Turning to Science

D o you want your child to grow up to be a scientist? If so, then by all means follow the roadmaps set down by the 27 scientists who contributed their personal histories to John Brockman's Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist. You could do worse than start with a family history rich in science, like Nicholas Humphrey whose grandfather, Nobel laureate A. V. Hill, remembers being startled by a solar eclipse while out rabbit hunting as a boy in England and having the presence of mind to smear the rabbit's blood over the glass from his pocket watch in order to watch the phenomenon in safety. Or, if you don't have a healthy lineup of scientifi c superstars in your family history, you could educate yourself about the wonders of science, like Murray Gell-Man's autodidactic father, and insist that your son at least try majoring in physics before settling on linguistics or archaeology. If you cannot be inspired to teach yourself quantum physics, you might also try the more commonplace achievement of a bad marriage to create an unstable emotional life for your daughter, so she might retreat into " solitary and bookish tendencies, " as the evolutionist Lynn Margulis did. Perhaps you cannot bring yourself to actively steer your child into science, but hope this book might guide you to at least watch for the signs of future genius. You might watch for a young Freeman Dyson in his crib, bored by the stuffed animals and mobiles, occupying his time by adding infi nite series of fractions. Or you might watch for your daughter sneaking into your study to read your medical reference books on the sly, as Janna Levin did before ultimately becoming a professor of physics. Then again, you could watch for your son to emulate David Buss by reaching high for a C+ grade point average in school, indulging in recreational drugs, and taking a night shift job at a truck stop, before a scientifi cally minded girlfriend and a fortuitous lottery-based scholarship to the University of Texas turned him to the pursuit of evolutionary psychology. The pattern is clear: there is no pattern. And the book's strong contingent of psychologists is not shy about commenting on the dubious reliability of self-narrative. Steven Pinker writes, " Don't believe a word of what you read in this essay on the childhood infl uences that …