I keep telling those that are clueless about science that those of us who are involved do not really thinking deeply as they can suggest at times. In fact, we think in thin, shallow layers, peeling back one at a time to check the properties that each layer of puzzlement has to see how it fits with the layers we understand. We become involved with those layers when we conduct experiments and those experiments are layered as well as we make lists of things to organize and place them in a controlled risk environment.The result may or may not work out. We can add layers of risk if things do work or we can reexamine the layers we have arranged in the experiment. We may even accept that we have reached a dead end but then we peel back another layer we overlooked that says why.

After all that we can look at the landscape and watch the distance spread its face, inviting us as ocean waves do when they rush toward our feet on shore and then recede. Out there the horizon looks like a place where one can get lost. But lost is where new places are. Lost is where discovery lies. Lost is where we find our friends.