Science explains the universe. At least, it tries to. There's a lot science can't explain (See: Why people like rap music....except science CAN explain that, it just shouldn't). But, the basic goal of science is to put all those crazy events and objects in the universe in order, and explain them. As scientists, we seek to tell you not just what happened in history, but why, and not just in human history, but in universal history. Why we have life on Earth, but not living on any other identified planets, why it took billions of years to evolve, how the HELL the sloth managed to survive for this long without going extinct yet the goddamned Saber Tooth Tiger wasn't able to make it. Also why pandas seem too stupid to get it on for their own survival. Seriously. We spend more money on panda sex than you would BELIEVE we waste on the animal equivalent of an impotent obese trashy frat-boy.
Scientists seek to explain the world, and actually have done a pretty great job. We know things, or at least have a lot of evidence for our beliefs (scientists aren't supposed to say they've proven anything, just continued to support a given theory with mounting evidence) and we can tell the world SO MUCH about how everything works. We can tell you what tiny molecules in your skin are, or we can explain the laws of chemistry that allow you to sound like an oompa-loompa when you breathe in helium. We can explain why some people have blue eyes and other have green, and we can show how to create new chemicals, even new elements with incredible scientific works...but the problem is, all of that information tends to get us to one place:
The land of SUCK. Population: Everyone who understands what's going on around them.
I'm a scientist. Specifically, a Biologist. More specifically, an ecologist specializing in interspecies and trophic interactions, which is a nice way to say I study how different levels of certain food chains interact and affect other links on that chain. You might think my understanding of science has given me a better understanding of the world, and has changed how I perceive nature. I don't just see a plant, I see what KIND of plant it is, and how its special structure might allow for defenses from herbivores, or how a specific chemical defense can be sequestered until needed and on and on.
But that's just it...I don't see a flower. I see an attention getting device that the plant is making so an insect will get covered in pollen and fly to another flower. You see a rose, I see a plant sex service. You see an acorn falling with the change of seasons, a sign of the oncoming weather, and I see tiny plant fetuses dropping, desperately clawing for space and luck to prevent them from being consumed, as the VAST majority are. You see butterflies, I see interspecies fertilization clinics.
As I said, science ruins everything.
A few years ago, I started getting very interested in studying how the human brain worked. I opened up a few books, took a gander, and started to change how I see the world around me. And it was TERRIFYING. During this time, I was dating a girl who was a bit older than I was. She was my ideal: Tall, thin, smart, funny, and I was so happy and fortunate to be with her, I thought. She even SMELLED good to me. That's PROOF that we were 'meant to be together', right?
Wrong.
Profoundly wrong.
Prepare to change how you see the world.
Also, prepare for a little bit of science. And maybe some funny thoughts. But mostly science.
See, I was thinking how she smelled was just an objective thing: She smells good. Bacon smells good. Facts, right? WRONG. See, she smelled WEIRDLY good. And she had this perfect, gorgeous face.
She had signals that I was picking up on, and I didn't even realize it. That perfect, almost intoxicating smell? Yeah, that was my body responding to the possibility of her and I having complementary immune functions, and I was smelling, as CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS, her tendency towards a strong immune system and symmetric body. (Check out wikipedia's much better explanation here) Her perfect face? That just happened to be that same symmetry I was referencing earlier, and the learned idealization of certain cheek and mouth shapes I picked up from television and social acclimation. Everything I loved was actually NOT transcendent and perfect, but basic, and sort of creepy.
As I read the science, as I peeled through book after book, and as I learned more about human psychology and evolutionary psychology, I realized that I might not be attracted to her because of who she WAS, but because she had the right face, hip-to-waist ratio, genetic variation, and even sexually arousing scent. And as time went on, and I became more infatuated, my brain was putting out chemicals that made me more and more attracted to her over time. I wasn't falling in love, I WAS BEING DRUGGED...BY MY BRAIN...AND GENETICS. Those manipulative bastards!
So, tell me something: If you were watching a movie about a love story, and you had the opportunity to hear 2 different conversations, which would you choose? Look at my examples below, think for a moment, and REALLY consider which you'd want to be in a love story, or a movie.
This first one is actually taken from a movie. It's from "The Notebook", universally considered the love story that makes every woman cry and every guy uncertain if he's allowed to like the movie or not.
"I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours."
