Science and Sentimentality
01/08/10 16:06
I have been told by the guy who handles my blog that we have a perfect combination of the personal and the science here. A little about me. A lot about science. Or vice versa?
I don’t know. I send posts in, and if they are too personal, I find myself editing them over and over again, until the guy who is responsible for posting them says, “Enough! I’m posting it, Melanie!”
And, some people do like the personal parts, I guess. But, if I were still a CF parent, I’d have to say that I wouldn’t like those parts. I would come here, to this blog, and say, “Okay, what can I understand better today?” What has Melanie said, recently, about CF science, that I can put to use to make my CF child’s life healthier? Those people can quickly skim the personal posts and get to the real meat of things.
What bothers me, though, is this: Suppose people reading this blog read the science AND the personal posts and think that my sentiment colors my science? What if they think that, in my quest to stop this disease, in my pain over losing my child, I am jumping to conclusions?
I am not fool enough to think that that cannot happen. It is something that I must constantly guard against. It is part of the reason that I continually state that I am stupid, and ignorant (the other “part” of the reason that I state this is because it’s true!), and it is why these posts are often peppered with more questions than answers. And, finally, it is why I post abstracts of articles to underpin my postulates.
No matter how much I guard against sentiment coloring my science, there is one sure truth: Dead kid or no dead kid, no science is completely objective. People want to make money. People want fame. People want to publish. And people fall in love with their theories. As we say in Texas, they get “stuck on stupid.”
To digress a bit here, I’ve been “stuck on stupid,” myself, previously. When I was studying metallothionein, I was stuck on stupid. I just KNEW that the CFTR protein MUST be transporting metallothionein. I don’t know how many CF scientists I wrote to and asked about this, before I finally thought to write to Linsdell, who told me, unequivocally NO, the damned thing is too big to be transported through the CFTR pore opening. Until I accepted that fact, and threw away the old idea, I couldn’t understand quite a few things, collateral to the transport properties of the CFTR. They didn’t make any sense at all, until I was able to put metallothionein into its proper place (and leave it there).
I think that what makes the difference between whether someone colors their science with sentimentality, or the quest for fame, fortune, or simply keeping their job in academia, is the degree to which they have one trait: curiosity.
If you are curious, you can’t help but keep on digging. And one thing that is wonderful about science is that you can turn your postulates around and try to prove them wrong. You have to read it all—articles that would disprove your postulate, and articles that give it credence. And, even if you can’t find an article that exactly states that you are incorrect (or correct), if you ARE wrong in your idea, you eventually will come to a place where you don’t understand anymore. Nothing fits. The science that HAS been proven experimentally begins to look incorrect, at that point, and you know that you’ve lost your way, that something in that postulate is wrong.
But OF COURSE I mourn the loss of my son. Of course I do.
And do I think that my science is colored by sentiment? Sure it is. But not in the way that you would commonly think.
You see, I want to know what my son’s killer looks like. I want to know it’s face. I want to know the shape of it’s teeth and the texture of it’s scales.
So, the sentiments are both there, no doubt. But, there is a difference, in the quality of them. The pain that you see in my posts is only the engine.
The curiosity is the tool.
I don’t know. I send posts in, and if they are too personal, I find myself editing them over and over again, until the guy who is responsible for posting them says, “Enough! I’m posting it, Melanie!”
And, some people do like the personal parts, I guess. But, if I were still a CF parent, I’d have to say that I wouldn’t like those parts. I would come here, to this blog, and say, “Okay, what can I understand better today?” What has Melanie said, recently, about CF science, that I can put to use to make my CF child’s life healthier? Those people can quickly skim the personal posts and get to the real meat of things.
What bothers me, though, is this: Suppose people reading this blog read the science AND the personal posts and think that my sentiment colors my science? What if they think that, in my quest to stop this disease, in my pain over losing my child, I am jumping to conclusions?
I am not fool enough to think that that cannot happen. It is something that I must constantly guard against. It is part of the reason that I continually state that I am stupid, and ignorant (the other “part” of the reason that I state this is because it’s true!), and it is why these posts are often peppered with more questions than answers. And, finally, it is why I post abstracts of articles to underpin my postulates.
No matter how much I guard against sentiment coloring my science, there is one sure truth: Dead kid or no dead kid, no science is completely objective. People want to make money. People want fame. People want to publish. And people fall in love with their theories. As we say in Texas, they get “stuck on stupid.”
To digress a bit here, I’ve been “stuck on stupid,” myself, previously. When I was studying metallothionein, I was stuck on stupid. I just KNEW that the CFTR protein MUST be transporting metallothionein. I don’t know how many CF scientists I wrote to and asked about this, before I finally thought to write to Linsdell, who told me, unequivocally NO, the damned thing is too big to be transported through the CFTR pore opening. Until I accepted that fact, and threw away the old idea, I couldn’t understand quite a few things, collateral to the transport properties of the CFTR. They didn’t make any sense at all, until I was able to put metallothionein into its proper place (and leave it there).
I think that what makes the difference between whether someone colors their science with sentimentality, or the quest for fame, fortune, or simply keeping their job in academia, is the degree to which they have one trait: curiosity.
If you are curious, you can’t help but keep on digging. And one thing that is wonderful about science is that you can turn your postulates around and try to prove them wrong. You have to read it all—articles that would disprove your postulate, and articles that give it credence. And, even if you can’t find an article that exactly states that you are incorrect (or correct), if you ARE wrong in your idea, you eventually will come to a place where you don’t understand anymore. Nothing fits. The science that HAS been proven experimentally begins to look incorrect, at that point, and you know that you’ve lost your way, that something in that postulate is wrong.
But OF COURSE I mourn the loss of my son. Of course I do.
And do I think that my science is colored by sentiment? Sure it is. But not in the way that you would commonly think.
You see, I want to know what my son’s killer looks like. I want to know it’s face. I want to know the shape of it’s teeth and the texture of it’s scales.
So, the sentiments are both there, no doubt. But, there is a difference, in the quality of them. The pain that you see in my posts is only the engine.
The curiosity is the tool.