Hard Science

My formal education and former career were in the so-called “hard science” of physics. I also taught college physics for a brief stint, and was taken aback by how many students came to the course apprehensive—if not downright fearful—about surviving the experience. Physics, it seems, has acquired a frightful reputation. I soon took it as a challenge to demonstrate that this most basic of sciences is remarkably straightforward and even engaging. I tried to make it fascinating... with modest success at best. Within the department that I taught, there were other science classes in biology and chemistry. I don't think that their instructors dealt with students who were as intimidated as I did—and I never quite understood why.

In contrast, biology is not a “hard” science—although when put that way, the contrast makes it seem as if biology is easier... or even “soft,” whatever that means. Whatever the descriptive terms used, physics and biology are two contrasting sciences—the former is far more basic. One of the fundamental differences in the two sciences is that most researchers in the so-called hard science of physics have a pretty good idea of what things they are looking for in their research. As an example, a major effort in physics for decades now has been the so-called “grand unified theory,” that integrates the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Physicists know pretty much where they are headed (to realize that unification)—the struggle is deciphering the fierce mathematics to get there. Another example: last year a huge team of physicists demonstrated the existence of the Higgs boson—a particle that had been predicted to exist for decades. Its discovery had to wait for a powerful enough machine to expose it.

Biology, however, is neither elegant nor straightforward, like physics. Biology deals with the messy living world—a domain rife with variety and unpredictable complexity. Life is the result of a long process of historical accidents—unpredictable events that have brought about species that responded well to those random historical incidents. For example, the ascendancy of mammals began about 65 million years ago, in the wake of an unlikely collision that brought a massive meteorite to impact Earth and did away with the dinosaurs. No one could have seen that impact coming. Sudden and haphazard climate changes have similarly caused many species to evolve in manners that no “grand unified theory” could ever have anticipated.

As a result, biologists are often left hanging as to why certain organisms developed the way they did. They are often forced to project back in time, surmising causal factors for the observations they make. At times these factors are discovered through a process of complex scientific sleuthing. At other times it seems as if they might never fully be understood.

Biology is a frustratingly complex and difficult science. At least it seems that way to me—having been trained in what is considered a more basic science. In recent years I have become increasingly fascinated with biology, but struggle with its complicated and manifold divisions. It seems as if I have to memorize hundreds of terms and all of their relationships, in order to get anywhere with it. I'm glad I'm not a college student sitting in a biology class—trying to understand such a difficult subject.

To Think or Not to Think

Is he in contemplation or just existing? (Click to enlarge)

Hate to Think

Recent studies at the University of Virginia and Harvard University illustrate the extent to which people will go, to avoid having to sit quietly in solitude. We have apparently become a culture that is so caught up in busyness and becoming absorbed by our latest technical toys, that people no longer are able to be alone to contemplate. Our lifestyles find us constantly involved in doing something—even if it's only passively sitting and watching a (very exciting) TV show. We want to be engaged by things outside us—not to sit silently and think.

People who participated in these studies were asked to sit alone in a room for 10-15 minutes and do nothing—at most, just think. When their time was up they were asked about the experience. Most of them described it as extremely unpleasant. They could hardly endure the time alone, facing just their thoughts.

In addition, the participants were given the opportunity to administer a mild electric shock to themselves—an experience they earlier had said (after trying a sample shock) they'd go to great lengths to avoid. But after sitting alone for a few minutes, as they suffered from the boredom, many of them preferred to shock themselves, rather than endure the silence and deal with their thoughts. They chose an electric shock over the tedium of solitude! In fact, one guy chose to jolt himself 190 times during the 15-minute span!

Findings like this are shocking (in a very different manner) to this old hermit. I find solitude inviting, invigorating, and inspirational. I love to sit in my outdoor tub or my meditation hut and either let my mind wander or seek to empty it and and try to fully engage with the present moment. I find the fast-paced modern life and the ever-present communication devices frenetic enough that I think I'd rather endure an electric shock than face them. When I find myself in a doctor's waiting room, I cringe at the ubiquitous TV screen that constantly sucks us into its grip.

I'm not surprised that many people would not enjoy the life of solitude and contemplation. That's probably why the ranks of contemplatives around the world are steadily thinning. Our modern culture offers us so many diversions that it's difficult to avoid the conditioning that drives us to become involved in doing something every moment. It makes me wonder where we're going, however, when folks are unable to sit quietly for 15 minutes, without jolting themselves with a little pain—just to break the tedium.

