Keep biology weird

Abstract

S cientia vincere tenebras: If Lord Fran-cis Bacon had a Chevy, he might have stuck this Enlightenment motto on the bumper: knowledge prevails over darkness. This vision of the Enlightenment has prevailed and guided scientific research ever since, especially when science, and the life sciences in particular, are called upon to solve the numerous ecological, environmental and health-related problems of our time. In fact, the prefix bio-is being attached to many non-scientific terms: biotechnology, bioengi-neering, (personalized) biomedicine, and bioe-conomy. But what about biology itself? Will it, can it, or should it become a problem-solver or is that a merely utilitarian vision of science? I would suggest another bumper sticker for today's biologists: Keep biology weird. This obviously echoes other stickers such as "Keep Santa Cruz weird" or "Keep Portland weird" that issue calls to local communities for more diversity and less gentrification. I argue that a similar call is important when "societal relevance" informs our views of biology, and which projects merit attention and funding. As I will discuss, the sticker also echoes the current wave of "new weird" fiction and scholarly analyses of the weird, offering new ways to think about the relation between nature and society. Lastly, and most importantly, biologists themselves appreciate weirdness: the surprising observations of how life reacts to different challenges and environments. "You see that? That's weird!" conveys something of a puzzle; something that should not have happened but did.