Robert Pirsig's Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is more concerned with the state of philosophy than it is with philosophical thought. It's clear, that at the time, Pirsig believed that the study of philosophy was nearing a reckoning, one that could tear down it's "church to reason," as he refers to it.

And so, laced through his ruminations about quality and the arc of enlightenment and post-englightment philosophy, are recriminations of the larger scientific world. A world that Pirsig believes is so beholden to its methods and norms and standards of practice is losing track of the art of science.

So he says:

We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly (Time for real reunification of art and technology is really long overdue)

It really is true. Some of the anger at science, I think, is directed at clinical approach. Science lacks humanity. After all, it is as important to consider which questions are being asked as it is to find answers to them.

In my field, it gets me thinking about all the lack of creativity applied to problems that don't matter at all. What a lack of imagination to think that what people really want in this life is to sit alone in a room and pretend a robot is their friend. It's like science fiction. Not even good sci-fi. It's lazy sci-fi.