Faith in the Workplace

Most research scientists follow the academic track. Not Dr. John Medina. This graphics designer and animator turned teacher, scientist, and consultant says he is content to be a hired gun.

Medina underestimates the power of his own enthusiasm, though—which includes the conversational speed of a machine gun. "As a consultant, I just look at other people's data," he explains. "Then I'll say, 'Gee whiz, that is interesting! Let's explore it some more!' " Just such a moment of brazen curiosity led to Dr. Medina's address before the National Governors Association in 2000. His speech, "Why I Don't Believe in the First Grade," eventually led to the central concepts driving the Talaris Research Institute .

Dr. John Medina has spent most of his professional life working as a private consultant to the biotech industry, while at the same time holding academic appointments at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Pacific University. He has been the recipient of the Merrill Dow/Continuing Medical Education National Teacher of the Year award and author of several books including Clock of Ages and The Genetic Inferno: Inside the Seven Deadly Sins.

At a recent Laity Lodge retreat, Dr. Medina talked with TheHighCalling.org about how he serves God in his scientific career.

You've been running Talaris Research for the past several years. Now that you've moved on, can you summarize your work there?

Let me tell you about the success that doomed my work at Talaris. We know that the amount of marital conflict goes way up in the first six months of having a baby. Having a baby is traumatic. We call it the fog of toddlerhood in the lab.

One of the best things we did at Talaris was to partner with John Gottman, famous for his marriage research using "the Love Lab." John was asking, "What would happen to a baby's developing nervous system if he stabilized the marriage while the couple were pregnant?"

That experiment, the "Bringing Baby Home Project," worked like a son of a gun and doomed our other research efforts. When it worked, the board unanimously decided, "Nope, we're not going to do anymore research projects. We're going to start implementing."

Once the research ended, your role ended?

They asked me to help with implementation and marketing. But I'm a researcher, not a marketing guy. They already have all the marketing geniuses they need.

I still advise them once a month. But I have to stay true to myself—I believe in curiosity as opposed to success.

Tell me more about curiosity versus success. Those two ideas don't necessarily seem like opposites.

They can be mutually exclusive. They don't have to be.

Still, I have seen so many people get caught in the middle-class vortex. They get very successful, and then they lose their intellectual edge.

I see that especially in the sciences. Some people will accomplish certain goals, like getting tenure or even getting a Nobel prize, and they stop working. Can't paint everyone with that broad brush, of course, but I have seen it happen too many times not to be afraid of it.

They must view their work as just a means to an end.

Right. Their pinnacle of success destroys their curiosity. That's what I mean.

Curiosity means more to me than I can tell you. It even influences my theology. If you are curious enough about your origins, you'll bump face-to-face with Jesus Christ—because nobody else is out there.

Curiosity has the strong ability to make you look at the world with wide-eyed wonder and say, "Man, how was this made?"

Who taught you to look at the world with wide-eyed wonder?

My mother. When I was little, she would track my interests. If I was interested in dinosaurs, she'd fill a whole room with dinosaurs. She was a fourth-grade teacher, so she had manipulatives and posters and toys. She'd cook dinosaur food. She even taught me how to make ugly noises with my armpits. My mother! Because she thought it sounded like dinosaurs. They're air breathing, and their cranial vaults might have made sounds like that. Isn't it great?

When I was sick of dinosaurs, down they'd come. And my mother would wait, lurking like the most wonderful vulture you'll ever want, watching for my next interest.

This happened for years until I got the message. Learning is everything.

When you are curious, you become fearless. You don't care what's out there. You just want to know.

But faith is about believing in something you can never know for certain. Do you think that is why our culture still considers science and Christianity to be mutually exclusive?

When I was fourteen, I thought that way too. I said, "Mom, I no longer believe in God."

She said, "All right." Like it was normal. Like I just stubbed my toe.

The next day she hands me this book. "John," she says, "You have now become an atheist. Is that right?"

I said, "Yeah mom, I don't buy this Jesus stuff."

She said, "Well, if you are going to be an atheist, do it the best you can. Here, son, is a book by Frederick Nietzche called Twilight of the Idols. Bon appetit."