Amy Lu's View

I don’t think of myself as a terribly sciency person, but I literally have a Masters degree in Science, so I can celebrate that on this International Day of Women and Girls in Science. 

It’s a Master of Arts degree in Library and Information Science, but the word “science” is there. 

Despite it being my profession, I’ve never thought too hard about or really understood what the “science” aspect of Library and Information is supposed to be. Plus, having a Master of Arts in Science feels rather confusing, although I do like the idea of something being an art and a science. I tend to frequently use the “It’s an art not a science” aphorism at work to describe how there isn’t a precise formula or set of directions for handling a situation, but it may be better to think of most things as an art and a science, needing to be both prescriptive and open-ended. Not that art and science are a dichotomy, but I often use the words as shorthands to describe approaches and orientations with different focuses.

I’m definitely pro-science–especially in the global warming is real, vaccines are good, i.e. contemporary “liberal” sense. (Although liberals can get science wrong, too, or not adapt when science’s understanding of something changes). 

I’m also pro-science in the “science is cool” way. I love thinking about mind-bending ideas like the multiverse, dark matter, the mycelium network–concepts that usually end up as fodder for sci-fi entertainment. I don’t fully understand these ideas–I tend to just have a cursory understanding and glom onto what makes me feel intrigued, amazed, comforted, awestruck–often a spiritual response. When my mom was dying, I was moved and consoled by a book by physicist Paul Davies that I think had something to do with universal consciousness and time. 

I do worry that I’m not respecting the integrity of science or being intellectually honest–I just blithely take some vague “science” notions that make me feel good and get all woo–woo with them. But I’m okay with some fuzzy pseudo-science thinking as long as I’m not trying to make health decisions or advocate for policy change based on it. The most detrimental consequence of my love of pop culture science is I amass a lot of reading that I never get around to. 

I also tend to blog about topics I’m not really informed on, but blogging is definitely an art and a science.