The Omnipotence of Science - Valerie Streif

Science and mathematics, two subjects often tightly intertwined, are not the forte of many people in society. Myself included, despite classifying myself as a "science" person on the first day of this class. As a junior in high school, I was failing my accelerated chemistry course, which resulted in leaping through various hoops with the administration to drop the class midway through and have it removed from my course lists, to avoid any possibility of tarnishing my GPA. I was then put in regular chemistry, with the notion that it was evil, but at least in the mainstream class I could excel next to my less ambitious peers. Instead of shuffling through the class with an underlying hatred, however, my world was completely turned upside down. I distinctly remember the moment that made me realize that I wanted to pursue a study of chemistry. We were discussing combustion reactions and my teacher pointed out a lie that is told to us by watching science fiction/space movies: Explosions cannot occur with the absence of oxygen, thus "explosions" often created by Hollywood onboard spacecraft, are chemically impossible. My mind was blown. This seems like such a simple realization that the average student would log away to perhaps use in some form of trivia or argument about sci-fi in the future, but to me, this was the epiphany that led me to the realization that if one can understand science (notably chemistry) one can understand exactly how the world works. My focus of study took a dramatic shift from there. There is a social construction, or perhaps just a simplistic assumption about how the human brain works, that some people have Math/Science brains, and others are better suited to study of language, humanities and other liberal arts studies. This is a concept that I used to categorize myself by, but fortunately, I was able to break the chains and see the light that it is not only possible but likely that all these studies are intertwined, and that my predisposition to hating math and science says nothing about my ability to change my mind and learn to love both the subjects through intensive study. Humanities and English were no longer to be my forte and focus. I wanted science. I wanted as much random fun facts about chemistry that I could possibly find, because they led me to understanding more and more about how the world works.

I somewhat believe that this shift in my opinion is an example of a mixture of biological determinism and environmental impact on development. My father is the scientist; he loves biology and majored in it at the University of Minnesota and later went on to attend dental school here. His grammar is atrocious and he has no real interest in any fictitious literature. My mother is the humanities woman. She speaks English and French, has a knack and love for history and edits my fathers poorly constructed sentences as he speaks. My mom was a stay at home mom throughout most of my life, so the majority of time that I spent doing homework as a child was with her. She never could help me with any math homework, as she is probably the most awful mathematician in the Northern hemisphere, and from the lack of assistance, my frustration with mathematics grew exponentially throughout my primary education. This developmental environment had a significant impact on my opinions of science and math, and led to my overall disdain of those areas of study. Later on, as explained in my epiphany, I have begun to realize that I do possess an ability to understand science, likely inherited from my dad. Since I have now had the chance to discuss such matters with him, my interests have grown even more, showing the importance of not only inherited abilities but the perpetuation and strength of them acquired through my environment.

Enlightenment is an important goal that all human beings with the capacity to think should aspire to have. The ultimate enlightenment in my opinion is understanding the world to avoid being manipulated by society to thinking it is something that it is not. While I do not think that Hollywood is maliciously lying to us by producing movies such as star wars or star trek, where there are all sorts of (impossible) fires and explosions in outer space, the notion of understanding the inconsistencies and manipulations of the world are important to avoid becoming ignorant to reality. This brings up the whole question of "Do You Believe in Reality?" from Pandora's Hope, and my answer to this question is undoubtedly, yes. While my goal of this essay is not to create a religious war or debate with science, I think that science is much like a God, in the way that God is viewed by many spiritual people today. The title of this post is the "Omnipotence of Science" which is essentially the idea that even though it may not be obviously apparent to the unthoughtful mind, science is everywhere and controls everything, whether or not it is thought of that way by its observers.

That was the underlying inspiration that drove me to the study of science. Understanding that it is everywhere in our world and composes everything that we know, down to the tiniest molecular beings, and understanding that it dictates the world we live in, was enough to convince me that it is undoubtedly relevant to my life. Reality exists because science proves it so. It is everywhere and in everything. It is determinist to our society and construction of our environment and most importantly, it has the ability to answer the "how" and "why" questions that are so bothersome to people such as myself, who strive for constant enlightenment through study of the natural world.