Saturday, May 5, 2018

What empanadas can teach us doing science

By Laura Naslund
It was that last empanada that did me in. I couldn’t help it really. With my host brother studying to be a nutritionist, my casa tica was strictly a health food zone and I hadn’t eaten fried food in almost a month. As I sat at breakfast, the little junk food devil that sits on my shoulder whispered in my ear, “When’s the next time you are going to have an authentic bean empanada? Just go for it. Your stomach can handle one more.”
With my defiant microbiome still resisting the change from a diet of peanut butter sandwiches and veggie burgers to a diet of rice and beans, I have been no stranger to indigestion on this trip. With a swig of Pepto Bismol™ and a short rest, I can usually get myself back in commission within the hour. The trouble this time was that immediately after breakfast we were hiking up and out (emphasis on up) of our cozy San Gerardo field station in the Monteverde Cloud Forest reserve to head back to San Jose. As soon as we finished scaling the first of what would end up being several flights of trail steps, I felt that unmistakable twinge in my stomach. I knew in that moment that this hike was going to be different from all the others.
My heart sank as I watched myself fall from 5th in the pack to 12th, dead last. I tried to use the fear of everyone waiting for me at the top of the mountain to motivate myself to move faster but my stomach, in a roil, seemed to have control over my feet. Alone and inching closer to giving up, I saw a figure at the top of one particularly gnarly hill. My friend Liz, sporting her characteristic pink rain jacket and Yellowstone hat, was waiting for me. “One step at a time,” she told me, “Let’s do this together.”  She pointed to a ridge 100m up the trail and we agreed to trudge to that point before stopping. At each rest we marveled at some trail side curiosity to allow ourselves to catch our breaths. Ridge by ridge, interesting find by interesting find, we pulled ourselves up the mountain until finally we were standing next to the course van ready to take us to San Jose.
As much of a non-sequitur as this may seem, this hike has me reflecting on the evolution of my thinking about what it means to do science. Science in popular culture is represented as individual efforts of concentrated brilliance. In school we learn about the propelling breakthroughs: Newton and the falling apple, Archimedes and the bathtub, Alexander Fleming and the fungus. The truth remains, however, that the vast majority of science is not encapsulated in “aha” moments. It is a slow trudge up the mountain of what we don’t yet know. It is guided forward by tiny advances that take monumental effort just as each pained step pulled me up the trail. In this understanding, I am trading my image of science as a series of brilliant, individual breakthroughs for the image of Liz and me, muddied and tired, walking together step by step up the mountain.

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