In another thread, a quote was produced from a science journal.

The quote was a scientist's report on astronomical observations and it concluded with this vivid imagery "the most extraordinary flare let rip".

The flaring of that phrase in an otherwise droll scientific report was as startling as the celestial phenomenon the scientist was describing.

In that other thread, someone described the phrase as "a bit pesante for a science journal".

I would have thought that cogency in a scientfic journal was improved not devalued by poetic imagery.

I wonder what others think?

It happens that creative imagination has acquired a new cachet in business circles as a recent article in the Harvard Business Review attests.

HBR says "a Master of Fine Arts has become the new MBA."

See this review:

" ... The Harvard Business Review, in its look at breakthrough business ideas for 2004, suggests that the MFA -- Masters of Fine Arts degree -- has become the new MBA, essential currency for a business career.

U.S. corporate recruiters have begun visiting the arts grad schools such as the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in search of talent.

"Businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today's overstocked, materially abundant marketplace is to make their offerings transcendent -- physically beautiful and emotionally compelling," says author Daniel Pink."

If business has suddenly discovered poetic imagination, is it time for science to discover poetic imagination?

Is that such a radical idea, I wonder?

After all, the business of science has become the business of all of us, so why shouldn't it become palatable to all of us? At least, accessible to all of us?

Maybe if we had more scientists writing for real readers, we would have more readers, including students, becoming scientists.

Full article:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040319/CASCAN19/TPBusiness/General