OR
"I am chemically bound to you. Our relationship has given my genetic imperative meaning, and I feel the need to stay with you in order to pass on what I inherently believe to be worthwhile genes. I release dopamine when I see you, and I feel the chemical associated with satisfaction and pleasure. I am therefore unable to make accurate logical predictions about the future, and thus see that as a sign of our permanent love and affection, and every time I see you right now, the release of positive chemicals is so strong that I am unable to leave you, which is technically the same chemical feeling that causes drug addicts to be addicted to drugs, and sex addicts to sex. I will, for at least as long as it takes to rear a child to their early years, be in love with you. Then, of course, the statistics say that I will become less in love, and far less loyal, and more than half of the time, we will divorce, unable to rationalize the drastic change in our affection for one another, because we don't understand the science."
You tell me, which is your favorite romance scene? See, science ruins everything. The things that made you gasp in wonder as a child become unromantic, unimportant. Rainbows are cool, right? The bible said it's a sign from God about how he's not going to go all 'genocide and anger' again. They're amazing.
"OH MY GOD, A RAINBOW. REMEMBER HOW INTENSE THAT IS? THE HILARIOUS YOUTUBE GUY SAW A DOUBLE RAINBOW AND PRACTICALLY CRAPPED HIS PANTS WITH JOY!"
OR
"WOW! Light refracting. I can do that with a garden hose. It holds no larger significance. They sell prisms that make more clearly visible rainbows for 50 cents at the drugstore. Woo."
Perhaps, then, something that IS rare? Something magical, that Disney told us could grant wishes?
"A shooting star? MAKE A WISH AND IT MIGHT COME TRUE! IT'S A SIGN FROM HEAVEN!"
OR
"Wow, a piece of cosmic flotsam is being shredded into particulate by collision with our atmosphere. Woo."
Even the most important and basic human feelings and actions lose their meaning with science.
"Sex! Orgasms, sharing your soul with another, making love. It gives life meaning, it creates more life, it ties couples together in a way that anything else in life feels unimportant in comparison...it's a beautiful union, and an amazing feeling."
OR
Even the most important and basic human feelings and actions lose their meaning with science.
"Sex! Orgasms, sharing your soul with another, making love. It gives life meaning, it creates more life, it ties couples together in a way that anything else in life feels unimportant in comparison...it's a beautiful union, and an amazing feeling."
OR
"She is releasing endorphins, so that she is compelled to stay and raise a child with him. He is being rewarded for his actions by his body releasing other chemicals. Basically, he's spitting out of his ding-dong, and she's secreting mucous out her crotch, and we call it love."
I know that science isn't ACTUALLY telling us sex is gross, stars are infinitely far away, and rainbows are tricks of light in our eyes. Science isn't telling us that the world is primarily empty, and no matter what we do, we all die, and eventually, so will our planet, star, galaxy and universe. Except...to a certain degree, that IS what science is telling us.
So next time you feel down, and you look into your lover's eyes, or a baby's smile, or a bright gleaming rainbow in the sky and begin to feel hope, realize that's just chemicals passing from cell to cell, you're attributing greater meaning than actually exists to something rather mundane, and you're going to die and rot while being eaten by grubs and microbes. Rejoice.
As I said....the more you know about science, and the deeper your understanding goes, the more life can be explained in a cold, often nasty, or revolting and tragic way. Science can take a man to the moon, but he's still just going to find it empty, lifeless, and barren.
Science, no matter how amazing and sometimes impressive it can be, can really ruin everything.
Don't worry, you've extended that doubt and skepticism from your last post to everything except the one most important and balancing idea--science itself. There really isn't a great deal of direct evidence that the smells of different humans is directly related to immunocompatibility. In fact, smells are generated in humans based on surface flora, which MAY be linked to immune system responses. The double rainbow guy was an idiot without science, and well, shooting starts are cool and all, but you mostly can't see them except in the more remote parts of civilization these days. I was just in NYC, you can't even see the goddamn MOON most of the time. I've found that if you actually look into the pop "science" or even text books, you'll find that all elements of doubt and skepticism have been removed in lue of a strong story. Follow that back to the original manuscript and those claims of certainty are greatly exaggerated.
ReplyDeleteWithout science though, you'd still believe that shooting stars were gods angry with mortals, inexplicably have many many children, and that double rainbow would been have seen more than once--the guy who "double rainbowed" would still be an idiot though.
I've found a whole new sense of wonder and appreciation knowing MORE about science. We understand for example that our universe is nearly timeless, or at least reality. We understand that reality is itself composed of many levels of organization of matter, with unique increases in complexity with increases in scale. Somehow out of all this chaos (pronounced with the soft -ch), there organized a group of weird chemical reactions that became sentient of it all, but even they weren't happy with the direct observations and started making up stories. They got REALLY good at making up stories. Hell, they even figured out how to toss ones that stopped making sense away. Not too shabby, naked monkeys. If that makes you sad, then I have no idea what could possibly make you happy. It's really quite amazing.
