The Art of Basic Science enters its terrible twos

And it is cranky.

We have reached the 2nd anniversary of this newsletter’s inception and I’m feeling immensely grateful to all of you who open this e-mail month after month. Without you, I don’t know where I would put all of these thoughts clanging around in my head. As English author E.M. Forster said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”¹ Thank you for listening.

I also find myself in a reflective mood. We set out two years ago on a mission to explore the role of art in the advancement of science. I used science communication as a jumping-off point, assuming that everyone agreed on its value. But as I explored beyond communication, I had the nagging feeling I’d left something important behind, like that time we went camping and left the tent poles at home.

Nevertheless, I forged ahead. We considered how poetry and music can make science more memorable and open it up to a wider diversity of personality types. We met a scientist who finds purpose in his artistic practice, creating glass-blown sculptures of T cells attacking cancer cells for immunotherapy patients. We saw how a drawing of d-orbitals on a chalkboard kept a preeminent scientist from dropping out of college. We found many, many connections between the pursuits of science and art. We’ve kept a close eye on AI and are not worried for science illustrators yet.

Sprinkled through many of these posts is my gathering drumbeat of making art with scientists. I argue that drawing shouldn’t start only when the science is done. Drawing what you think is happening can unlock insights and ideas that are just waiting for the right question to be asked. I ask lots of questions when I’m working on illustrations for people, and am gratified when the answer is, “Huh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Just last week someone said, “No one has ever asked me that before.” (Not necessarily a good thing.) But he realized he was resting on a certain assumption, and went away to think about it some more. I assure you that this does not reflect any brilliance on my part. I had heard him talk about this project twice before and never had this question. It was only when I sat down to draw it. And I’m not the first to notice this phenomenon. Janet Iwasa, a Ph.D. cell biologist turned scientific animator, has been saying this for many years. She collaborates closely with scientists on making highly accurate 3D animations of their research, and she has seen the aha moments. I think that the more we involve scientists in the process, maybe even putting the pencil in their hand, the more questions and insights will arise.

So why did I keep finding myself hesitant to do engage them more? I am fiercely protective of scientists’ time, but I see the clear value of this activity for innovation and avoiding dead ends. What was the problem? That was when I finally saw myself, scrabbling around under all that tarp with no poles. I had been resting on my own assumption that since everyone saw the value of art for science communication, it was hardly a stretch to use it for this other purpose, while knowing subconsciously that it wasn’t true.

As I’ve said before, the real tragedy of Gregor Mendel, posthumously named the father of modern genetics after dying in obscurity, was how many decades the field of human genetics was set back before scientists rediscovered his work on peas. He hadn’t been able to effectively communicate his results, which were complex and far ahead of his time. I’ll bet a figure or two would have helped.

So the stakes are really high, but nearly all of my freelance commissions are journal cover art. Cover art is wonderful for the publishers who get it for free. It is possibly helpful to the scientists whose work is highlighted (if their gamble of paying an artist to compete for the cover pays off). And it’s great for the artists, but I’d love to see that market move to the insides of the journals, where everyone—authors, readers, artists, and science—benefits.

Trying to make sense of this mismatch between need and demand, anecdotes from the past started popping into my head, like the last day of my postdoc, when a labmate asked me if I would miss being in lab. I was going off to teach college chemistry and start my science illustration business, but when I said I would miss doing experiments, he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll still do lots of experiments in the kitchen.”²

This may have been more a case of casual misogyny than dismissiveness about art, but then a few years later, I ran into a former female professor of mine who said to me, “So this is what you’re doing with your life?”

Sometimes people had no qualms about telling me exactly what they thought about my life choices. Here’s a gem: I was on a panel about non-traditional careers in science for an audience of younger students. A concerned parent came up to me afterward, genuinely curious how I justified squandering my MIT Ph.D. to do this.

I realize now that this is why I cringe whenever a well-meaning person innocently refers to my work as “prettying up”. I know it comes out as a compliment, but unpleasantness like the aforementioned makes it hit my ears with an unintended derisiveness. I feel compelled to argue that in science communication, pretty is the byproduct of good design, which considers things like principles of human perception and pre-attentive processing. I’ll have more to say about the important role of aesthetics in a future post, and I don’t always get it right the first time, but in my professional work, I try to adhere to the Bauhaus principle that “form follows function” and the Shaker design philosophy—“Don't make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don't hesitate to make it beautiful.”

So we still have some more work to do. Perhaps the need for clear science communication in our society has never been greater. Maybe it’s time to go back and get those poles.

1. I confess I’ve never read anything by Forster but rather came to this quote through the song Romantica by American indie rock band Luna, flanked by such delicious lyrics as, “While I was sleeping, she came to my room and borrowed my eyes” and “I'm in a jam, you're in a pickle. We're in a stew.”

2. I don’t even like to cook.