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.