In defense of the dull and boring

Originally published 21 February 1994

This from a correspondent:

“I sus­pect that sci­ence makes sci­en­tists hap­pi­er than it does oth­er peo­ple. Sci­en­tists always real­ize how much remains to be explained, they real­ize the lim­its of sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion, and they have the fun of doing sci­ence. To lay­men, sci­ence often seems to take away mys­tery and make them feel a lit­tle stu­pid at the same time. I had a friend, a sci­en­tist and a sci­ence writer, who once argued that the real argu­ment for pub­lic fund­ing of sci­ence was its val­ue as enter­tain­ment. But do most peo­ple get more enter­tain­ment or malaise?”

Malaise, my friend. Malaise.

Except for dinosaurs and the occa­sion­al space spec­tac­u­lar, it is hard to find much enter­tain­ment in sci­ence. Sci­en­tists tend to be a dour, una­mus­ing lot. They are sel­dom the lives of a par­ty. When was the last time you saw a sci­ence sto­ry on Enter­tain­ment Tonight, or a sci­en­tist pro­filed in Peo­ple magazine?

Malaise, on the oth­er hand, is a typ­i­cal reac­tion to sci­ence. Poly­merase chain reac­tion? Ho-hum. Super­con­duct­ing super­col­lid­er? Yawn. Cos­mic microwave back­ground radi­a­tion? Zzzzzzz.

Sci­ence: the Big Snooze.

My cor­re­spon­dent goes on: “It seems to me that there is a grow­ing sus­pi­cion that while sci­ence might be use­ful it is also spir­i­tu­al­ly destruc­tive. A lot of peo­ple clear­ly want to feel that there are things out there that can’t be explained. Maybe we all feel that way to some extent.”

Yes, I sup­pose we all do feel that way to some extent. The human mind loves a mys­tery, loves a world pos­sessed by unpre­dictable spir­its. Alas, sci­ence has a way of debunk­ing the spir­its. The gods have been tossed from their Olympian thrones. The spir­its of trees and brooks have been sent pack­ing. Is there noth­ing, then, that the sci­en­tif­ic explain­ers will not profane?

Guilty. Guilty as charged. Sci­ence is use­ful but dull. Like a heart­less land­lord who cares more about prof­it than com­pas­sion, sci­ence has evict­ed the fairies from their hills. Sci­ence is hell-bent upon root­ing out mystery.

But before we bring on the New Age rev­o­lu­tion, before we turn over our hearts and minds to the high­er beings in UFOs, before we chuck out the sci­en­tif­ic method for a mish­mash of horo­scopes, crys­tals, and para­psy­chol­o­gy, let me speak for science.

Let me speak for boring.

Sci­ence is bor­ing by design. Sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion has evolved a style that is delib­er­ate­ly devoid of pas­sion, poet­ry, and the long­ings and despairs of the human heart. Why? To get on with the busi­ness of find­ing out how the world works.

Sci­ence is the one human endeav­or that has proven rel­a­tive­ly immune to the pas­sions that divide us. There is no such thing as Chris­t­ian sci­ence, Moslem sci­ence, Bud­dhist sci­ence. There is no such thing as male or female sci­ence, Black or White sci­ence, Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can science.

Which is not to say that sci­en­tists can’t be sex­ist, racist, or polit­i­cal­ly com­mit­ted. But by keep­ing, as best we can, all of this out of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of sci­ence, we have forged a tool for human improve­ment that is anchored in repeat­able, ver­i­fi­able obser­va­tion, rather than in pas­sion­ate conviction.

And, yes, the human improve­ment is there. Peo­ple no longer die of sep­ticemia fol­low­ing a nick with the razor. Our teeth no longer rot out at an ear­ly age. We no longer lash our­selves in ret­ri­bu­tion when we see a comet in the sky. All things con­sid­ered, we live longer, health­i­er, more peace­able and pros­per­ous lives because of science.

Sure, we also have atom­ic weapons, ozone holes, and acid rain. But let’s take a vote. How many would pre­fer to turn the clock back to the Mid­dle Ages? The last witch­es were burned dur­ing New­ton’s life­time. The last vis­i­ta­tions of the Black Death coin­cid­ed with the Sci­en­tif­ic Revolution.

For all of its capac­i­ty to evoke malaise, the belief that there is a dis­cov­er­able real­i­ty “out there” inde­pen­dent of our­selves is the one thing that stands between us and the demons of eth­nic and reli­gious strife. A cer­tain ele­ment of malaise may be the price we pay for free­dom from the dark­er excess­es of pas­sion­ate conviction.

Is sci­ence spir­i­tu­al­ly destruc­tive, as my cor­re­spon­dent sug­gests? At its best, sci­ence is a benign man­i­fes­ta­tion of curios­i­ty, intel­li­gence and imag­i­na­tion — in a word, the human spirit.

And what about want­i­ng to feel that there are things out there that can’t be explained?

Not to wor­ry. The human brain is finite, a mere hun­dred bil­lion nerve cells. The uni­verse is pos­si­bly infi­nite. It will con­tin­ue to sur­prise us for a long time — pos­si­bly forever.