[Tenderness] is a word not typically used to describe science or scientists. It shares roots, of course, with “tending” — a farmer’s or gardener’s activity — but also with “tension,” the stretching of a pea tendril to incline it toward sunlight or train it on an arbor. It describes a certain intimacy between humans and nature — a nourishment that must happen before investigation can happen, the delicacy of labor that must be performed before the delicacy of its fruits can be harvested. When I witness science in action, I see this tenderness in abundance. … Look closely among scientists, and you find this quality everywhere. There is tenderness in the chemist measuring and re-measuring salts in the hood; in the mathematician kneading his equations to understand the shape of the cosmos; in the marine biologist learning to talk to dolphins. . . . In an age of increasingly mechanized production, the genesis of scientific knowledge remains an unyieldingly, obstreperously hand-hewn process. It is among the most human of our activities. Far from being subsumed by the dehumanizing effects of technology, science remains our last stand against it. From Siddharta Mukherjees stunning forward to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 16:16:59 +0000
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