The Scientist in You
As a person, you're a combo -- a unique combination of interests, knowledge, talents, and skills.
You may be a skateboarder, singer, swimmer, chess champ, class clown, dirt biker, artist, model car builder, soccer player, saxophonist, skier, pet owner, movie buff, autograph hound, track sprinter, stamp collector, jazz dancer, video game expert -- even all of these.
But whatever or whoever you are, you are also a scientist.
Yes, YOU.
There's a scientist in absolutely everybody. Not a trained, professional one, of course, but a natural, inborn scientist. It's been with you since you were a baby. It guided your first observations -- that all those fingers at the ends of your arms were actually parts of you and that the two feet in your crib belonged to you, too.
By experimenting -- simple trial and error stuff you found out where your mouth was and discovered how to stick things into it. Then you made more observations by tasting: a strand from the rug (yucky), your own toes (not bad), chunks of melon (sweet). Bit by bit -- or bite by bite -- you learned what you liked to put into your mouth and what you didn't.
As you started to crawl, you expanded your scientific explorations. You found you could slide more easily across a wooden floor than a carpet. You could peek through windows, but not through walls. When you pulled open a cupboard door, you could slam it shut and make a loud BANG. Every time. The discoveries have never stopped.
Having a scientist inside meant you were a curious person with ways of following up your interests and putting together your world. It's what made you keen to wonder, question, imagine, investigate, observe, compare, guess, experiment, and figure things out. After all, science is mostly a style of thinking -- not a pile of facts.
You may not realize it, but your inner scientist still influences much of what you do today. It's the part of you that automatically observes the direction a ball is moving, estimates its speed, and figures out where you need to be to catch it -- all in an instant. Your scientific self helps you sing by comparing different sounds and the relationships between them. You can easily pick out notes that are eight apart -- like two Cs or two As -- because the higher-pitched note vibrates twice as fast as the lower one. Even if you don't know that, your ear hears it. Your brain compares and records the sounds and the relationships -- naturally.
Of course, just because you think like a scientist doesn't mean that you want to be a scientist. Scientific thinking is part of everyone's life. Always has been. When German composer Ludwig van Beethoven was busy writing his Moonlight Sonata in 1801, he was connecting sounds and locating patterns of harmony and rhythm. The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, thought of himself as a scientist and drew on his abilities to question, investigate, and compare to guide his leadership and promote democracy. And all athletes -- Olympic or amateur -- observe and analyze the competitions they're in and figure out how to improve their skills.
Even though everyone has an inner scientist, people don't all think the same way. Like everybody else, you are an individual with a style that's your own. You might investigate a situation by asking a lot of questions, or you might prefer to watch, explore, and discover. People even observe things differently. Some depend mostly on what they see; others need to touch and feel. What one person tunes in, another may tune out, but everybody develops a method of scientific thinking that works for him or her. Experience helps mold that style.
Like a Pro
The thinking that goes on inside you is a lot like the thinking that happens in the heads of professional scientists. You ask questions, they ask questions. You observe, they observe. You compare, they compare. And so on. But through years and years of hard work, professional scientists have honed their scientific minds. They've become trained think-tanks, able to set up complex experiments and solve difficult problems in their fields. It's their job to use science to find out how things work. Exactly how do viruses spread? What makes those sounds that come from outer space? How far do hummingbirds fly when they migrate?
The difference between professional scientists and you is a little like the difference between professional drummers and you. It takes loads and loads of training and practice to beat the drums as well as the pros, but, by drawing on your own ability to hear rhythms, you can appreciate their performances.
Still, inside every professional scientist, an inborn scientist lives on. Take Jean Henri Fabre. Born in France in 1823, he was an outdoor explorer from the time he could walk, and he was brimming with curiosity about beetles, butterflies, rocks, and water.
When he was five, he wondered, "Do I see with my mouth or my eyes?" And he did a science experiment to find out. Facing the sun, he shut his eyes tightly and opened his mouth. Then he shut his mouth tightly and opened his eyes. He repeated the experiment over and over before making any conclusions.
Always poor, Jean learned mostly on his own -- even when doing the research that finally earned him a Doctor of Science degree. And after he became a professional scientist, he continued to draw on his inborn scientist to help him study insects. Like the child he once was, Jean followed wasps and bees to their nests. He figured out how long it took burial beetles to bury a dead mole. He noticed what a praying mantis ate and how it captured its meals. English naturalist Charles Darwin called him an "incomparable observer."
Not only did Jean rely on his own inborn scientist, he also called on the scientists inside his children. Their keen perception and intense curiosity helped him find specimens and make observations. When his son, Paul, was only seven, he was an authority on insects such as dung beetles and crickets. And Jean recalled Paul's thrill the night the boy discovered 40 great peacock moths flocking to a female that had emerged from her cocoon in a cage: "Little Paul, half-undressed, is rushing about, jumping and stamping, knocking the chairs over like a mad thing. I hear him call me: 'Come quick!' he screams. 'Come and see these moths, big as birds! The room is full of them!'"
Drawing on the scientists inside his children and himself -- as well as on his professional scientific self -- helped Jean Henri Fabre become France's greatest naturalist and one of the top investigators of insect behavior.
Turn it Loose
Lucky for you that you think like a scientist. It helps you develop your mind, learn to reason, and understand the world around you. As you grow up, it will help you do better at whatever you choose to do -- play tennis, raise a family, solve crimes, construct buildings, study the stars, paint pictures, drive a semi, teach school, run a business, design software, sail a boat, practice medicine, lead a country, or simply enjoy nature.
The trouble is that it's possible for you to fall out of touch with your inborn scientist. That curious, investigative, full-of-wonder part of you can wither and fade if you ignore it. Just as you wouldn't dream of starving your body of exercise until you were too weak to lift this book, don't let your amazing scientific self slip away. The "use it or lose it" slogan applies as much to your inner scientist as it does to any of the muscles in your body.
Keeping your inner scientist alive and well isn't hard. All you have to do is turn it loose in your everyday life. That means feeling free to do the things your inborn scientist has always been eager to do:
- let your mind overflow with wonder,
- ask questions -- always,
- think for yourself,
- set your imagination soaring,
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