I intentionally avoid this discussion of how or when I knew that being a scientist was right for me. The reason is because the answer, while truthful and kind of humorous, is not the stuff of learned scientific careers. In fact some might call it somewhat nefarious.

I was always interested in science, medicine biology and technology as a child. I remember receiving a microscope, chemistry set, electronics kits etc for gifts. These were always things I asked for. I would play with them and eventually broke the microscope trying to take it apart. Actually taking it apart was easy. Putting it back together never resulted in the same device. By many accounts I was regarded by most parents as a ‘good boy’ and not a trouble maker. I did however associate with some kids who were often, the subject of parental ire. On occasion when I was embroiled in the mischief of youth, I seemed to have a knack for talking my way out of a situation and avoid trouble. Let me explain. Say for example something turned up broken at home. With three kids, my parents would interrogate us to find out who was responsible for the damage. In this example, I with some other boys who came over to play did the damage. I would see and know the evidence that my parents had and would weave a story accounting for those observations while completely exonerating myself from any wrong doing. My brother and sister would often end up getting in trouble for my deeds after I had thoroughly lied to my parents.

While I am not proud of my exploits I did realize that I had a skill that was useful to a little boy, but hardly a career skill. I did however have aspirations in science and I learned about research including things like; hypothesis testing and research questions. It turns out that if you have a bunch of data or preliminary evidence; you can form a hypothesis and test it by asking a research question. The hypothesis is a statement that fits the currently known data. A scientist will use the information available to him or her to hypothesize that bacteria causes a disease. This is based on available facts showing bacteria are found in sick humans and an absence of bacteria in healthy people. The research question would be, ‘if I give the bacteria to a healthy person will they become sick?’ We all know the answer is yes bacteria, say e-coli, causes diarrhea but I came to realize that my apparent ability to make up alternate stories of the evidence my parents had was like forming a hypothesis for my parents by taking the events into account.

Outside of excuses to parents, I started to try to explain things based on circumstantial evidence I was acquiring. I remember telling my mother that cooking food didn’t just dry it out but changed the food. Curious as to how I came to this conclusion she asked me where that factoid came from. I proudly brought her to my room and showed her a cooked and dried hamburger that I had procured from a recent outdoor barbeque from the previous weekend – this was days ago – and an uncooked hamburger patty sitting in a corner of my closet. The cooked one was dry and hard like a hockey puck and the uncooked patty was a festering mush. Much to my chagrin my mother threw away my experiment.

Undaunted this curiosity to try to explain things helped me in science classes because it helped me deduce what the teachers were saying. The science had to make sense because all those things are related and seemed logical to me. In advanced science classes in college and graduate school I eschewed memorization and worked hard to make sense of the data the professors gave me. This helped me learn the material because it all became a story to me and not random facts.

I believe that I have succeeded, and continue to succeed, in science because science and medicine make sense to me. I try to see all the distinct observations and put them together to make a story. Much like the stories I told my parents. My experiments are more elegant than drying hamburger but the same curiosity is there. I do regret being a vessel causing my siblings to be blamed for things I did, but it did give me a skill that I have used for 20 years. I started as a liar; then a story teller and now tell stories and do research to prove those stories to the research community. So if your kid makes up a story and a lie to get out of trouble, congratulations you may have a budding scientist on your hands. Sorry mom and dad.