December 13, 2006

Humanities Scholar, Yes; Trophy Wife, No

While attending my best friend’s graduation celebration this week, I had the pleasure of sitting at the table next to her uncle. I tried to think of things to talk about with a 50-something car salesman from Ohio. I was about to break the awkward silence at our end of the table with what every Ohioan wants to talk about these days: college football. But before I could come out with my cliché conversation starter, I got beat to the punch by Uncle Ted. The conversation went something like this:

 “So, Lucia, what’s your major?”

“Political Science.”

“Oh…that’s nice…what law school do you want to go to?”

“I don’t, sir.”

“So what are you going to do with a degree like that?”

“Go to graduate school and teach.”

“Well, then you better marry rich, young lady.”

I turned red. It turns out that his kid is a business and biochemistry senior and has already been accepted to medical school, Uncle Ted proudly added.

Growing up in a family with four doctors and an engineer, I have been tormented about everything from my inability to get past high school trigonometry to my obsession with The Economist. If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” I wouldn’t have student loans.

I don’t understand the disdain many science-oriented people hold for the humanities and social sciences. One microbiology student at my university recently told me that what I do is “a lot of hand waving.”

Contrary to what Uncle Ted and company may think, grant money is not a measure of utility. The next time you think that what the science majors are doing is so much more complicated and important than what we do in the social behavioral sciences and humanities, think again.

Someone had to teach your pompous offspring to spell so that he could write that research proposal. Someone had to make sure that the social implications of his experiment do not have a negative impact on the community. Someone had to spend years of her life studying obscure grammar systems so that the miracle drug/procedure/technology she came up with could be distributed in foreign countries.

I have great admiration for the people who devote their lives to improving the world through empirical sciences. I acknowledge that everything from the quality of the water I put in my morning coffee to the wiring of the iPod to which I listen before I go to bed are the products of hard work and commitment from the science community.

I wish more scientists (and their parents) would express a similar sentiment to us. What we do does not generate much money, but that is not the capital we deal in.

The enrichment, improvement and expansion of possibility of the human mind are just as respectable as the enrichment, improvement and expansion of possibility of the human body.

Instead of trying to create a hierarchy of importance, we should aim at bridging the gap between what appear to be opposites while creating an interdisciplinary dialogue. The marriage of science and social and behavioral disciplines is possible and desirable. And no one has to be the trophy wife.

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