But What's in Your Heart?!

A plaintive cry I hear with regrettable frequency from non-science/non-math types is that we are all heartless. “But what’s really in your heart?!” they whine. Today, I’ll show you.

What’s in my heart

The claim that STEM types, or really just quantitative folk, are just coldly logical robots with no hearts is widespread. A lot of it is just nerd-shaming that has been non-stop since grade school. Some of it is just shame at their own inability to appreciate what we practice.

Occasionally, your better educated sort of critic (alas, nonetheless bereft of critical thinking skills) will invoke the Romantic school of poetry. Whereupon I can engage by asking their opinion of Byron’s Manfred. ^[1] (I tend to read Manfred when I get deeply depressed. If you see me doing that, gently distract me.) This, of course, never helps, since they cannot fathom that I know Byron, Shelley, and Yeats at least somewhat. (Also, minor-league fan of Dante.)

Also, an appeal to reason is no help with such creatures. Having arrived at their erroneous position by a mechanism other than reason, they cannot be dislodged therefrom by means of reason.

So I occasionally attempt ridicule.

Here’s what’s actually in my heart, much like the headshot previously requested. (Click to embiggen.)

As you can see, my heart is full of cardiac tissue, nerve tissue, vascular tissue, blood, and miscellaneous other things (because nothing is ever allowed to be simple, especially biology).

Lest you deem my opinion worthless, the radiologist’s opinion was:

Normal chest. … The lungs are clear. The heart size is within normal limits.

The Weekend Publisher, as you can see, is also unconcerned.

So there: that’s what’s in my (normal-sized) heart!

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Notes & References

1: George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Manfred: A Dramatic Poem”, John Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1817-Jun. ↩