The Elephant's Child

I was talking with a friend and was reminded of why I became a scientist. Why I have always wanted to be a scientist of some form or another, nearly for as long as I could remember. Well, except for those two years where I wanted to be a fighter pilot. But that didn't even preclude science, because I wanted to fly experimental planes... but then I got glasses, and that dream shattered. Anyway! I was fascinated from an early age with botany, parasitology, infectious disease, and generally any biological field. Ironically, as I look back from my present vantage point, chemistry was more background than any topic pursued intently, and when I was aware of it, it was in the kitchen.

Science is the field of the Elephant's Child. "He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was full of ‘satiable curiosity!" Scientists everywhere, for time immemorial, must read this tale of the small bundle of curiosity who got in trouble with everyone for the questions they asked. 'Why? How?' and so on and so forth. Just like the baby elephant, we want to know what makes things tick, and sometimes, like the small creature, we get in over our heads. Which is, perhaps, why we have a reputation for speaking like the Python who lent his help to the Elephant's Child in trouble: "‘Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck’ (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), ‘will permanently vitiate your future career." But in spite of the near brush with death, the Elephant's Child not only satisfied his 'satiable curiosity, he learned what his answers were good for, and he went home to live a very long and wise life... but not before rubbing his new knowledge in his family's face a bit.

I've always felt a bit like that - I wanted to know. I was not only encouraged to ask questions, by wise parents who helped me learn where to find book answers, but I was also allowed the free rein to explore the world around me and prove things to myself. Which, fortunately, never led to an encounter with a hungry crocodile, but sadly did lead to my offending not a few grown-ups as I spouted some morsel of knowledge that didn't always suit their vision of the world. For that matter, I still irritate if not downright offend people by my questioning some established bit of lore. Hence the comments on this blog from time to time... I'm very happy to have the mind of a scientist, always inquiring and probing 'but why?' and even though I don't work in research, I still have plenty of opportunities to use my inquisitiveness at work as well as outside of it.

I have a deep attachment to the pursuit of truth, and I find it satisfying to be able to ask questions, seek out answers, and come to a better understanding of it. There are days it's like the other elephant proverb - the blind men inspecting the creature and coming to wildly different and incorrect conclusions - but if you keep seeking, and adding to your knowledge, the reality of the beast begins to emerge from the fog, entirely magnificent. Which is why the science is never settled, and replication of observations or experiments is always the gold standard, with controls and blinds to further reduce the variables. Scientists have also sometimes forgotten they are the Elephant's Child, and in their quest to make their family happy and not to be spanked any more for their curiosity, they have left off their questions and grazed meekly with the others. There are even scientists who have joined in the administration of spankings to prevent the children from asking inconvenient questions and uncovering inconvenient truths. 'Deniers!' they scold, you 'skeptics' need to shut up and stop riling the limpid crocodiles up! Which is the perfect time for the Elephant's Children to wander down by the bank and learn the painful truths that lead to the useful answers.