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As Zvirzdin writes, the dichotomy between “science” and the “arts” is a false one—and the dichotomy between science and fiction may even be a false one, even though science is equated with nonfiction, with truth: because science, like fiction, is only a best-effort attempt at making sense of the world and, as such, is always, necessarily, to some degree, however minute, untrue.
The discussion of how science writing might “make use of the tools of fiction” reminds me of the discussion around narrative nonfiction, new journalism, creative nonfiction, or whatever you want to call it: the movement that reminds us that the dichotomy between “real” and “false” is more malleable than we pretend, because we see our world in stories.
“Humans love stories,” Zvirzdin writes: yes. And yet, when we seek truth, we tend to resist story, in the same way and for the same reason that classical rhetoric was once eliminated from formal scientific writing: because it stinks of pretense, of falseness, and so undermines credibility.
So, at an academic conference in the sciences, papers are delivered in the driest, most staid way: to project objectivity. Describing the results of her research—as an acquaintance recently recounted it—one scientist allows her voice to rise, her face to betray emotion, but then corrects herself, repeating her results behind a poker face, so as not to seem biased.
As if bias could be eliminated. To extend my metaphor: the denizens of new journalism began to include themselves in the stories they were reporting not only, as it might seem, to emphasize their own subjectivity, but also to become more objective by revealing their subjectivity. Positioning oneself, an anthropologist might call this technique, which, too, might be a technique from fiction: the characterization of the narrator.
We stand at science conferences with poker faces, though, because we believe the poker face is the mask of objectivity. Or, to put it differently: we believe that all stories are false. Perhaps they are, but it does us no good to ignore the fact that science is also a story.
Think of Emerson’s famous distinction between “The King died and then the Queen died” and “The King died and then the Queen died of grief” (emphasis mine). Emerson was drawing up another false dichotomy, between “story” and “plot,” but for our purposes let’s consider the first statement a report, or observation. The second statement is a diagnosis, a because. The second statement is science, cause-and-effect, and the second statement is also story.
When I teach college composition, I like to look at Dr. Lisa Sanders’s old “Diagnosis” columns from the New York Times Magazine, the ones organized into “Symptoms,” “Investigation,” “Resolution.” This methodology—this progression—is still how I write. Observe, ask, understand. I remember an unforgettable lesson from an Introduction to Narrative class I took as an undergrad: the detective story is a narrative, and the detective story is also science. After reading Holmes, we read Freud. Both were examples of science, at least as it was once defined. Even better, both were exemplars of story.
Comments from other contributors to the Poetics of Science online discussion:
Karen Luper: I like Marilynne Robinson’s distinction between “describing” and “explaining” (the finality and the authority of explaining): In The Givenness of Things, she writes, “It is a triumph of science to have, in some degree, described the electron, and preposterous to suggest it has been explained.” Associations of “truth” with nonfiction, with objectivity, with “facts,” interest me very much—we so readily forget that behind every fact, or result, is a question, and behind every question, a set of values and assumptions—and resources. We don’t have to look far: Darwin, on “the savage races,” or nineteenth-century skull studies designed to prove racial inferiority . . . we might dismiss these examples as uncomfortable products of another time, but we live with them still . . . and for something more current, we might read of a Silicon Valley startup that proposes to reverse aging with gene therapy, because, as the founder explains, “we’re trying to hit the biggest point of suffering in the industrialized world.” Really?
Helen Betya Rubinstein: Thank you for bringing in that lovely line from The Givenness of Things!
Since I write mostly nonfiction, I’m often thinking (and talking) about the importance of attempting to tell the truth, even when we know the goal is impossible to achieve. We know—intellectually—that to tell the full truth is impossible, and yet we believe we might anyway; we need to believe this in order to survive. Similarly, we explain and explain, knowing that we will never explain. These are impulses basic to the human condition, I think, and they are also both impulses basic to writing, whether it’s the writing of science or the writing of story (if we pretend there’s a difference).
A friend once said that she wrote “creative” nonfiction because it allowed her to tell the story outside the story, or something along those lines. I think good nonfiction (all good literature!) is often untelling truths we take for granted. But there will always be more so-called truths to be untold.
