Why Do We Ask ‘Why?’ A Scientist Tries to Pin Down an Elusive Human Trait

One time Charles Darwin put a beetle in his mouth. He was tearing away the bark of a tree, as young biologists are wont to do, when he spotted a couple of beetles. He grabbed one with each hand. Then he saw a third beetle and so, naturally, he put one of the beetles into his mouth for safekeeping. This turned out to be a bad call: “Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one,” he later wrote.

Mario Livio points to this disgusting incident in his new book, Why?: What Makes Us Curious (Simon & Schuster), as an example of “curiosity’s irresistible appeal.” Darwin was simply too fascinated by the beetles to let the third one get away.

Mr. Livio’s wide-ranging book is an attempt to pin down curiosity, a quality that can be hard to define and harder to measure. He does this in part by examining the lives and habits of the famously curious, like Leonardo da Vinci, who once wrote that “the natural desire of good men is knowledge.”

Mr. Livio also digs into the still-budding psychology of curiosity. In 2009 researchers at the California Institute of Technology attempted to discover the neural pathways of curiosity by scanning the brains of subjects while asking them a series of questions. For questions deemed more interesting by participants, certain portions of the prefrontal cortex showed increased blood flow — the same areas that appear to be stimulated by performing rewarding tasks.

Maybe this is proof of the desire Leonardo considered natural.

Mr. Livio is, in some ways, a curious choice to write this book: He is not a historian or a psychologist. He is instead an astrophysicist who, until 2015, worked for the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the Hubble Space Telescope. He has enjoyed a parallel career as the writer of popular books about science and mathematics.

Mr. Livio spoke with The Chronicle about his new book, what makes him curious, and the timeless fascination with the stars. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why Why?

I am just an extremely curious person. I suppose I am more curious than some other people, but I wouldn’t try to claim there aren’t people that are more curious than I am. I have many colleagues who are very interested in their work, and they are curious to find answers to the questions they research, but not much beyond that. But besides my interest in the research that I’ve been doing, I’ve always been very interested in the arts and music. I was very interested in many subjects to the point that it is most likely an obsession.

You write about your “humble” quest to find out more about curiosity. There is something about asking that question that seems childlike. Is an acknowledgment of ignorance a prerequisite for curiosity?

I think that this is the beginning of all scientific quests. We got into the scientific revolution because we suddenly said, “Wait a second, we don’t know all the answers.” We had to start asking why. Even questions like “How do I know that I exist?” This awakening of doubt, and asking why and how, is the beginning of scientific research.

Is Leonardo da Vinci your model for a person on whom nothing is lost, someone who was curious about seemingly everything at the same time?

He really lies at the very extreme edge of the spectrum of curiosity. I am also interested in art, like he was, but he wasn’t just interested in art, he was also this very talented artist. He was talented in engineering, even though he didn’t necessarily build the machines he drew. I have no talent in areas like this.

Is being able to ask the question “Why?” what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom?

We are the only ones who appear to be able to ask those questions, and this may have to do with pure hardware. We have three times more neurons in our cerebral cortex than the next-level animals, and maybe that is required in order to make this jump in abstraction and in trying to understand causes.

Is curiosity a skill that can be developed, or is it more like an inherited trait?

Most psychological traits have a genetic component, so I think there is very little doubt about that. But there is also, on top of that, what parents and teachers do to enhance curiosity in their children. Also, if you create an atmosphere where you ask questions all the time and encourage others to ask questions all the time, and to try to find the answers, that is a culture that enhances curiosity and enhances the possibility of being engaged in scientific research.

Scientists sometimes find out information that the rest of society would rather ignore, or that gets them into trouble with authorities. Is there a danger inherent in curiosity?

Clearly there have been periods in history, and even now, when what scientists find does not exactly agree with the prevailing orthodoxy of the church or of some institution or particular ruler. Galileo, of course, suffered from the Inquisition. There have been very courageous scientists who paid with their life for their ability to express their curiosity. As a scientist, I would like truth to always be revealed, irrespective of what the government or the church says.

Along with Leonardo, you write a lot about Richard Feynman. What is it about him that inspires you?

No problem, for him, was too trivial to address. He tried to deal with some of the fundamental problems in physics, but he tried to apply his knowledge to problems in other fields like biology. His mind was at all times open to seeing the puzzles around him and to trying to solve these problems. That is the most important characteristic of an exceptionally curious person.

How is painting or poetry of use to you as a scientist?

We basically look at the universe around us and we try to find explanations for phenomena. Usually these explanations are in the form of some mathematical laws that we formulate. Artists do something that is almost exactly complementary to this. They look at the universe around them and they don’t explain it, but they give their emotional response to it. In both cases it’s the response of the human to his or her surroundings.

The song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” — one of the first that most children learn — is about wondering what stars are. So, you’re an astrophysicist. Why are we so curious about the stars?

The fact is that from the very early humans, they were fascinated by the stars. There are all these little lights in the sky, and they twinkle and they turn different colors, and all children are fascinated by them. We see a face in the surface of the moon. As a very small child, I was intrigued by the fact that I could walk a long distance and it appears that the moon goes with me. I found that very puzzling at first. Just think how many poems and paintings there are about the stars.

What are you most curious about?

I’m still most curious about scientific questions that we have so far been unable to answer. I wonder whether we will find a quantum theory of gravity. I wonder if we will understand the nature of dark energy in a satisfying manner. Is there really a multiverse, and will we ever be able to prove that our universe is only one member of a huge ensemble of universes? At the same time, there are fields that are outside my expertise. But in writing this book, I have become curious about consciousness in general. We still don’t know how the brain works.

Is there anything you’re not curious about?

Everything is interesting if you look into it deeply enough. You can take the tearing of paper. When you really look into the physics of the tearing of paper, you find there are all kinds of interesting questions there that can be asked, and some of them can be answered. So I hesitate to say that there are things that bore me.

But I cannot say I follow what happens in the financial world that closely, except to the extent that it affects my 401(k).

Tom Bartlett is a senior writer who covers science and other things. Follow him on Twitter @tebartl.