary approach between the fields, we have conducted a study testing the potential cognitive and emotional benefits that scientists may derive from reading poetry. We concluded that, despite scientists’ insistence that “it was a waste of their time,” poetry improved their rhetorical skills, helping them write more organized and precise papers. Further, reading poetry caused a noticeable increase in scientists’ emotional health: when they read poetry, less scientists reported feelings of stress and insecurity in their everyday experiences.

Introduction

Several studies on the potential benefits of reading poetry have been conducted within the last decade. At the University of Exeter, researchers conducted fMRI scans on people as they read poetry. They found that subjects reading emotionally charged poetry activated the same region of the brain that responds to music (Figure 1) (1). In another study at Liverpool University, scientists found that subjects’ brain activity was significantly increased when reading Shakespeare and Wordsworth compared to more modern texts. The temporary challenge that readers experienced actually ended up permanently shifting their brains into a “higher gear,” getting them to pursue further reading (2). Sherry-Ann Brown, a resident at Mayo Clinic, has also published a review on how reading poetry can improve science education at the elementary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. She concluded that learning skills of analogy, analysis, and attentiveness from poetry helped students more effectively solve scientific and medical problems (3).

            However, despite the many investigations that have been conducted on poetry and science education, no studies have looked at the effects poetry may have on scientists involved in research, not education. Our aim is to review the benefits reading poetry may have on the careers and work of scientists conducting research.

Materials and Methods

Investigating the Analytical Benefits of Reading Poetry

Using data from phonebooks, 100 scientists were randomly selected from the physics, chemistry, and biology departments of High-Lab University. Fifty of the scientists remained in a control group, the other fifty were required to dedicate five to ten minutes a day reading poetry by Whitman, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, or Milton. Each scientist was required to read a paper from their respective field before and after the eight-week experimental period (one paper was chosen for the biological department, another for the chemical department, and another for the physics department). After being given an hour to read the paper, scientists were given a quiz that tested their understanding of the concepts, experimental methods, and results discussed in the paper.

Investigating the Rhetorical Benefits of Reading Poetry

The papers of the same 100 scientists from the prior experiment were reviewed before and after the eight weeks experimental period. In a double-blind procedure, writing experts reviewed and rated the clarity of language and structure of each scientist’s most recent article on a scale of 1 to 10.

Investigating the Emotional Benefits of Reading Poetry

Before and after the eight-week experimental period, the randomly selected sample of 100 scientists completed a questionnaire that asked them to assess how stressed, unhappy, and unfulfilled they felt on a scale of 1-10.

Results and Discussion

Reading Poetry Allowed More Effective Analysis

After eight weeks, the group of scientists that read poetry by Whitman, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, and Milton had a mean growth of 1.6 points in quiz scores. In comparison, the control group only improved their quiz scores by 0.3 points.

Further investigation is needed to figure out how reading poetry caused such comparatively large improvements in analysis scores. We suspect that the scientists in the poetry-reading group experienced a similar phenomenon as those in the Liverpool University study mentioned above. More specifically, we hypothesize that reading older poetry strengthened the regions of their brain responsible for analysis, allowing the scientists to interpret papers in their fields more effectively.

Reading Poetry Improved Writing

The scientists in the control group had a decrease of 0.05 in ratings, while the scientists in the experimental group had a 0.4 increase in ratings. Interestingly, the increase in the analysis skills of the scientists who read poetry for eight weeks is not paralleled by an equally strong increase in rhetorical skills.

Reading Poetry Reduced Stress

There was no noticeable growth or decrease in the ratings that scientists gave for happiness and insecurity, suggesting that reading poetry was limited in improving their emotional stability. 


Conclusion
Ultimately, we were able to conclude that poetry did have a noticeable positive effect on scientists, despite their reluctance to read it. Reading poetry led to a noticeable increase in analysis skills; its impact on scientists' writing skills and emotional wellbeing remains debatable. Further large-scale studies on the subject remain to be done.