skygiants | (no subject)

I have a confession: I am not a science person. It's an odd kind of mental block. I always liked history, and I actually also liked math, and it always seemed like therefore I should be able to master science too -- I mean, science is basically just math + story, right? And I'm good at both those things! But somehow I could never even build a mousetrap car that worked correctly, let alone wrapping my head around the more complex aspects of physics or biology. My glass-ceiling-shattering neurologist mother was always nice enough not to seem too obviously disappointed by this.

Anyway, Lab Girl -- a memoir about geochemist/geobiologist Hope Jahren's career in science, interspersed with descriptions of the scientific weirdness of botany -- was our book club pick a few months back. I didn't actually make it to that round of book club, but I read the book later on anyway.

...and I'm going to be honest: the book is compellingly written, botany is undeniably weird and interesting when looked at objectively, and yet when reading this book, I still found myself impatient to shove through the straight botany sections to get to the actual memoir story. I'm sorry! Science writing is cool, I just find it personally challenging, I don't know what's wrong with me.

("But just a couple weeks ago you were going on about how cool the alien linguistic morphology was in Embassytown" -- yes I know and for some reason it doesn't apply when it's made-up science! I don't know why this is!!! I guess I just find it more impressive when other humans come up with this stuff than when evolution/God/forces beyond our control do??? "My brain could do that! Except, of course, it doesn't.")

....and once again when trying to write about a memoir I find myself writing a post that's more about me than the book. It's a solid memoir! Jahren is pulling together a couple of story-threads -- one about being a female scientist, and then one again about being a female scientist with severe manic-depression, and then wrapped into that is the story of her lifelong partnership with her highly eccentric lab buddy/platonic life partner Bill. (I believe there was a Yuletide request related to this.) I'm glad I read the book, but I think I remain confident in my conclusion that biology was not the career for me.

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-- Bipolar disorder? I find that interesting. But....well, yeah, botany.

Science writing is cool, I just find it personally challenging, I don't know what's wrong with me.

Would you like science writing recommendations or will that make you feel defensive and/or harangued?

[edit] I would like to assume it's obvious that I don't think anything is wrong with you, but in case it needs saying.

Edited 2017-03-06 02:24 (UTC)

Super interesting, sometimes very rough -- the chapter where she has to go off her medication for the duration of her pregnancy was quite difficult to read.

Heh, you can feel free to give them, on the understanding that it's not super likely I will end up seeking them out unless a description really unexpectedly catches my interest. (....or becomes research relevant down the line.)

It always amuses me how you and I have extremely similar tastes in a lot of ways... and then once in a while go in TOTALLY OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS. Humans are hit or miss, but weird botany is totally my jam! (I'm actually curious whether you think I'd like it, given that.)

I expect you would! You would certainly be ALL OVER the botany. :P

I have been wanting to read this! I find science fascinating and love reading science writing...but was never very good at either understanding/doing science or writing about it myself. I think maybe I'm more interested in how people do science and what leads them to ask certain questions or try certain approaches than in how the actual science works.