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Writing a Recipe for Science: Cook Time Variable Rachael Moeller "Do you like to cook?" asked my interviewer. "Well, I like to eat...," I replied. Far from being a normal exchange during an interview for a laboratory technician position, this conversation nevertheless comes close to epitomizing my relationship with science. I disagreed with the interviewer and his metaphor, which argues that if a person likes cooking, he will love the bench work of laboratory biology, since both require a sort of recipe-following manual dexterity. Much to the contrary, I think this analogy really depends entirely on the reasons behind a person's love of cooking, and it too simplistically attaches enjoyment of one discipline to love of the other. I, for example, like cooking, but only because I derive satisfaction from the reward obtained at the end—the cake I get to eat after mixing and pouring for hours. I don't derive enjoyment from the actual baking of the cake. In science, however, rewards in the form of quantifiable results only come after many, many days of long hard work, and many times these results are far from delicious or even palatable. Scientists must be able to enjoy the process, the greasing of the pan and the digging out of the eggshells, and not live solely for the result. In the case of cooking, the cake is guaranteed within a short period. Not so with science. Styles of ScienceEvery scientist finds her compensation in a slightly different manner. One researcher I work with likes the inexactness of biology, the fact that the simplest explanation is never the correct one. Science is an adventure, albeit a personal one for the most part. The complexity of biology is incredible, and the anticipation generated by trying to solve such an intricate puzzle can be addictive.Other researchers in my lab are more methodical. Carefully performing every experiment with all the appropriate controls every time gives them a deep satisfaction. Showing a perfect gel with crisp, clear bands at lab meeting, whether or not the answer was the predicted answer, is the essence. Scientists never get their whole reward at once. They get bits and pieces of it, all jumbled up into tiny fragments. They are so teased and intrigued that their hunger for the truth is insatiable and their pursuit of the answer never-ending. The eventual assembling of all these tiny clues into a coherent picture is the scientists' cake. They get peanuts for a salary, considering the intelligence and training that has molded them. But in some strange, Darwinian way, this lack of even monetary compensation—and no guarantee of success—ensures that only those very aware of the risks and challenges of science will remain in the field. Scientists find compensation in the act of performing and contemplating science, not in the instant gratification of daily elegant results. Matters of TasteI, on the other hand, perhaps because of immense immaturity, am less motivated by such compensation. I can't eat my experiments. I thus disagree with my original interviewer, who must have seen himself as a sort of principal investigator–master chef and me as a short-order cook–wait-person. But his comment obviously struck a chord and persuaded me to examine my own daily motivations.Is it for the process or the reward that I do things? Ideally, I'd like a life in which I adore the process and am delightedly surprised, not expectant, whenever the reward comes along. That is the feat many scientists I know have achieved, and I think it's fantastic. Proceeding through an experiment is far more than just blindly following a recipe. It's continually altering and supplementing the process with a bit of your own knowledge. And whatever scientists' reasons for pursuing such a life, I admire them wholeheartedly. —Rachael Moeller, a research technician in the Anne Hart lab at Massachusetts General Hospital |