I can't tell from the initials alone if I know you, but I'll assume I don't, and try to give an explanation free from the assumptions about personal knowledge I've been flawed in making before now:
DeleteYou're 100% correct. The reason I'm studying science, the reason I'm an atheist with a passion for varied interests in science and politics and reading and writing...is because science IS amazing. Putting that skepticism to work in every aspect of my life has been wonderful, and life-changing, and very positive. Heck, I've even gone so far as to say that I plan to write a counterpoint to each of my 'sucks' posts with a 'science rocks' post as well. However, I do think you're ignoring a few things in favor of seeing the good.
Knowing science opens your eyes to the wonders of the world. Richard Dawkins put it beautifully ("The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear") but there's the other side too, and it's incredible uncomfortable. When you KNOW the numbers, you know that the odds of raising a healthy and normal child are getting smaller and smaller. When you know the science, you see a raised dark mole with uneven edges and instantly think cancer. You see someone with a specific facial structure and blame their mother for alcohol abuse, instead of just assuming it was bad luck. When you know the signs and science (particularly of biology for me, but probably also of chemistry, geology, physics, etc) then the world becomes less and less beautiful and more and more dangerous, too. I study ecology, and when I see a beautiful flower, I am cursed with knowing how many of that species are left, or that this particular flower is invasive and restricting the root systems of local plants. This goes on and on, and is particularly shoddy (but particularly telling) when it comes to humans, since there's so much we SOMEWHAT know, such as how kissing may be about literally exchanging fluids, or how a woman's interest in a man may be fleeting and hormonal instead of genuine and emotional.
Science, it's been said rather accurately, doesn't care. It's not emotional, it doesn't give you the interpretation that would be most beautiful or funny or fascinating, it just gives you the facts, and lets you handle them. And not knowing science doesn't INHERENTLY imply you'll revert to religion, since many atheists show that a lack of knowledge of science doesn't imply an increased belief in religiosity, or general assumptions about a supernatural world. My point is to make 1 statement clear:
Some days, when you turn on the news and hear about a miracle drug to cure some disease, or look at that beautiful (DANGEROUS) vine of Kudzu growing on a local porch, or see the stagnant-yet-receding groundwater in a place like , it's very hard to be a scientist. Especially when your work begins to bleed out of your work, and become your whole life.
However, AWESOME points, and I love getting comments. I try to respond to every one I get, usually, and I like what you've got to say. Plus, from when I clicked on your name and saw you had a blog that you might be starting about lessons from Graduate school, I became SUPER EXCITED, since I'm a graduate student DESPERATELY interested in learning the lessons this place has to offer. So, keep writing, keep reading, keep commenting, and enjoy the science.
Thanks,
Brian
I'm sorry, it's Bryan H. I figured it would post my name.
DeleteNo problem buddy. I appreciate the fact that you seem amused enough to read! And I've had a great conversation about this with a few other science graduate students, and they echoed both you and my own sentiments....as I say in the 5th part of the series, science can be hard, and it can suck sometimes, but for every 'magical' piece of the world you lose to knowledge, 5 more cool facts open up that can help you understand the world better.
Deletei know this is an old post, but i think upon deeper reflection you'll find that even with the information above, no magic is lost in life. you talk about chemical processes and brain function making aspects of life seem less magical, which i completely understand. But if you study more the philosophy and neuroscience of mind you'll find that the intrecacy involved in these process's and our consciousness its very self is truly amazing! just because a chemical is involved my 'feeling' of moods and emotions by no means make them any more incredible. I am able to subjectively feel these chemicals in action as so much more than just chemicals and particles. that very part of it all the 'subjective experience' is absolutely incredible. Many famous, award winning cognitive scientists even to this day hold the position of 'new mysterianism', claiming that as human beings we may never be able to fully understand this 'hard problem of consciousness' as its been termed. Even if we do figure it out, which i hope we do! the vary fact that we have it, and that we can think and feel and imagine using metacognition fills me with wonder!
ReplyDeleteone last point about when lying with your loved one. Just remember that we are all here together. all we really have in this life is one another. Thats more than just chemical reaction etc. That is one of the very greatest essences of being! that we have one another to speak to and be with. We share ideas and we look to each other for support and guidance and understanding. Love is so much more than dopamine. Its interconnectedness. I have to truly love the person I'm with, and find there personality and there very essence attractive to me in order to feel that raw emotion and sentience running through my veins!