You could have used a loaf of bread as your example, but it would only have dug the hole deeper. I mean the bread doesn’t mix, pour, or bake itself does it?
As to biochem or molecular biology being arts it seems that you are confusing natural and normal scientific debate with opinion. The peer review process will always have dissent. It is a fundamental part of the system. That is not art as it is not subjective in the least bit over time.
The scientific method is a search for truth. The conclusion drawn after testing isn’t subjective, although it involves drawing conclusions. If one were able to simply state opinion as fact at that point then it would be art. Instead your results are publicly transmitted, argued or supported publicly and eventually are lost or become theories, but just theories. Math is based on proofs and so is science. At the outer edges of both there are theories.
Art on the other hand is the pursuit of beauty. Beauty is wholly subjective and... fleeting. ;-]
I think you are looking at the word “art” in too narrow a sense. It means far more than just the creation of paintings or whatever.
The interpretation of scientific data is absolutely an art. When two people can look at the exact same experiment and data and one sees confirmation of a hypothesis and the other sees refutation of the same hypothesis—then it is obvious that the interpretation relies on subjective experience and preconceived ideas, not some absolute objective criteria.
It would be wonderful if science were so cut and dry. But it’s not. And if it were, people like me would be doing other professions, because there wouldn’t be anything left to discover.
I used the bread as my example, because baking it is another example of a process that happens over a continuum. There is no single moment at which a lump of gooey dough becomes a loaf of fluffy bread. Same with evolution. The fact that people might even think that there are clear transitions during evolution is merely an artifact of the tools we have to study it. We don’t have a video of evolution; we merely have snapshots taken at widely separated points of time.
From www.dictionary.com:
World English Dictionary
art
—n
1. a. the creation of works of beauty or other special significance
b. (as modifier): an art movement
2. the exercise of human skill (as distinguished from nature)
3. imaginative skill as applied to representations of the natural world or figments of the imagination
4. a. the products of man’s creative activities; works of art collectively, esp of the visual arts, sometimes also music, drama, dance, and literature
b. arts See also fine art (as modifier): an art gallery
5. excellence or aesthetic merit of conception or execution as exemplified by such works
6. any branch of the visual arts, esp painting
7. (modifier) intended to be artistic or decorative: art needlework
8. a. any field using the techniques of art to display artistic qualities: advertising art
b. (as modifier): an art film
9. journalism photographs or other illustrations in a newspaper, etc
10. method, facility, or knack: the art of threading a needle; the art of writing letters
11. the system of rules or principles governing a particular human activity: the art of government
12. artfulness; cunning
13. get something down to a fine art to become highly proficient at something through practice