What do you want to be when you grow up?

David Ng is asking if biologists have physics envy, which is both a common and a peculiar question (short answer: no, physicists should have biology envy). Then he follows up with a few brief questions to determine if scientists are actually pining away, wishing they’d gone into some different field … and here are my answers.

1. What’s your current scientific specialty?

Developmental biology.

2. Were you originally pursuing a different academic course? If so, what was it?

I started my undergraduate career with a general interest in marine biology, but quickly focused on neurobiology and development as more interesting problems (but not more interesting environments or organisms!) I went into graduate school thinking neuroscience was the bee’s knees, but again shifted focus to more development — starting from a developmental perspective was the practical way to approach the complexity of the nervous system. Now I also think it is the practical way to approach the complexity of metazoan evolution. Actually, I’m with D’Arcy Thompson that “everything is the way it is because it got that way” and that development is the lens we should use to examine everything. The process is all.

3. Do you happen to wish you were involved in another scientific field? If so, what one?

Yes, all of them.

Well, all of the biological disciplines, anyway. The problem is that I tend to think of mathematics, physics, and chemistry as subsets of biology, so they all tend to get sucked into my domain of desired knowledge.

On the other hand, maybe my answer should be “no.” My interests are my interests, and I’m currently free to pursue them exactly as I will, so I can’t quite imagine changing who I am. If I were to switch to another scientific field it would only be because I saw it as a useful tool to better understand the process of development.

Go ahead, everyone, answer the questions yourselves. If you aren’t a scientist, you can still always answer questions 2 and 3 (hint: the correct answer to #3 will always be some variant of evo-devo. Different answers will be marked down accordingly.)

A day on the town

Skatje has posted photos from our zoo trip yesterday, and they include the scariest butterfly you’ll ever see. It’ll give you nightmares.

We also visited the Pike Place Market, among other things. We have now discovered the secret way to Skatje’s heart, for all of you fanbois out there: “bright orange pants up to his nipples”. I was wondering how he talked her into actually trying some smoked salmon.

Our Friday itinerary

Here are our goals for today:

  • We’re going to spend the morning screwing around downtown, and are going to be at the Seattle Center International Fountain around noon.

  • Skatje wants to go to the zoo, so we’ll do that in the afternoon. Then around sixish we’ll be peckish and I tried to find a place not far from Woodland Park, and could not resist the idea of the Jolly Roger Taproom in Ballard. So that’s where we’ll try to be.

Keep in mind we’ll be stumbling about in an unfamiliar city and struggling to find parking, so timeliness is unlikely to be one of our virtues.

Oh, no…of all the blue-nosed asinine laws. We showed up at the pub, and unfortunately, absolutely no minors are even allowed inside, lest they might see an adult consuming a beverage that contains 3% alcohol. This put us in a spot, and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t quite persuade myself that I could sit inside and meet a few nice people while my daughter (who is chronologically only almost 17) sat outside on the sidewalk. So my apologies to any of you who might have showed up earlier this evening.

Will they come when you do call for them?

We’re scatter-brained touristas on vacation, so pinning us down to specific times and places is hard. However, we are going to be puttering about in downtown Seattle on Friday, and I think we can commit to one thing: lunch! We’re going to pop into the Food Court at Seattle Center House around noon, and since it promises to be a gorgeous sunny day, we’ll then hang out around the International Fountain, where I will practice calling spirits from the vasty deep.

I still have to get the family to agree to evening plans, and some of my party absolutely refuse to have anything to do with heaping platters of marine invertebrates, which complicates matters. If we can agree on something ahead of time (feel free to make suggestions), I’ll mention our Friday evening plans here, too.

DL Overload

Whoa…there were a lot of people at Drinking Liberally last night, and I was rather overwhelmed with all of the introductions. How about if attendees use this thread to tell everyone and remind me of who you are—pass along links to your Seattle blog, too, or give us links to pictures.

It was a great evening, and the only blemish is that there are now about 50 more people who know that I’m not ten feet tall and that I don’t breathe fire.

You’re all going to be jealous as you learn who I met last night — the accounts (and photos) are trickling in. Other people at DL were:

We really are in Seattle

We made it safe and sound to Sea-Tac late last night, and bright and early this morning we made a quick trip to the local grocery store to stock up on breakfast supplies, and we discovered that we really are in Seattle.

The grocery carts had cup-holders.

And of course there was a Starbucks inside the grocery store.

PZ is in Seattle

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Yes, I am away for this week — I’m off wearing flannel, listening to grunge, and drinking coffee as I chop down trees in the rain (did I miss any stereotypes?). Updates to Pharyngula will still happen, though, so don’t abandon me completely. They will be more sporadic, but when they do happen, they will be pungent with the tang of Puget Sound, soaring like the majestic Cascades, and as affectionate and cuddly as the banana slug. Or not. Check below to see if anything new trickles in.

And if the content sucks, tough. I’m having fun!

A very tentative Seattle itinerary

Lots of people want to say hello on my trip to Seattle next week, so I thought I’d better let you all know the public parts of my itinerary. This is mainly a trip to relax, eat seafood, meet family and old friends, so there’s a problem of priorities. Most of my time will be spent a bit further south than the Big City—my family lives in Auburn, and I grew up in Kent—so these are tentative times and places where I’ll be available in metropolitan Seattle. I might have to revise my schedule if family events come up—if I do, though, I’ll mention it on the blog.

Sunday, 1 July, 3:00-8:00: I’ll be at the Seattle Freethinkers’ Picnic in Woodinville. I don’t know that I’ll stay there the whole time, though, and might head back early. First day back in the Northwest with Mommy and my baby brothers and sisters, don’t you know.

Tuesday, 3 July, 8:00: I’m planning on dropping in on the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, at the Montlake Ale House, and which is hosted by Nicholas Beaudrot and somebody named TheHim. As usual, I’m driving a ways to attend a Drinking Liberally meeting, so I’ll have to go easy on the Drinking part and get a double-helping of Liberally.

Friday, 6 July, whenever: We’re just going to indulge in downtown Seattle — cruise the bookstores, maybe hit up the aquarium, see the tourist traps (Ye Olde Curiosity Shop still exists, I presume? Maybe we’ll stop by Seattle Center and stare up at the Space Needle), Pike Place Market, the University district, etc. We’ll need to fuel up at lunch, so there’s an opportunity to catch up with us there, and we’ll definitely want a leisurely evening meal where we can rest our tired feet. I’ll try to name some specific places from the previous Seattle thread when the date gets a little closer—but basically we’ll be somewhere in center city Seattle.

I was also hoping to get a picture taken of me peeing on the Discovery Institute’s building downtown, but I hear that’s illegal nowadays (I also hear they have cement sidewalks instead of wooden slats, and the streets are paved; everything has changed since my youth), so I may have to settle for merely shaking my fist at it and scowling ferociously.