Ask A Scienceblogger: In Which Jake Says Something Very Trite : Pure Pedantry

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision-making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.

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Ask A Scienceblogger: In Which Jake Says Something Very Trite

Posted on: July 21, 2006 1:10 PM, by NotoriousLTP

If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?...

OK, so this is going to sound incredibly trite, but my answer is right now...

...but I have a reason, and it doesn't involve kittens.

I am happy to be a scientist right now because we are going through an incredible Renaissance in neuroscience. We are beginning to understand the brain in ways that no one ever thought possible, and this understanding is translating -- slowly -- into a real ability to cure patients that were previously incurable. I remember at least some people telling me that wanting to be a neurologist was self-defeating; you can't help any of your patients. That may be true when I start, but I doubt it will be when I finish.

I would analogize this to the revolution in physics that happened at the turn of the last century. Quantum physics, relativity -- these things happened so fast that we are still feeling their consequences. They revolutionized physics to such a degree that you could argue that everything that happened after was just trying to piece them together.

I feel like in my lifetime we will not only be able to cure many brain maladies, but we will develop a great synthesis in which we can fit all our data about brain function. New technologies for imaging, cheaper and cheaper ways to probe genes and molecules, and now neural implants -- this is going to be big, and it is going to happen in the next 20 or 30 years.