L. Shapley Bassen: Lucky to have read this with Karen’s reply . . . I appreciated “Positioning oneself, an anthropologist might call this technique, which, too, might be a technique from fiction: the characterization of the narrator.” And “I think good nonfiction (all good literature!) is often untelling truths we take for granted. But there will always be more so-called truths to be untold.” Then, Karen’s addition: “Marilynne Robinson’s distinction between “describing” and “explaining” (the finality and the authority of explaining): In The Givenness of Things, she writes, “It is a triumph of science to have, in some degree, described the electron, and preposterous to suggest it has been explained.” Both science and writing inspired by science seem to me more conscious of contemporary/future scope than the arts focused in other [laudable] directions. I often refer to Barry Unsworth’s modern hybrid of the historical and mystery novel, MORALITY PLAY, in which he spoke of the shift from medieval drama into “modern” stories “of our town.” “Our town” now includes Science as a main character, ignored or incorrectly depicted at author’s/readers’ peril.
Natalie Mesnard: And then of course there’s that book The Lifespan of a Fact, a hybrid text by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal wherein an essay by D’Agata is printed inline with Fingal’s investigations of each fact in it. Fingal’s text is in red, and often takes on a strict, chastening tone to point at D’Agata’s many inaccuracies. The book is hard to read, but it makes a point about how invested we all are in truth. For my part, I’d like to see this done with a scientific paper, one scientist examining in detail each of the other’s statements. For example, one thing I’ve heard before is that psychological studies are inherently biased because their subjects are always only those who didn’t drop out of the study. Therefore, any observed phenomenon is happening within a group of highly-compliant people, since the IRB won’t (and shouldn’t) let people administer scientific studies to unwitting or unwilling participants. I imagine little truths like this that scientists know, but outsiders don’t think about, would surface in a dialogue on facts between two science writers.
I also remember hearing once from Patrick, my partner, about a study his lab did related to memory. For some reason they purchased a joystick, instead of a mouse, for subjects to use when selecting icons on a computer screen. Some participants performed poorly because they weren’t used to controlling a cursor with a joystick. It’s even possible they dedicated attention to this kinesthetic task that compromised remembering in some way. I am not a scientist, but stories like this make me think science writing is obviously creative nonfiction. Especially because the kinds of science I hear about in 2016 are much more complicated than “The King died and then the Queen died,” often involving a human agent running analysis on huge volumes of data derived from studies just like this, with weird joysticks, tired undergrads, dwindling participants, and principal investigators on the hunt for grant money. Though science is based on observation, we can’t “observe” big data without involving subjective interpretations, even if those interpretations are mathematical.
Helen Betya Rubinstein: Thanks, Natalie, for putting this so clearly. (Psychological studies with human subjects seem just head-spinningly impossible to control.) Interesting, too, is the “fact” (ha) that The Lifespan of a Fact is a performance, edited and arranged to deliberately provoke a reader. Even that work of nonfiction, about nonfiction and nonfictionality, is a kind of farce. The conversation between D’Agata and Fingal, though, is at least accessible to the general reader, in the sense that most readers will feel equipped to draw their own conclusions about the content. Perhaps in contrast, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the term “science,” and terms associated with science, are lobbied about—rather meaninglessly??—to muscle up authority, even unquestionability, before a reading public. So, an article that roughly substitutes “prefrontal cortex” for “reasoning,” or a podcast about anxiety that roughly substitutes “amygdala” for “fear,” gains a great deal of authority, even though these bits of our biology are not necessarily more deeply understood than the acts they supposedly embody. I try to watch my own propensity to do this; seeing it happen drives me up the wall. And now I’m thinking of noun and verb substitutes to make “The King died and then the Queen died” sound intimidatingly, unquestionably “scientific” and true . . .
Natalie Mesnard: Helen, I’m so happy you pointed out the many layers of performance in The Lifespan of a Fact. I love how looking at science writing, of all things, has led us to remind ourselves of the ways writing is orchestration. I’m reminded of the intellectual snarl I got in once teaching a creative writing class on writing craft essays. Students wrote wonderfully about fiction structure and poetry lines, but when we arrived at creative nonfiction craft, the layers got too deep: everyone suddenly realized craft essays are themselves creative nonfiction.
