The bridge of science writing

(Conclusion)

In the same manner I cut through the dangers and idiocy of superstition and absolutism in anything, I also point out "misplaced" arrogance that I perceive or the fraud that occurs in the sciences. I criticize scientists who think that they can explain everything there is to know, based only on their own work. This is why I have in one column, criticized the move of a famous anthropologist, Dr. Helen Fisher, who wrote a good evolutionary science book called Why We Love, when she used her good evolutionary insights to attract subscribers to Chemistry.com, a paid online dating service. I also am gravely disappointed by the recent turn of events surrounding the research of Dr. Hwang, the Korean scientist who announced early this year that he was able to clone a human embryo and extract 11 stem cell lines from it, raising real hopes for cures to diseases like Alzheimer’s. There have been serious allegations from his own team of scientists involving ethical issues and worse for science, that he "fabricated" his results. He has withdrawn his research paper published in the journal Science until an investigation settles the issue. If the allegations are proven true, then it would be shattering to the field of genetics, but it is also living proof that science has a built-in, self-correcting mechanism. Science does NOT care that Dr. Hwang has already reached "national hero" status because he is only as "heroic" as the integrity of his work.

There are the scientists, notably Dr. Emy Liwag of the Ateneo and Dr. Joseph and Dr. Michelle Anlacan who went out of their way to make me understand cognitive science, psychiatry and neurology over rich and fun conversations. Special thanks to astronomer, Fr. Victor Badillo, S.J., for teaching me the history of the Manila Observatory and sharing with me his collection of Batangueño words. There are also those who have corrected me on some of the data I cited in the columns. I truly appreciate the corrections and the exchanges that follow from them. There are some Filipinos abroad, many of them scientists, who shared with me most interesting stories of their lives in science. I also maintain regular correspondences with people I don’t think I will ever meet but whose insights have touched my life more deeply than some people I have been familiar with all my life. I deeply thank those people.

As every end of the year, I do some sort of accounting on the science topics we have explored. The reason behind these choices of topics were: they were breakthroughs; they were really strange and interesting; they turn our old beliefs topsy turvy (my favorite!); when superstition has again sadly been the order of our day and we need a little bit of mindshift; or all of the above. The Number One scorer topic was "science as a way of knowing" – columns correcting people’s notions of science as opposed to superstition or myths or urban legends.  Next in the list just as I suspected, was genetics. The first cloning of a human embryo by Korean scientists at the beginning of the year sort of mapped the road of developments for this exciting field of science this year which served to be the center of 10 De Rerums this year and seemed to have ended it, too, with the recent controversy. Seven of those 10 were interestingly enough about breakthroughs on the genetic differences between men and women. This never fails to elicit reactions from some Ys (very rarely do I get comments from women), including emotional outbursts, requests for reassurances from science that they are still genetically useful, photos showing me that women are supremely imaginative drivers  (driving off with the gas hose still attached to the car) – anything that resembles those little boys in toy stores throwing a tantrum when they can’t get what they want. But some of my regular Y readers have now grown immune to my favorite sport of Y-bashing. They know they are welcome to offer their own science aria of X-bashing, but even then, I do not see any reason for not standing by my favorite sport with glee. Evolutionary psychology topics follow the list, equaled by tributes to scientists dead or alive. Next was Neuroscience/Psychiatry as with technology topics, followed by Physics mostly as my homage to Einstein as this is Einstein year, marking the 100th year since the publication of his three landmark papers that turned the old physics on its head.

Because of the columns, some people this year thought I would be a good "show and tell" example of a live science piece so they invited me to speak in some of their special events. Someone once asked me if I lived in a house made of concrete, sounding like the wolf in The Three Little Pigs. She said she had this impression that I was some kind of Pocahontas who lived in a tree house! Believe me, I was not wearing anything then that looked like it had been directly woven by the makers of chlorophyll when she popped that question. Also, at a conference of human resource managers once, I was asked if I had any special requirements for my lecture since they have not had a science speaker before. To feed their fancy, I told them that they had to ready logistics that would enable me to enter the conference area like the character that Michelle Yeoh played in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – swooping down from trees dressed in a flowing red robe. I figured I would tell them that it would be my way of introducing Darwin’s simple but profound idea of evolution which included that human ancestors were in his phrase, "arboreal in habits" (hint: these ancestors swung from trees and none of them was Brendan Fraser). But soon enough, I dropped the idea of a dramatic entrance when they said they could not provide me a sword. Sheesh, what is a science lecture without a sword?

One foreigner once cornered me after a lecture I gave, persistently inviting me to his home island to give private science lectures to him, his wife, children and friends. I told him that if this were the 1800s, such a King-and-I set-up would have been really quaint and even exciting but the prospect of intellectual nannyhood to grown-ups was just not my thing. For a while there, I really had a vision of myself tripping over one of those bell gowns worn by Debra Kerr in the said film. And what really made me decide was the fact that the fellow inviting me was no Yul Bryner.

Some readers are curious on what my politics is. I personally detest politics because I think it does to your character what too much alcohol literally does to your brain – it shrinks it. What is worse is it does this while bloating your notion of "self-importance" – a telltale sign that your brain has closed shop, since it has no room for anything else. I also have to correct people’s notion that I hate entertainment, any kind of religion or cultural relics such as traditional rituals and myths. I do NOT hate any of them but this being a science column, I want to be the among those who show the exit door to entertainers, the fundamentalists or the superstitious, IF the issue of the day calls that we look at things by understanding them and NOT merely by singing or dancing them away (or make money from them by showing them as elements of "reality TV") or being afraid of them, as has been shown in the case of tsunamis, earthquakes, botched exorcisms or crimes carried out in the name of superstition. I received the record number of e-mails when, in a column in January, I reacted to this nun who warned everyone of a terrible earthquake to happen in the Philippines, claiming that it was a sign directly related to people’s morality. The late Dr. Ray Punongbayan left us an excellent institute that will help people understand what earthquakes are and how unrelated they are to morality. Superstition is a turbulent flight for the mind and may cause the contents of one’s facility for clear thinking to shift in funny positions. The scientists at Phivolcs are the best "attendants" to help one regain perspective when it comes to understanding the constant trembling of the earth under your feet. Go seek their help for your understanding.

I am constantly aware that I am only as good as my thinking in the columns I write. I do not have delusions that I am playing such an important role. I know that if my thinking is muddled, better minds will tear me apart and send me back to work through my ideas some more and I welcome that. But I do give it my best in every column I write and with the help of my editor, they are delivered to you weekly. I do not hoard any ideas in each column I write. If I think of it and it is relevant, I offer it to you. If I had been remiss, I apologize and I will try to do better in the next columns. I always try my best to express the extent of my understanding of the topics I explore. If I myself do not understand them, I know that it will show, regardless of my writing skills. Since this is science writing, my skill with words is only as good as the understanding it engenders.

A good number of people ask me what my guide is in writing a science column. It is a simple guide: My columns always have to be able to share something we can all learn from about a piece of nature that has been uncovered, and at the same time, make us fall in love with the world all over again – be encouraged to explore ways of being alive, of what it means to be human, through this constant learning.

So thank you for reading the columns and for those who even take the time to let me know through different ways, I want to thank you even more for those sparks of inspiration. It is indeed a pleasure walking this bridge of thought with all of you. I wish you all a meaningful journey ahead for the coming year.

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