I Love Science

Santa did not bring me the Young Scientists’ Living Room fMRI Kit that I had been hoping for. But the holidays were not a wash, scientifically speaking. I got the second best thing: two visits in one week to the California Academy of Sciences. In these two days I learned that I have a fondness for saber toothed extinct things, too many sweaters to survive in an indoor rainforest, and the evolutionary advantage of being able to squeeze myself into the kiddie exhibits.

I love science. I love science like sports fans love their team. Robust and simple. Totally uncomplicated by deep knowledge. If I can wear the uniform, cheer from the stands, and bat around a few factoids with a drink in my hand, I am right with the world.

(Super Relax Laboratories, Your Friends in Science)

It wasn’t always so. I told my best friend on the kindergarten playground that my dad, a research scientist, flew airplanes for a living. At the time it seemed way more impressive than what I really knew: he studied purple membrane. Now I feel that purple membrane is probably way more awesome. In fact, it is my favorite membrane.

I didn’t have any illusions about following in my dad’s footsteps. My sixth grade science fair project, investigating paw dominance in hamsters, was notable less for my scientific rigor and breakthrough research than it was for my construction paper renderings of the possibly left-pawed hamster Milo and my creative re-use of a peanut butter container. A few years later, my high school science streak was cut short by a serious allergic reaction to dissecting rabbits. I mourned only the rabbit; by then I think I wanted to be a linguist, a kosher chicken farmer, or a radical social geographer.

My adoration of science began in earnest in 2004, when Austin and I read a popular neuroscience book full of chimpanzees and fMRIs. We would peek over one another’s shoulders and ask “Did you get to the part where the guy has a pole lodged in his prefrontal cortex? Did you get to the part where the baby screams the chimpanzee hunger call?” Those were the good times, and they were just beginning. With another science enthusiast/English major in the house, I felt free to reference my hypothalamous-pituitary-adrenal axis one day, and joke about reconciling Newtonian physics with quantum mechanics the next day. These days we listen to Science Friday, Radio Lab, and hoard the Tuesday Science Times section. As we cheer for science, we may miss some of the finer points, but we are totally enjoying the spectacle.

Science is typically taught by breaking things down. The atom, the cell, the building blocks of life and the physical world. This is a logical way to establish a fundamental understanding to prepare us for increasingly more complex ideas. But you don’t encounter the wonder and awe of the universe in a neat linear fashion. It comes in spurts and spasms. Quite often it comes to me through stories, a primordial soup where mythos and logos recklessly commingle.

So be it. I will sew my new California Academy of Sciences patch on my beer koozie, turn up the volume on Science Friday, and let science rock my world.