Big Eyes

A black-throated green warbler. Click to enlarge.

Astute Avian Eyes

Birds' eyes are their dominant sense organ. They can hear quite well and some birds even smell well, but their sense of vision triumphs. In fact, their eyes are so large for the size of their heads that there's no room left for muscles to rotate them. They must cock their heads from side to side, in order to cover a decent field of view.

So visual acuity is definitely a bird's strong point. They can see two to three times more sharply than humans. The color and detail receptors in a bird's eye—called cones—are two to three times greater in number than for us. (That's something like 15 million cones, in a much smaller eye!) Their visual acuity leaves us far behind.

I recently watched a titmouse at the bird feeder—extracting and then rejecting at least 10-15 sunflower seeds, before becoming satisfied enough to fly off with a choice seed and commence to grasp it in its feet and bang away with its beak, to get at the sweet nut within. Most titmice (as well as their close cousins the chickadees) will fly to the feeder, quickly grab the first seed they can, and fly away to work at it. Why was this particular titmouse being so finicky—tossing away rejected seeds, until it found just the right one?

The surface of the feeder tray is strewn with hundreds of sunflower seeds and empty hulls—the latter being far dominant. When I look at the tray (to see if it's time to replenish seeds) I tend to think that there are plenty of them available, so I sometimes delay restocking the container. If I take a closer look, however (by taking the time to put my glasses on), I can usually see that most of them are empty husks. I have to look closely to determine this, yet I watch one of these birds fly to the platform, instantaneously grab a seed from all the empty hulls, and fly away to get at its interior morsel. Such keen eyesight! Their astute sense of vision is also demonstrated when I watch one of them dart to a tree trunk and pluck a tiny, juicy bug from a tiny crack.

Back to the picky titmouse who rejected a dozen or more seeds, before finally flying off with one: I'm assuming that it was looking for a fat seed, that promised a particularly large interior nut. If so, it was demonstrating an enhanced ability over its buddies, to be choosy and find that fat seed.

Why is only this one bird being so choosy? I've seen him do this trick before. While all the other titmice flit down and quickly grab a seed, this guy takes his time. Has he learned something that the others have not? Is his eyesight simply less astute? Another fascinating observation may be leading me towards one more step into the lives of these local birds.

Daylilies

Click to enlarge.

Happiness Hints

I recently finished taking an online course (a MOOC—massive online open course), presented by Dan Ariely, a professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. The course is titled “A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior.” It was a fascinating (and entertaining) course on how so many of our choices in life—that we'd like to think are rational and smart—are, in fact, often irrational and impulsive. When we become aware of the underlying forces that drive us to make irrational choices, we can learn how to make better, more logical decisions—which, interestingly, does not necessarily imply that rational decisions are always best.

Along the way, Professor Arliey offers many psychological insights into how we look at our lives and feel about ourselves. In a recent lecture he offered a simple definition of one way we can come to feel happy about ourselves, or, alternatively, become depressed and dispirited—depending on how we weigh what's going on in our lives.

Ariely says to ponder how your life could have taken a different path—how past choices led you to follow the path you did, rather than another one. Then consider some realistic alternatives. What if you'd chosen another job? Another mate? Had more self-control? Think about an equally-likely direction that you could have taken. What might have happened, if that other choice had been made? Would you have been better off, or worse?

We tend to feel happier with our life, if we think the other choice would have led to more problems than we're now facing. If, on the other hand, we think the other path would have been more fun, our actual life could seem less happy, we'd have some regret, and maybe even feel a little depressed.

This is an interesting idea. I think it's common for us to imagine how different our lives could have been, if we'd chosen a different fork in the road. If we don't feel very happy now, we can lean towards regretting the fact that we made an unfortunate choice. We can even deepen the regret, if we externalize the reason for our choice—feeling that someone prevented me from making that better choice. If so, we even turn our disappointment into resentment of others.

There's another problematic response we can have, when we feel good about our life: we can convince ourselves that the fortunate choices we made were due to our superior intelligence; that we deserve our happiness, because we are special. Both of these reactions are not helpful.

If I think realistically about the past, I can realize that many of my choices could have been much worse, or even that I took a better path through grace. Whew! I'm sure happy that I didn't go that way!

It all makes me realize how complex life is. There are, of course, many other ways to feel happy or allow myself to sink into a depression because life sucks. But it seems to me to be helpful to ponder, now and then, how my life could have been far less pleasant, had I taken that other path.