Editor's Note
In Defense of Discovery

_____When Sir Isaac Newton discovered that visible light was composed of a fusion of all perceivable colors, John Keats was so distraught with the revelation that in his poem Lamia he complained that “cold philosophy” would “unweave a rainbow” among other horrendous deeds (like clipping angels of their wings). Apparently, in Keats’s mind, the wonder of a rainbow was destroyed by the mundane knowledge that ALL VISIBLE LIGHT IS COMPOSED OF STREAMS OF COLORS, thus inundating us in rainbows all the time (at least relative to our perception of the electromagnetic frequencies). This anathema to science and an understanding of the Universe we live in seems to still persist to this day. I have been told not to use the word “parasitoid” in a poem because “literary people don’t like science” or that the word “frond” is the only beautiful word in science because it’s the only word you can “feel.” Two different concepts seem to be at work here: a Keatsian love of ignorance and preference to remain epistemologically a child, and a simpler hostility arising from a disconnect with a body of words.
_____Let’s examine the latter first. Maybe the syllabic structure of “frond” does make its sound more aesthetically pleasing in some neuronal circuit of the brain (or maybe it’s because it’s one rearrangement away from fnord), or maybe it’s because frond is more familiar to speakers than the Latin and Greek words that compose scientific identification (After I listed a few –ologies taught at ESU to a woman whose son was interested in the Bio department, she said, “You might as well be talking Greek or Latin to me.” I told her I was.). But those are the most exalted languages in traditional Western education, considered beautiful and wonderful to learn by scholars. Indeed, they are the evolutionary forebears of the very language I am writing in now.
_____I do not believe there is inherently anything noxious in the arrangement of sounds in “parasitoid” or “chondrocranium,” but merely an aversion to the arcane in those people who are outside of whatever field of knowledge is being discussed. The same attitude that leads to the mocking of intellectual pursuit in public schooling ironically manifests in academia where educated persons deride the scientific establishment while using their own convoluted prose and obscure words that they spent years mastering while another used the same amount of time to learn the models that describe why forests occur where they do or how the sun burns.
_____A simple following of scientific news that summarizes and generalizes dense and dry research can keep an individual in awareness with the world around him/her and avoid a sense of ignorance in the face of the massive body of scientific knowledge our species has accumulated, but instead individuals remain isolated in their selective fields, and respond with disgust when presented with ideas equally as challenging as their own, but indecipherable to their education.
_____This fear of arcane words may be somewhat related to a greater fear of understanding, leading us back to Keats. While I can feel the sense of astonishment at beholding a phenomenon without explanation, there is equal wonder in comprehension, in knowing the intricate forces at work behind the experience. To learn something new is to feel joy, to feel amazement at the sense of understanding (Biochemically, this is because dopamine is triggered when new ideas are comprehended. Learning increases your chances of survival.). Even better though, you can have it both ways. Knowing that visible light is composed of a spectrum of colors can’t diminish the magical awe of a rainbow as that explanation is just a model. Existentially, all we can know is our own experience. Science gives us models in an attempt to comprehend experience, but they are never the reality. Newton devalued nothing. He merely gave us another myth to appreciate, albeit one with evidence to support it.
_____Let’s try to foster some understanding then. A parasitoid is like a parasite, but it kills its host, like a wasp laying eggs in a caterpillar. Doesn’t that harsh “oid” ending feel like a stinger entering a caterpillar, while also being reminiscent of ovums or eggs? Say it with me now—parasitoid. There now, isn’t that a beautiful word?

John Zaharick