My Swansong to Science

Why I followed my heart, and left science for the humanities.

Want to change the world? Become a scientist.

Want people to know you’re smart? Become a scientist.

Want to be employed at a top FTSE500 company? Do a STEM degree.

The pop-wisdom of parents, teachers, and careers advisors everywhere is repetitive, strained, and incorrect. Of course, it makes sense: the Government and many private organisations need scientists to come up with solutions to some of the most pressing problems in the world. These might be medical, environmental, or energy-related. Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians headed up by STEM-literate management cannot be underestimated in their power to change the world, as we have repeatedly seen.

But becoming a scientists is far from the only reputable career path out there, and it isn’t for everyone. I realised just in time — or perhaps too late? — that I was not one of those pre-ordained by a lucky combination of character traits to join the ranks of the scientifically elite.

Why I gave up on science (especially in research and academia)

For starters, not only is research hard — but it’s rare you get to do any.

Academics are predominantly nowadays writing grant applications so that they can do research. In a recent quarterly round of grant-writing, scientists in Australia spent a combined total of 500 years writing proposals. Only 20% were accepted, meaning 400 years of human life was wasted in doing so. Grant writing is absurd, time consuming, bureaucratic, and nearly pointless.

Research itself has fared me little better. Though my sample size for research is small — I’ve admittedly done a grand total of one research project, ever — sometimes an experience is so distasteful that it takes the wind out of your sails sufficiently to change your entire direction. My research project done last year was in ecology, and suffice to say that just the research process itself was so specific and so tedious that I could not, in good faith, call myself a natural-born researcher afterwards.

Admittedly, there’s a solid argument that I should have stuck with research a little more. Perhaps research in different fields, or on different topics, or with different methods, would have been more enjoyable. I have no doubt that I would enjoy some research. But how much time and lost opportunity am I willing to bet that this next thing is the thing? How far down the track of “I know I will like something!” should I travel until I find what it is I enjoy? At what point exactly am I justified in giving up and moving on from research — something I don’t really have an inclination towards anyway?

I guess there’s also a more long-term consideration. I did not ever want to be an expert. I had no inclination to be the person that spent decades of their life understanding a few molecules, chemical reactions, genes, species, stars or galaxies better than everybody else in the world. Don’t get me wrong: I love knowledge. Knowledge is motivating, exciting, enlightening — and knowing something better than anybody else in the world is surely a beautiful thing.

But with knowledge comes great opportunity cost. What else could I know if I had spent time not on one single, highly specific topic, but spread across many? How much could I learn about the Universe and the lives within if I branch out, become a generalist rather than a specialist, and don’t invest the time and energy it takes to become an expert?

There are entire languages full of literature, galaxies full of stars, forests full of species — I have no inclination to limit myself to just one.

Why I joined the humanities

I hate to disparage the sciences, so I hasten to point out that much of what I have said applies to academia very generally. It is certainly true that right now I have no desire to stay in academia ad perpetuum. I just can’t imagine myself in that career, being who I currently am — though that can totally change, and perhaps will. And I still love science; the sciences are utterly fascinating in what they have uncovered and can continue to uncover about the world.

So there are also some positive reasons for my having made the change from ecology and evolutionary biology to history and philosophy.

First and foremost: I love writing. Yes, I also loved maths back in school and the first year of University. But there’s something about putting words together in an order nobody ever has before and calling it your own that you just can’t replicate with mathematical symbols — unless you’re the next Andrew Wiles. There is just nothing else remotely like freely carving one’s own thoughts into a blank page. I guess scientists can write, but humanities students do.

Secondly, it is a myth that STEM sets you up for anything. George Soros studied philosophy at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Prime Ministers and Presidents around the world disproportionately were students of the humanities and social sciences. Almost all the content we read, from journalism to marketing, was probably written by an ex-humanities student, or at least somebody that way inclined. The world couldn’t function without people well-versed in cultures, literatures, arts, religions, in humanity itself.

My final point is only relevant to my own peculiar degree, I think: scientists are nothing without interpreters, which is exactly what I am training to become.

For context, I was originally a student in biology (evolution and ecology) before switching to a course called ‘History and Philosophy of Science’ (which I’ve written about here), or HPS.

HPS takes science wholesale — from cosmology to microbiology — and looks at what it does, what it used to do, who does it, who did it, how it thinks, how it works, how it moves. HPS takes science apart to the nuts and bolts of the processes themselves, examining everything from the institution of science to the individual human who calls themselves (or else is called) “scientist”. And then it helps put it back together again.

In a world where every major issue comes down to science, who translates that science into real-world policy? Who enacts it? Who communicates science to the layperson? Who educates and advises? Some science students, for sure. But humanities students, who have been explicitly taught critical and philosophical thinking skills, who have spent years honing their writing processes, and who know how to know about histories and cultures and peoples, are in an excellent position to be those intermediaries that the world needs.

My swansong

Science is a wonderful subject. STEM education is a wonderful service. Scientists are, often, wonderful and curious people. I love all three.

But science itself was not for me — and that is perfectly okay. I do not possess a character of the sort to which research appeals. I’m not a born expert; I’m a born wanderer, a wonderer. I love to know deeply, but not at the expense of knowing broadly. That’s just who I am, and how I like to be. I am incredibly glad there are those who are very different to me, for whom research is exciting, because every single day I profit off of these peoples’ hard labour.

The last thing I want to do in this article is to dissuade those who are excited about research and the possibility of becoming a scientist from doing so. Please, go and read a scientist waxing lyrical about their own work; make up your own mind, and don’t let me make it up for you.

I don’t regret the hours I spent pouring over scientific textbooks, pawing at pages. Far from it. But I am glad to open my next chapter. I have a year or perhaps two left in education, and I’m excited to be studying no “hard science” for the first year in many. I will be solely focused on reading, thinking, and writing.

For me, science is on the sidelines; the humanities are in.

You know what? That’s no bad thing.