The previous two collections in the excellent The Best Australian Science Writing 2013 series have contained forewords written by Nobel laureates, so in pursuit of balance - I assume - this year's foreword is written by someone who is quite spectacularly not one. Therefore, rather than say something knowledgeable or insightful, I'll begin with the dental health of the people of Oregon, USA.

I've only been to Portland once, but it's a great city - its population a paragon of liberalism and artiness, sporting more tattoos than you could point a regretful laser at, and boasting perhaps a higher collective dye-to-hair ratio than anywhere on earth. Great music, great art, wonderful coffee … it's my kind of town. Except, the residents recently voted - for the fourth time since the 1950s - against adding fluoride to the water supply. It's as if a mermaid on one's lower back is an impediment to sensible interpretation of data, or perhaps unkempt pink hair acts as a sort of dream catcher for conspiracy theories.

"There is no conflict between art and science: only the wide-eyed pursuit of cool ideas." Credit:Reuters

This apparent inverse correlation between artistic interest and scientific literacy seems to play out all over the world. Go to Byron Bay and you'll find more painters and musos per capita than anywhere in the country, and - inevitably - a parallel glut of aura readers, homeopaths and anti-vaccination campaigners. There's clearly no such thing as a free lunch: you want to listen to good blues, you have to have your palm read - and maybe get measles in the process.

As an artist who gets aroused by statistics - among other things - I find this deeply troubling. But I reckon (and yes, I only reckon: one of many advantages of being a not-Nobel-laureate is that I may hypothesise with relative impunity) that the apparent relationship between artiness and anti-science is a result of people acting out cultural expectations and subscribing to popular myths, rather than a genuine division of personality type or intellect. I wonder if artists identify themselves as spiritual (whatever that means) and reject materialism for the same reason they might wear a beret or take up smoking: it's an adherence to a perceived stereotype, rather than a fundamental feature of the creative brain.