Scientific Method vs. Love

When you are a scientist, the way you analyze an experiment tends to be the way you analyze the world. You can’t help it. That is the way your brain works. I would argue that my neurons have been firing this way long before I took my first science course. I am analytical and logical. I make many observations before coming to opinions. I crave the facts. I need the evidence. I was applying the scientific method to explain the world around me before I knew that such a thing existed. Yes, taking science courses will strengthen these traits. But, it wasn’t science that made me this way. Rather, my brain happened to be wired in a way that made me a good candidate for pursuing science.

My point is that I tend to automatically apply the scientific method to EVERYTHING in my life. Life is much more complex than a lab. And by life, I don’t mean cells. I’m talking about our daily interactions with other humans and all the messy emotions that come with being human. Life is complicated and there are a zillion variables (more, I’m sure). Science can explain quite a bit about our lives, but then there are those abstract, hard to explain concepts that really can’t be completely explained by science. Say for instance….LOVE. I mean, what is love? Now there is a messy, complicated subject if I ever heard of one. First of all, love has so many different definitions. Let’s focus on just one type of love: the love people have for their romantic partners.

My rational self wants to say that love doesn’t exist in the way that most humans believe it to exist. Love is just a term that was created to describe the release of euphoria inducing chemicals in the brain upon partnering with a sexually attractive mate. Our society makes us believe that we are supposed to go out in the world as adults, fall in “love”, and then commit ourselves to the love of our lives forever. That makes no sense. Most animals are not monogamous and it sure doesn’t appear that humans were designed to be that way. Monogamous relationships, marriage, life partnerships….. these are all things that seem to go against our biology. I say: down with love. At least, that is what I tell myself.

Then there is the part I can’t explain with science: all the knowledge in the world doesn’t make me stop wanting someone to love me and me only. If men are programmed to go out and spread their energetically inexpensive genetic material and women are programmed to go through lots of men in order to find the best genes to pair with their energetically expensive genetic material, then why don’t our emotions match our biology? Is it because we believe in a fantasy and are continually disappointed when the fantasy doesn’t work out? If this is the case, then why does someone like me, someone who “knows the truth about love” still find themselves feeling love or feeling pain and hurt when their partner is not monogamous? I mean, how is loving someone so much that you would take a bullet for them evolutionarily advantageous? It’s not.

I’ve decided that maybe love is something that the scientific method should not be applied to, for the sake of my mental health. I guess even scientists need that fluffy, abstract, strange concept we call love.

America's Next Top Model or America's Next Top Scientist?

A woman I work with recently asked me why I don't just become a model since I can't get a job in biology. I laughed.

Here is what I should have said:

This brain is not model material but I am flattered that you think the rest of me is. In other words, thanks but no thanks. Not to mention, I'm 5'7" not 5'11" and I'm a size 2 not a size 0. Oh yeah, and also, I didn't almost die of anorexia and then fight for my life just so I could throw myself into a tank full of cracked out anorexic and bulimic models.

I know I should be thankful that the woman thinks I'm pretty enough to be a model (I don't!) but the comment really is sad when you think about it.

B.S. or BS?

Well, I did it. I have a fancy piece of paper sitting in an envelope on my desk which says that I have a B.S. in biology. There are times when I feel this piece of paper is useless and I dismiss its significance. After all, I have spent the past several months dealing with rejection after rejection. I have yet to find a job in science and am living paycheck to paycheck on a meager hourly wage doing a job that is not at all related to my field of study. Don't take it personally they say, it's just the recession.

This past week I interviewed for a position as an office specialist. The woman conducting the interview has a nursing degree and yet had the audacity to ask, "What does one do with a biology degree anyway?" Seriously? In the words of my soul sister Alanis Morissette: Isn't it ironic? I give up nursing to risk failure and do things for myself that I never thought I could do only to graduate and have a nurse ask me what good my science degree is? Needless to say, I did not get the position. It's probably for the best.

While my inclination is to curl up in the fetal position under my down covers, drink beer all day, and admit failure in science, I have to keep fighting. Truth be told, I cried when my diploma arrived in the mail. That piece of paper is a symbol of all I have fought to overcome and all the people who helped me along the way. It's not meaningless. I have to remember that every time I feel defeated...... if I don't know how meaningful that degree is, then I sure as hell can't convince anyone else.

I may be working in a bookstore, but I am still a sassy scientist and there is a place for me out there in this big world. I just have to get up from underneath my down covers and keep looking.