Deirdre Bowen - Soft Science?

 

My K-8 Catholic school science fair was the most vicious competition you could ever imagine. Everybody loved to participate in it. And the reason it was probably super competitive was because the school was located just down the street from the National Institute of Health. And employees from NIH came to judge the competition. [audience laughter] As it happened, my dad worked at NIH. Yeah, I know. He's a, to put it mildly, an incredibly competitive overachiever, internationally famous scientist. [audience chuckles] and he was deeply invested in my science fair projects. [audience laughter]

 

Fifth grade was the first year that I was eligible to participate in this project. And he decided what my project fair would be. It involved a monkey skull. [audience chuckles] That's all I remember, because I was the pariah for the rest of the year. My fifth-grade class thought I had killed a monkey. [audience chuckles] I didn't, but maybe my dad did, I'm not sure.

 

So, skip to seventh grade where I've entered my teen years, and felt like I could be myself a little bit more, and I put my foot down and I said, "Dad, I'm going to choose my own science fair project. I'm doing something on dreams." And my dad said, "No, that is soft science. You have to do-- [audience laughter] You have to do a hard science." And I said, "No, I'm doing soft science." [audience chuckles] 

 

So, I did my project on dreams and I didn't do well. Meaning, I got an honorable mention and I didn't win. So, my dad was okay with that, because he was going to use that for leverage in eighth grade when it really mattered. [audience laughter] Eighth grade mattered, because that's when the judges didn't just come by and observe your project, they interviewed you. They grilled you about your methods, your analysis, your results, and conclusion. Yeah, welcome to suburban D.C. [audience chuckles] 

 

So, my dad waited for eighth grade and said, "Okay, what project are you going to do?" And in a political statement, I said, "I'm doing a project on the effects of television on test taking." He said, "Again, that's soft science. You can't do that." And the reason why I chose the television is because he wouldn't let us watch television [audience laughter] ever.

 

So, I went ahead with my project, because it turned out that there were about five or six second graders that lived on my street, and so I drafted these various quizzes and I had them watch a different TV show each day. I got my data, and then I proceeded to do my analysis. But unfortunately, there was a huge outlier. Some of you might be familiar with Jordan Ellenberg, the Wisconsin professor who just wrote New York Times best seller called How to be right about Everything, he was one of my subjects. [audience laughter] 

 

So, the study didn't go quite as planned. But nonetheless, I was still going to present my data in the science fair. So, my dad really, really wanted to be involved and make this connection with me. And the reason was, is that everything my dad touched became a championship affair. I have three brothers. They all played soccer. My dad coached them. They had championship seasons. My sister loves horses. She did competitive horseback riding. He was her coach. She was the champion. 

 

I am neither athletic nor a horse lover, [audience chuckles] so my dad didn't know how to make me a champion. But he did sit me down and attempt to practice with me for this judging interview process. So, Saturday of the science fair came, and the first judge came up to do the interview. I was a nervous wreck. All I wanted to do was get through it. And I did. I breathed a sigh of relief like this. [sighs] At that moment, my dad jumped out from around the corner and said, "Here's everything you did wrong." [audience reaction]

 

So, I listened. I tried really hard to remember everything he said, so that when Judge 2 and Judge 3 came along, I would do better. I did get through Judge 2 and I did get through Judge 3, and I was just so happy to be done. And as the science fair ended, we got in the car and I was just relieved, because my dad wasn't telling me that I did anything wrong anymore. He was just sitting there silently. [audience chuckles] So, I was happy. I was very, very happy.

 

So, you can imagine my surprise on Monday morning, they made the announcement about the saint of the day and her biography. [audience chuckles] They also then announced who had died from the parish over the weekend. [audience chuckles] And then, they announced the science fair winner. It was me. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

And that made me eligible for the county science fair. [audience laughter] I only have five minutes, so I won that one, too. [audience laughter] I also got an award from the National Science Fair Foundation. That was actually a punishment, because I had to go and observe for a full Saturday what they do at the National Science Foundation. [audience chuckles] They only do hard science. [audience laughter] But the best reward was what my father said to me. He said to me, "Out of my five children, you were the only one to defy me, and it was the correct thing to do."