"The Romance of Science"

Whoever thought of science as “romantic”—other than some pick-up line such as, “I feel like there’s great chemistry between us”? And yet, Oliver Sacks writes that “Scheele epitomized for me the romance of science” (The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing 219). Consider this definition of romance: “A quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life” (Oxford Dictionaries). Sounds beautiful, but what does it really mean? I think this definition could imply that someone perceives those qualities or that those qualities exist objectively. For the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to assume the former implication because it arises from passion.

You might recall that I’ve already mentioned passion in my first blog post, “The Faith of Science.” However, in that post, I discussed the motivations for passion; in this post, I want to focus on the indications and translation of passion. As a definition of romance, “mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life” would therefore indicate passion; we even see these indicators in several of our readings from this week:

Mystery	Excitement	Remoteness from everyday life
“A chemist like Scheele…looking at the whole undiscovered world of natural substances and minerals, analyzing them, plumbing their secrets, finding the wonder of unknown and new metals” (Oxford 219).	“Scheele…was wholly dedicated to his work, caring nothing for fame or money and sharing his knowledge, whatever he had, with anyone and everyone” (Oxford 218).	“He seemed indifferent, or inattentive, to most things else, being wholly dedicated to his single passion, chemistry. It was this pure and passionate absorption in phenomena—noticing everything, forgetting nothing—that constituted Scheele’s special strength” (Oxford 219).
“Over dinner we discussed our plans, the thought of new hominid fossils uppermost in our minds” (Oxford 194).	“Like everyone else, I was elated. There was great excitement, joking, and laughter” (Oxford 195).	“A fossil hunter needs sharp eyes and a keen search image, a mental template that subconsciously evaluates everything…even if he isn’t concentrating hard” (Oxford 191).
“They will be able to see, and to prove, truths there that would otherwise remain hidden forever” (Best 43).	“For if something stops quantum mechanics, we shall expect to have an exciting new whatever-stops-quantum-mechanics theory…” (Best 45).	NA

I bolded certain phrases on purpose; check out the chart below to see why:

Mystery Explanation	Excitement Explanation	Remoteness Explanation
This quote acknowledges the perpetual mystery of a particular science.	What are some reasons that people “share knowledge”? Money, fame, and excitement. This quote clearly states that Scheele did not seek money or fame, so he must have shared his knowledge because of excitement—he was so stoked, and he couldn’t keep it all to himself.	I included this quote under “Remoteness from everyday life” because it demonstrated that Scheele was indeed “remote” from seemingly daily living; he was so passionately focused on one subject that everything else kind of took backstage.
What thoughts do we keep uppermost in our mind? Those which we have to ponder. Why do we ponder them? Because we have not fully grasped them; an element of mystery remains.	Why include this quote under the header, “Excitement”? It seems pretty self-evident.	This quote picks up where the last quote leaves off. To be so fixated on something would necessarily take attention away from other details. Perhaps this is why people perceive Kamoya as a man "with a great sense of calm,” although he actually is “always on the move, restless, rarely idle” (191).
This quote acknowledges that certain scientific truths have indeed been cloaked in mystery.	This quote reveals excitement in anticipation of new discoveries.	NA

[Note: although I think that romance, according to the definition I’ve given, always indicates passion, this doesn’t mean that passion always leads to romance. A fever always indicates sickness, but sickness doesn’t always lead to fever.]

Our job as science writers is basically to report passion to passion. We must somehow translate—or make “tangible, real, and apparent” (Hancock 46)—the passion of the scientists into something that would gel with the passion of the reader. Earle Holland reminds us, “Why should the readers care?” (A Field Guide for Science Writers 268); the answer to his question links with the readers’ passions. For lack of a better way to put it, are not most people passionate about themselves, their own lives? Whatever would personally affect them, whether in relation to beliefs, direct experience, knowledge, or goals, are grounds for reader care and interest. This is why we are given the directive to always report the “news,” the “why-should-you-care”; this is what will cause the reader to pick up an article to read. But what really prompts the reader to read all the way to the end of the article, to remember afterward what she’s read, is passion—the passion of the scientist, science writer, or both—that personal element that somehow connects with something inside us. This is why we should “look for the living, breathing person or people around whom to build your story” (Hancock 45). This is why we seek to capture the romance of science, that “lifelong love affair” (The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing 219) between science and scientist.