Summary
Kayla Bordelon grew up thinking she didn't have a brain for science. Charts and numbers were indecipherable to her, and Latin names of plants and animals seemed irrelevant to her life. Instead, she was drawn to the humanities, where human experiences were front and center, and emotions had a place in the discussion.
Then, something happened that would unlock a part of her she didn't know existed.
On this episode, Kayla shares her story. It's a story that takes us from the Oregon coast to a remote river in Idaho, and it explores the boundaries between "science people" and the rest of us. Are we predestined to become one type or the other, or is there more to the equation? And what do we miss out on when we give up on science?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors. |
| 0:17.1 | Before we get started today, I have a quick announcement to make. |
| 0:20.5 | If you've been listening to our |
| 0:21.8 | advice segment, we would love to hear what you think of it. We put together a brief survey, which you |
| 0:27.0 | can find at our website, out therepodcast.com. It'll only take you about a minute to complete the |
| 0:32.5 | survey, and it'll help us figure out whether to continue producing dear nature, and if so, what we should change about it. |
| 0:39.3 | Also, to sweeten the deal a bit, if you complete the survey, we'll enter you into a drawing for some sweet out there gear. Many of us think of science as something rigid, intellectual, unemotional. |
| 1:12.6 | We consider beautiful sunsets to be art and bar graphs to be science. |
| 1:17.6 | And we assume that there are two types of people in the world, the math and science people and the rest of us. |
| 1:24.6 | But how true is that, really? |
| 1:28.0 | Are we predestined to be one type or the other, |
| 1:31.1 | or is there more to the story? |
| 1:33.4 | Today's episode takes us from the Oregon coast |
| 1:36.1 | to a remote river in Idaho |
| 1:37.9 | and takes a look at what we miss out on |
| 1:40.6 | when we give up on science. |
| 1:42.9 | Kayla Bordelan has the story. |
| 1:47.0 | I remember as a child lying face down on the rocks of the Oregon coast, blonde hair drifting on the surface of a tide pool. |
| 1:59.0 | I brushed my finger against the tentacles of a purple anemone for the thrill of being briefly |
| 2:05.6 | stuck, like a fly in a spider web. |
| 2:08.6 | The anemone closed around my finger, transformed from this purple flower to a green lump, |
| 2:14.6 | as I pulled my finger loose just in time. |
... |
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