Anyway, I think those substitutions you point to ( “prefrontal cortex” for “reasoning,” “amygdala” for “fear,” etc.) can remove our ability to draw conclusions about content. Unlike The Lifespan of a Fact, science writing is sometimes unassailable because we do not feel qualified to understand it. But I think some scientists would also say “fear” is an abstraction, while “amygdala” is precise (“show, don’t tell”?). And some science concepts are difficult because they belong to whole lifetimes dedicated to understanding them.
Still, weird obfuscation happens, especially in venues where authority matters. I’ve seen it. In a press release for one of Patrick’s papers, he suggested using the term “brainalities” to communicate a broad conclusion the study drew about brain anatomy. You get it, right? A few basic underlying factors were found that contribute to anatomical differences in most brains—something like brain personalities. But that word was cut in favor of more technical language. The study leader, Aron Barbey, is quoted as saying: “We were able to identify cognitive-anatomical characteristics that predict general intelligence and account for individual differences in a specific brain network that is critical to intelligence, the fronto-parietal network.” That sentence links the paper with something the public cares about: what makes people smart? It also uses intimidating vocabulary like “fronto-parietal network.” I have no idea what that is. But I do know witnessing the production of that press release was fascinating. The reporter interviewed Patrick, who was the paper’s first author, as well as Barbey, and they had very different ways of talking about the same research. There were multiple revisions, based on inline comments and suggestions from both men, before the final version appeared on the site (check it out at https://illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/331769).
Helen Betya Rubinstein: That’s a fascinating backstory to a press release, Natalie, and so relevant. Thanks. (The press release: what a weird genre! What a necessary blend of fiction and fact!) It seems that some technical language—also known as “intimidating” language—is required for credibility. But the technical language also serves as a barrier. It reminds readers of the writer’s qualifications—the writer’s authority—at the same time as it attempts to usurp readers’ own authority. Substituting “amygdala” for “fear” makes most readers feel unqualified to comment, yes, but I’m not convinced that it should. In other words, maybe it’s not our ability that gets removed, but our prerogative.
I’m being a bit cavalier, yes, since most lay readers know far less about the amygdala than the science writers who might use the term. (And must there be a difference between a “science writer” and a “scientist”?) But the use of the term also projects more understanding than there might actually be. It’s an intimidation tactic, a way of protecting one’s own ideas, in the same way that calling something “science” might be an attempt to call it “infallible,” or “unassailable,” as you write. In the same way that “fronto-parietal network” projects a certain unfriendly untouchable-ness that “brainality” might have countered.
To continue to play devil’s advocate (and please forgive me if I’m getting too silly here): I’m not convinced that “amygdala” is more precise than “fear.” “Fear” is a specific feeling we all know and have known since infancy. Anyone can feel the faintest hint of it just by invoking it. The “amydala,” on the other hand, is… a bundle of cells . . . deep in the brain . . . something we can point to, or look at a picture of, yes, in a way we can’t point to fear. But the physical fact of the amygdala is pretty meaningless to most people. It’s abstract, intimidating, inaccessibly buried in research centers, hospitals, and skulls. So I could argue that it’s “fear” that “shows,” while “amydala” “tells.”
(PS: I love, love the idea of a course on craft essays. A tangential thank you for that! When I teach creative nonfiction, I like to provoke students with the statement that “All essays are fiction, and some fiction is essay.” Now, this is personal to my own definition of the essay, and to my insistence that any narrative, which means any written thing, must be fiction, by simple nature of its artifice. But it makes me wonder whether craft essays, too [like science writing?] might cross genre: whether there might be craft poems, and craft stories, the same way that there are science poems, and science stories. I wonder why we don’t call “craft” “science,” and whether the term “craft” is, in creative-writing contexts, often put to similar, exclusionary use.)
L. Shapley Bassen: Sept. 5th, Labor Day now . . . I’ve been offline since computer died . . . since I doubt anyone will see the new post I put at my own original post, I thought maybe someone would see it at this most recent one. I wanted to add the result of a conversation I had ABOUT the Poetics of Science conversation . . . re allegory and metaphor. The best explainer I know offered that “analogy CLARIFIES while metaphor DRAMATIZES.” After the thoughtful, lively KR talk about the two words/methods, I hoped that this definition might help others as much as it does me. In the science writing that Explainer used as examples [Brian Greene, Siddhartha Mukherjee], analogies kept tighter focus on unfamiliar science concepts, while metaphor too often let too many cats out of the bag scattering into distracting directions.