Seriously, if you don’t read Samia’s blog already, you really should poke your head over to check out her recent post “radicalism, love and the scientific temperament.” It’s a great, thoughtful, sometimes goofy meditation on how her personal need to understand things–people and proteins–drives her politics an her science. Here’s a taste:
Looking at one’s privilege head-on is painful, and I think we are all familiar with that reptilian urge to simply remove ourselves from the offending stimuli and pretend that shit didn’t just happen. But this doesn’t work in science, does it? The stuff you don’t know…is still out there. Not being known by you. TAUNTING YOU FROM JUST BEYOND GREAT GAPING MAW OF THE ABYSS WITH ITS NOT-KNOWNNESS. How satisfying is it to just leave the answers there, undiscovered? Well, it’s not.
See? I have nothing smart to talk about this week, so go read 49 Percent instead.
:) I’m glad you liked this post…I kinda had you in mind while I was thinking it up. I’m also glad I made a lick of sense to another human being! For some reason I had a lot of trouble staying halfway coherent while writing it.
Comment by Samia — August 31, 2010 @ 2:53 pm