Lauren Grodstein - The Explanation for Everything

“But that’s horrible !” Nina said. “Oh, don’t go on. I can’t bear it. Two-year-olds? I just can’t bear it.”

“Nina gets very exercised,” said Nina’s husband, the orthopedist, and then he kissed his drunk vegan wife on the head, and this was the moment that Andy realized it was late, his head was pounding, he really had to go.

“So many parents have no idea how to handle their kids’ oral health.” Sheila put down her ice water, made a large gesture with her hands. “You ask them if they brush their kids’ teeth, they say no, they let their kids do it themselves. I’m like, great, I’m all for self-directed kids, but you’re talking toddlers! Twenty months old, they know how to brush their own teeth?”

“Can you see it?” asked Nina. “When you look in their mouths?”

“Of course!” Sheila laughed. “Brown teeth, soft spots. You want to shake these parents, you really do. And then the best one, one time we find a two-year-old with eleven cavities. So clearly, the kid’s going to need anesthesia, which is a major thing on a small child, and probably at least one root canal—and then he comes back for a follow up visit and he’s drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola !”

“No!” said Nina and Linda as one.

“I swear. Our receptionist wanted to call the authorities.”

“I can’t say I blame her!” Nina said. “I would have called them myself!”

“Except it’s not a crime to give a kid a bottle of Coke.”

“Under some circumstances,” Nina said. “Under some circumstances it certainly is a crime.”

“Nina believes in the nanny state,” said her husband.

“I’m just reasonable,” Nina said. “I’m sorry, but I think I’m just a reasonable person.” She flushed. Sheila was nodding her head in agreement, pouring herself more ice water.

“Well, it’s probably time to get going.”

Nina looked alarmed. “Andy, Andy, you can’t leave! We haven’t even talked about you yet.”

“What is there to say?” He pushed back his chair but did not stand.

“Did you know,” Linda asked, addressing the table, picking up her glass as though she were about to give a toast, “did you know that Andy here is sponsoring an independent study with some student on—get this— intelligent design ? I couldn’t believe it. The paperwork came by my desk just the other week. ”

“You’re kidding,” said Nina. “An independent study in ID? But is that even science?”

“That’s what I thought. I thought, Andy, is this even science?”

“It’s a route to science,” Andy said. “It’s a…,” and this was where he relented, poured himself a final half glass, “it’s a pathway to talk about real issues in evolution,” he said. “So that she’ll have to confront the full scope of the science.”

“Who’s the student?”

“Melissa Potter. She’s a community college transfer.”

“What would your old friend Rosenblum say to that?” Nina asked, chuckling. “To you taking on a community college student’s work on intelligent design? I bet Rosenblum would be very annoyed.” Nina had met Rosenblum once twenty years ago at a book signing and still liked to talk about the meeting, her momentary encounter with infamy.

“Actually, he’d love it,” Andy said. “And she’s not in community college anymore. She’s one of ours.”

“Oh, but Andy, honestly,” Nina said. “I mean, honestly. ”

“Melissa Potter?” George wondered, aloud. “Do I know her?”

“Big girl,” Marty said. “I’ve seen her.”

“Well, don’t you think she’ll come around?” Linda said. She reached, with her fingers, for a scrap of Jane Reuben’s sugar-glazed orange cake.

Andy knew he should bid his leave, but didn’t. “What do you mean?”

“She’ll separate truth from fiction,” Linda said. She leaned back in her brocade chair, expansive, chewing on cake. Her husband gazed at her adoringly. “Don’t you think you’ll be able to open her eyes to see the world as it is? Not the world she wants it to be? I mean, I think that’s your responsibility as her teacher, Andy. She’s old enough to stop believing in fairy tales. And you’re such a good teacher. You can get her to stop believing in that garbage.”

His head pounded. The buried sizzle of heartburn. “But it’s not garbage—it’s not a fairy tale to her.”

“Garbage, bullshit, pick your terms,” said Linda. “I prefer fairy tale. That the world was created in seven days, etcetera, etcetera.”

Though Sheila kept a pleasant smile plastered on her face, he could tell she was lost. Weren’t they just talking about dentition? She took frequent, anxious sips of her ice water.

“It just—I don’t think it helps to call it a fairy tale,” Andy said. “She has done a lot of research into irreducible complexity, Behe’s work in the theory.”

Sheila fiddled with her bracelet. “Sheila, that’s the idea,” Linda said, kindly, “that certain organisms are so complex that they couldn’t have developed generation after generation, via selective pressure. According to this guy Behe, a scientist out of—where is he, Nina?”

“Lehigh.”

“Lehigh!” Linda snorted. “A legit school! Anyway, this guy proposes that a particular part of a kind of bacteria contains parts that would be useless on their own, and therefore would never have arisen independently. The flagellum had to be designed, he said, because it’s too complex to have come about via evolution.”

“Oh,” Sheila said.

“It’s nonsense, of course. Total crapola, as they say. But reassuring to the Jesus crowd, I suppose. Lehigh! Amazing.”

“You’re really supporting this student’s research?” asked Marty, pouring himself another. He was growing out his beard, gray-striped, like a skunk. “Do you think that’s morally sound?”

“Of course I do,” Andy said, trying to keep the peevishness from his voice. “Why wouldn’t I? How could it be unsound to support a student’s inquiry into—anything? Isn’t the point that she’s inquiring? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yes, but for her to inquire into a belief system rather than a scientifically provable theory—at the very least, it seems a waste of time,” Marty said. He stroked his fledgling beard.

“Look, the fact that she wants to research an avenue of science seems laudable to me. Besides, she believes what she believes, and if we demean it—”

“Of course she believes it,” Linda said, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t lead her to the truth. You’re such a sweet guy, Andy. You respect your students, which is great. But you’re a biology professor, first and foremost. It is your job to inform the students about the realities of biology.”

“Your realities,” Andy said.

“What? No,” Linda said. “The realities. This isn’t subjective, Andy. You know that, right? Science is objective? As is the truth?”

“I—sure,” he said. He knew science was objective, and that truth was objective, but what every person needed to get through their lives—that was not quite as black-and-white. “Listen, I better get going,” he said. “Sheila needs to get back.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, but Andy—you didn’t finish your cake! Let me wrap up some for you, for the girls. Sheila, could I get you some to take home?” and before he could stop her Jane Reuben was up and bustling, the conversation was once again bustling, Linda was pontificating about something new but still she stopped for a second to give Andy what seemed to be a distinctly wary eye.

“Before you go, just tell me—you aren’t going to validate Melissa Potter’s intelligent design crap, are you, Andy? Irreducible complexity?” Linda said. “You’re not going to stamp that crap with department approval, are you?”