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.