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Mercury, March/April 1997 Table of Contents

Caroline Poon
Shanghai American School

Science springs from our urge to connect with others.

Sometimes it is hard to imagine why anybody could find satisfaction from science. There are so many unanswered questions, and, for every one question that is answered, an uncountable number of new questions arise. There is no end to what we do not know.

Are we so bored as to have to make more work for ourselves? That seems to be an unworthy reason for us to strive for higher levels of scientific knowledge. If our only purpose were to find ways to stop boredom, we would be...well...bored!

Perhaps we tell ourselves that we are curious, but did we not create an expression, "Curiosity killed the cat"? We seem to have worked ourselves into a paradox, which, though we do it often, can't be considered a reason to find value in science. No, curiosity is not an adequate reason. One cannot say simply, "The only reason I like science is that I'm curious." It is part of the reason, but not all of it.

Besides curiosity, there is far more.

Science is part of our quest to find others like ourselves. Humans are social creatures, and we are constantly on the lookout for others who can understand us, whom we can identify with. This is why we developed language, and cities, and religion ­ so that we can always be with those who are like us. Whenever we dial a number on a telephone, pick up a pen to write a letter, turn on the computer to use email, it is because we want to communicate and assure ourselves that there are others who understand us.

All three of these things are science: pens and paper, from farther back, when cities were far apart no matter how close; the telephone, when Alexander Graham Bell found that he wished to further his ability to tell someone far away that he existed; and email, recently, mostly invented as a way to save on telephone bills, send letters quickly, and resurrect the telegraph system in a modern way.

Now, as we discover that we've met everyone in the whole world, that we've shaken every hand, we want to find more. Now that we have explored all the Earth and found every culture in every corner of the globe, we are itching to find more. Where frontiersmen moved west in a developing America to open up new country and find a place with fewer people, we are exploring science to find more. Where pilgrims went to the New World to escape religious persecution, we search the sciences for a land where all is rational, logical, and, therefore, of the same opinion.

Living packed and close on our little planet, we are lonely.

How can there not be more like us? we ask.

There is no one there to answer. Either they cannot hear us, or we cannot hear them. We refuse to believe that there is no one else. We cannot be all there is. Religion, too, is a way to find others like us, or another like us, or the possibility of there being others like us.

In both science and religion, we know that we cannot know that another is the same as Ourself without knowing Ourself first. Science is our way of finding out about Ourself. Using biology, we find out about ourselves physically. We find out about the way our bodies work; about what is good for us and what is bad; about how to improve our physical condition, for we must survive to continue our ceaseless search for more. Chemistry, physics, and Earth science: All are ways to find out about the world around us. They are methods by which we find out about our surroundings, our habitat. They are our eyes and ears and noses and tongues and touch ­ our five senses. Astronomy is our direct way to find others like us. Now that we have explored all the peoples of the Earth, we are looking for other people, elsewhere. We hope that those people will be like us, that they'll understand our art, believe in our sacred religions, and, most of all, help us in our learning of Ourself, and our search for others like us.

Where will we go next to find friends? What will they be like? Will they embrace us as we would like to embrace them? Will they be stronger than us; will their science be more developed? Or will we be the ones to help them to improve their knowledge? Are there moral implications? Will we understand each other when we finally meet? Can they answer our questions? Will we have learnt enough about Ourself to realize that we are one and the same?

There are more questions springing up from the one question I have tried to answer. That is what science is all about. It is not about creating something to look at, it is not about alleviating boredom, and it is not about finding answers. It is about the next question, and the next, and the next. It is about the next question and the next person to ask a question, and about finding the questions that can answer the next question.

That is what we strive for.

CAROLINE POON is an eighth-grader at Shanghai American School, China. "It's a broad topic," she says, "but to me, it's one of the most important things to think about when considering science." Her email address is stpoon@gate.uninet.co.cn.