blog

I’m currently writing up several papers and have been working on a series of talks.

One of my graduate advisors recommended that I try giving a proposal in the form of a story. It seemed a little unnatural. After all, scientific research is based on reproducible, testable facts and logical deduction… which are not necessarily the best components of a story. I certainly prefer to read a good page-turner where the details might be exaggerated, the plot is fictional, and the characters are interesting. One you’re hooked, you want to keep reading…

But I recently read an article “American Scientist Online – Storied Theory” by none other than Prof. Roald Hoffmann, theoretical chemist, noble laureate, and quite an author in his own right.

Prof. Hoffmann argues strongly that even mathematical physical theory lends itself well to storytelling:

This fear is misplaced for two reasons. First, in paradigmatic science, hypotheses have to be crafted. What are alternative hypotheses but competing narratives? Invent them as fancifully as you can. Sure, they ought to avoid explicit violations of reality (such as light acting like a particle when everyone knows it’s a wave?), but censor those stories lightly. There is time for experiment–by you or others–to discover which story holds up better. The second reason not to fear a story is that human beings do science. A person must decide what molecule is made, what instrument built to measure what property. Yes, there are facts to begin with, facts to build on. But facts are mute. They generate neither the desire to understand, nor appeals for the patronage that science requires, nor the judgment to do A instead of B, nor the will to overcome a seemingly insuperable failure. Actions, small or large, are taken at a certain time by human beings–who are living out a story.

Well put.

I’ve been working on adding more narrative to my work. It certainly helps to organize concepts and focus the reader of an article or the listener of a talk on the key points.

So I’ll add a third reason to Prof. Hoffmann’s list. Humans consider science. Journal articles do not exist in a vacuum. We do not describe our research in a seminar to an empty room. We as scientists must make our case, much like a lawyer would, to a skeptical audience. We wish to bring the audience along for the ride — how were we convinced to believe these strange things under discussion? What experiments and theories helped us to make sense of the world and the universe?

Our molecules may be mute. But our science should not be.