Genes, Interests, Professions, and Cultures

As a kid, I was always attracted to the sciences because I loved how they provided seemingly black and white answers to many of the world’s questions. When I started thinking about what I wanted to do in college, I realized that physics was way too mathy for me (not saying I’m terrible at math, it’s just not my cup of tea) and biology seemed too big picture. I settled on chemistry since it was a good middle ground--I could still potentially unlock some of the fundamental underpinnings of the world around us through experimentation. This is where the First Law of Behavioral Genetics that Pinker described comes into play. I feel like “you will become a chemist” was never explicitly written on my genes, but rather, my genes were encoded with inherited traits that led me to chemistry (specifically organic chemistry--analytical chemistry was too finicky, physical chemistry was still too mathy, and I didn’t find out about inorganic chemistry until I was already well into my career as an organic chemist).

Perhaps the most important trait that I inherited was the love and dedication to create things. My favorite possession as a kid was was my Lego collection. Origami was a hobby of mine ever since early elementary school. I even pursued music through my sophomore year in college. I loved how I could take something--a set of bricks, a square sheet of paper, a hollowed out piece of wood with keys on it--and somehow build a spaceship, fold a pegasus, and play Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1. Chemists spend a great deal of time creating models to study the phenomena that they’re interested in. My dive into chemistry was, and still is, a logical jump.

One day while I was home for the winter break of my sophomore year, my dad gave me an inch-thick book bound in a cloth cover. On the spine was printed “PhD Thesis Chien-Pen Lo.” Imagine my surprise when I opened the PhD thesis of my grandfather, whom I barely remember, and found yellowed type-written pages inscribed with the structures of organic compounds! Not only did I choose to pursue chemistry like my grandfather, I also unknowingly chose to specialize in the same branch of chemistry as him: organic chemistry. I clearly inherited many of the traits that led me to organic chemistry from him.

Although I was initially attracted to chemistry by my inherited traits, my sustained dedication to it is definitely a result of cultural influences. I come from a Chinese family and grew up, as Lewontin concisely puts it, with a “cultural tradition that places emphasis on scholarship.” As a child, I got the sense that it was my duty to my family to do well in school (I wasn’t even allowed to get a job because my dad thought it would interfere with my school work). I still feel this duty today, and I’ve dropped playing my clarinet so I can dedicate more time to my research project. A lot of people say “oh, that’s too bad” to me when I tell them this, but I have absolutely no regrets in my choice. I love chemistry so much more than I ever loved my clarinet.

Additionally, being labeled as organic chemist has created a semantic contagion-esque image that I strive to fulfill. Out of all the varieties of chemists, organic chemists are notorious for dedicating countless hours in their labs. Heck, even yesterday (Saturday) I didn’t have any second thoughts about spending 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. in my lab--I was even sort of proud for doing it because it was like an initiation to an elusive group of people. I’ve also grown to loathe, like the rest of my lab, the demeaning safety inspectors that periodically come by (how dare they tell us what we can or can’t do when they don’t even know the first thing about the chemicals that we’re working with?).

I believe that not everything in our lives is predetermined by our genes. They do provide us with characteristics that initially guide us to our professions; however, the influence of our genes stops there. The rest of our lives are determined by the cultures that we surround ourselves in. We are slates that are only half-written on.