Over at Slate, Sarah Braner has a piece titled “Stop Saying You ‘Could Never Do Science’” that Kate forwarded to me with the Subject: header “Singing your tune.” It starts off:
When I tell people that I’m majoring in molecular biology, I usually get a response that’s something like this: “I could never do biology.” Or worse: “I could never do science.”
This seems to be a common response that people in the sciences get when they talk about how they spend their time in school or at work. My friend who majors in psychology, my editor who has a physics degree, my high school mentor with a doctorate in neuroscience—they all tell me that they get some version of the “that would be too hard for me!” response when they share their credentials. I’m graduating soon, with the intention of staying in the biology world. It feels like I might be gearing up for years and years of being on the receiving end of the “wow, that’s too hard for me” response. Every time I hear it I want to yell, No! Stop! Have some faith in yourself!
This is pretty much the starting point for my Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, which you can read in convenient excerpted format in The Cut:
The popular image of scientists is of a tiny, elite (and possibly deranged) minority of people engaged in esoteric pursuits. One of the three most common responses when I tell somebody I’m a physicist is, “You must be really smart. I could never do that.” (The other responses are, “I hated that when I took it in high school/college,” and, “Can you explain string theory to me?” This goes a long way toward explaining why physicists have a reputation as lousy conversationalists.)
While the idea that scientists are uniquely smart and capable is flattering to the vanity of nerds like me, it’s a compliment with an edge. There’s a distracting effect to being called “really smart” in this sense — it sets scientists off as people who think in a way that’s qualitatively different from “normal” people. We’re set off even from other highly educated academics — my faculty colleagues in arts, literature, and social science don’t hear that same “You must be really smart” despite the fact that they’ve generally spent at least as much time acquiring academic credentials as I have. The sort of scholarship they do is seen as just an extension of normal activities, whereas science is seen as alien and incomprehensible.
So, yeah, very much singing my tune. (Please note that this is not meant as any kind of accusation that Braner was stealing my idea; given how poorly that book sold, I’d be a little shocked if she had read it…)
This has bugged me for a long time, but it’s hard to think of what to do about it— more or less by definition, this is something you only hear from people you’re meeting for the first time, so lecturing them about their misconceptions isn’t a great start. I’ve occasionally thought of responding in kind (“Oh, you’re a banker? I could never do that, I just can’t deal with money…”) but again, since this is someone new, they won’t understand the context, so I’d just look like a flake or a weirdo. So, I usually end up settling for a pained smile, a vaguely sympathic noise, and a change of topic.
There’s a bit of dark irony in the fact that the “I could never understand science…” line is very commonly heard from a class of people who in other contexts will vehemently denounce the idea of innate abilities. While I’m not in that camp, I don’t think innate ability can be the explanation for why some people “don’t get science.” I don’t believe that any person who can function as an independent adult is truly incapable of the mental processes needed to do math and science— there will be some variation, but there’s no special brain module for Science Stuff that’s atrophied or absent in non-scientists. As I note in that excerpted introduction (and try to demonstrate at length in the book), I think this has as much to do with personal inclination as anything else: the fact that everyone can do math and science doesn’t mean that they’ll enjoy doing those things.
That difference in inclination is a powerful force magnifying small differences in ability. All of us tend to spend more time and effort on things that we enjoy doing, and in the process hone the skills needed to do those things. Which, over time, makes the sort of people who enjoy doing science much better at doing science than those who instead enjoy playing the violin, or reading postmodern literary theory, or making furniture. Each of those people has the underlying mental hardware needed to do all the things done by the others, but after years of practicing the things they enjoy and neglecting the ones they don’t, the difference between them will seem absolutely enormous.
In an important sense, the real difference here is social— it is considered acceptable for highly educated people to declare “I just don’t get science”, where it is not acceptable to say “I just don’t get literature.” If you go to a faculty party and say that you’re not good at math, you can expect sympathetic nods (or at least pained smiles and a change of topic), where declaring that you’re not good at reading would get weird looks.
Of course, the more honest answer of “I just don’t care for that field of study” is also a bit of a conversation killer. I know, because I get that one nearly every time I go to a medical appointment— Physics is the least popular section of the MCAT, and I have had innumerable doctors and nurses over the years ask what I do and then say “Oh, I hated that class…” The only educated professionals who might be as cheerfully disparaged to their faces are lawyers.
I don’t really know what there is to be done about this. My preference would be to try to deal with this in a positive manner, by encouraging people to see themselves as capable of understanding and appreciating science, even if they don’t enjoy it enough to pursue as a career. That’s why I write the kinds of books that I do, particularly Eureka. Of course, as noted above, the sales of that book suggest that there isn’t nearly as much appetite for that as I would like…
But then, the negative-reinforcement alternative isn’t especially appealing, either. On some level, I’d like for it to be as socially awkward for educated people to confess an inability to handle basic math as it would be to admit to being borderline illiterate. But unfortunately, the bias against math and science is so deeply ingrained that calling it out would mostly serve to make me seem like a weird asshole.
So, you know, it’s pained smiles and topic changes all the way down.
(It’s a pity; I’ve got a whole line about how calling the study of arts and literature “the humanities” is offensive because it implicitly brands the sciences as inhuman, when in fact they are just as fundamental to the human experience… I settle for just taking pains to avoid using the term, and putting it in quotes when I can’t.)
This is another “Back on My Bullshit” post, with a side of “Buy My Book,” but you know… Anyway, if you find this congenial, here’s a button:
And if you feel moved to respond in either direction, the comments will be open:
I think I may start going with “It isn’t always easy for me either, but it is a fascinating…” and then have a finding or discovery to share with my new friend.
After I got my BA in physics, I went and mastered in nuclear engineering. I have had this conversation 10,000 times over the past 43 years:
What do you do?
Engineering
Oh, like mechanical, or?
Nuclear
Oh my. I wish they'd never invented the bomb.
No, my kind of nuclear makes electricity
But what about the waste!?
Did I tell you, I leave shiny footprints...