These combined efforts have provided a range of information not only about how color is produced both in nature and synthetically, but also how color perception in humans and other animals influences emotions, behavior, and evolution. Color, and the production and perception of color, has been approached over the years by both scientists and artists alike. A classic example is that of color and color vision. Time and time again, the greatest scientists and artists have borrowed from these supposedly opposing worlds to forge answers and meaning to the plethora of questions our sentience produces. Yet this dichromatic thinking fails to capture the full extent of the human experience, and the full potential of both scientists and artists. We see caricatures of artists as overly boisterous and eccentric and scientists as cloistered lab rats, staring at their feet. Our universities place them in separate colleges, our government lauds the practicality of science and fails to give funds to the arts, and as children we are told that art “isn’t practical” and science and tech jobs are the more pragmatic path. This polarization bleeds into many aspects of society, such as our current view of arts and science as separate and opposite. It often seems that we live in a polarized world: black and white, friend or foe, good and evil, positive and negative.
