The Zen of Science: Life as an Experiment

 “The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk into the everydayness of his own life.  To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be on to something.  Not to be on to something is to be in despair.”   Walker Percy

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

 Ursula K. Le Guin

“Thinking is more interesting that knowing, but less interesting than looking.”  Goethe

One of the lessons I try to impart to our new scientists is to not get too high or too low if their experiment succeeds or fails.  This is a lesson I had to learn over a period of time, and I left science for a while because I viewed the success or failure of my experiment as my success or failure.  The mantra I repeat for all my scientists is “the data is not good or bad...it tells us what we need to do next.”  What I have found over the years is that when I’m truly in discovery mode, each experiment is a revelation and there is usually a way forward regardless of the outcome. When you approach your experiments with an open mind there is joy in the outcome and I revel in the surprise when I get a result that is different from what I expected.

There is another element of Zen that has important ramifications both in life and in the lab:  Being in the moment.  There is inertia in new lab projects, and one of the impediments to moving forward with the experiments is looking ahead at potential technical hurdles—for coming up with reasons about why something won’t work.  I work mightily at getting my scientists to focus on the current experiment.  The reason we do experiments is because we don’t know the answer...if we did we wouldn’t need to do the experiment!

I began to approach my company management and my life with the same attitude:  Life is an experiment.  What I find with the “Life is an Experiment” approach is that I am open to trying out new ideas, to taking chances without agonizing over possible outcomes, to approaching problems and solutions with curiosity rather than trepidation.  I’m not saying that I don’t study a subject in depth before I design a life experiment, but I’m not afraid to try.  When you get to my age, your life is full of experiments, and you hope that you’ve learned something along the way that allows you to do a better experiment.

I know all my experiments won’t meet my expected outcome, and I love the anticipation of an unexpected result.  For instance, I marvel at the curiosity displayed my 11-month old granddaughter who is into everything, and I lament the fact that my children (10 and 12) have lost some of that curiosity.  I wonder what I could have done to keep that strong curiosity alive, although I realize that school and the friction of life strip us of some of that curiosity. I offered my kids a quarter for every good question that they submitted to me in writing—I determined what was a good question--and I expected that I would be crying “Uncle!” before too long.  I got some great questions like “Do black holes die?”

 It was my plan that when I had accumulated enough questions, that I would offer them $1 for every answer they found to their questions.  I figured that I would recoup my investment by improving their chances for getting a scholarship to college, or if they answer enough questions like the Black Hole question maybe they can skip college.

 To date I have received few written questions.  Some might view this experiment as a failed experiment.  Wrong.  What I learned from this experiment is that my children are not highly motivated by money.  I guess that’s good news if they want to be scientists when they grow up, bad news if they want to be salesmen.  What a wonderful opportunity this experiment has given me to find out what sorts of rewards motivate my girls!

This blog is an example of a life experiment.  I have invited many highly opinionated scientists, who freely give me feedback on the blog, to put down their ideas--and there are some really good ones--but no one has stepped forward to contribute a guest blog.  I suspect that they are busy, but also that it takes some courage to expose oneself publicly.  I don’t know if this blog will engage readers, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the experiment!

Scientist Humor

I wrestle with the stereotypes that are frequently assigned to scientists, and one of these is that we are always serious and lack a sense of humor. I find humor everywhere in science if you know where to look.  The first cloned sheep cloned was cloned from a mammary cell, and the sheep was named Dolly—after Dolly Parton.  That’s funny.  Humor creeps into other names, too.  I am always amused by the developmental gene named sonic hedgehog named after a video game character.  That’s funny.

When I was working on the West Coast for a biotech company, Triton Biotechnology, there was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle stating that scientists lacked a sense of humor.  I’ve always prided myself on having a sense of humor, and I‘ve found that the creative scientists I like to associate with have a good sense of humor.  I’m not as sure about the “business types” in the biotech arena, but maybe some of them will write in to refute me on this.

On the day that I heard about this story, I was scheduled to present data at our Molecular Biology Group meeting--around 16 people or so—including my boss and his boss.  We heard about the article in an email from our business development group, although it’s still not clear to me why they cared.   I managed to get my hands on an internal memo that was color coded, in this case, the color of the business development group.  When it was my turn to present, I held up the memo and with a serious demeanor pretended to read it.  I told the group that in light of the recent Chronicle article, I had been asked to read this important internal memo before I presented my data:  “To All Scientists:  In order to rebut the Chronicle article published this morning and the statement that scientists lack a sense of humor, the Triton business development group was starting a joke hot line. “  Then I read the Business Development group’s office number. About half the scientists in the group thought this was hysterical, and the other half sat there with dumbfounded looks.

I have repeated this experiment using different humorous themes several times in the course of my career, and each time I meet with about the same result.  About half the scientists in the room react strongly with laughter, and the other half just look puzzled.

Because of the inherent ability of science to disrupt conventional thinking-- to challenge strongly held beliefs-- and the problem that we don’t communicate well with people about what science is or what we do, scientists make people uncomfortable.

So, non-scientists invent stereotypes that make us flawed, and in that way more human and less scary.  OK—this scientist is really smart but he/she is socially inept.    It has been my experience that many scientists are uncomfortable socially.  What is the definition of an extroverted scientist?  Answer:  An extroverted scientist talks to your shoes in a conversation.

It has been my experience, also, that while scientists are portrayed as milquetoasts, that this wimpy portrayal is not an accurate stereotype.  In my labs, scientists were a minor league baseball player, a weight lifter, a 6’2” outdoorsman, a kayaker, and a martial artist.  Hardly milquetoasts. 

On the other hand, I have attended dances, usually at the end of conferences, where the spectacle of hundreds of dancing scientists had all the beauty of a wildebeest herd fording a crocodile infested river.

(see scientists dancing below)

I hope you found this funny!  No?—you must be a scientist.