Mentioned in this article is "The Third Culture" by John Brockman of Edge.org. That book is worth a read, even nearing 20 years in publication. It introduces the ideas of several fascinating scientists (among them Dan Dennett and Lynn Margulis) whose work manages to transcend the stated "two cultures," bringing science to bear on what were traditionally seen as "humanist" problems and vice-versa. These are thinkers who've taken responsibility for bringing their ideas directly to the public, rather than waiting for writers, journalists and, ahem, "insight pornographers" (if you follow HN) to do it for them. I first read it after obtaining my English degree, and it felt like I'd been shot with a sudden antidote to a haze of intellectual nonsense. I wonder how well it contrasts against the current trend in glossy pop science, which I suspect may be the flip-side of the same coin.
The idea of a (re-)integration of the two sides of Snow's dichotomy (alongside a critique of the concept of "The Two Cultures") can be found in Herbert Marcuse's essays[1]. There, Marcuse talks about the sciences' funding by the military-industrial complex and the position of the humanities as a potentially regulating (e.g. ethical) moderator to curb an overbroad influence on the sciences by forces outside the disciplines (or system).
[1]: Herbert Marcuse: Bemerkungen zu einer Neubestimmung der Kultur (Remarks on a Redefinition of Culture), in: Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1965.
