C.P. Snow's prescient message, 50 years on

The Guardian: Fifty years ago exactly the scientist and novelist C.P. Snow gave a lecture that has rung down the decades. Science and the humanities, claimed Snow, have become "two cultures," deeply divided and alienated. Literary intellectuals sneer at cultureless scientists while scientists look down on the soft humanities.

Today, claims the thinktank Civitas in a collection of essays published to mark the 50th anniversary of Snow's lecture, we face a far worse crisis than the one Snow outlined. In the end, he was talking about a difference in tone and style among groups of highly educated people. Now, say the authors of From Two Cultures to No Culture, the very survival of serious education is at stake.