filed in Happy Ever After
All You Need is Love (all together now)
A few days after posting The Benefit of Awe, I decided to get in touch with Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and “Chief Scientific Advisor” to Chemistry.com to learn more about her point of view. Here’s our unedited email exchange:
Hi Dr. Fisher,
I heard you speaking on Larry Mantle’s show on KPCC yesterday morning. And it really surprised me to hear you use the term “life’s greatest prize,” when referring to finding an appropriate mate.I looked online at a number of your talks, and saw that this is a phrase you’ve used before, so it must be something you believe in. To suggest that there is an ULTIMATE prize (and it’s about mating), is to diminish the complexity of modern life.
I’d really appreciate hearing you expound on this (and so would my readers).
Thanks so much.
Dr. Fisher’s reply:
Wendy, from a Darwinian perspective, the ability to find an appropriate mate with whom to reproduce provides one with the opportunity to send one’s DNA on into tomorrow. That is, genetically speaking, survival. I am fully aware that life is full of tremendous richness and complexity. Life would be even richer if people like you weren’t hostile.. Helen fisher.
(Image: Matters of the Heart)
Why It’s Great to Be Single on Valentines Day. Reason #9 (of 10) from Jen M:
“I think we should just let them have this one, the couples. Being in a relationship is a lot of work. So, they take a day to honor themselves and the love they have for each other. It’s important, because when you’re in a relationship it’s easy to forget that that’s what it’s all ultimately about: making your lives better and more enjoyable because you’re there to love and support each other. My friend in AA says that being in a relationship is like pouring Miracle Grow on your character defects. And that’s my experience. I feel perfectly sane until I begin to entwine my life with someone else and then I realize some of the demons I thought I’d ousted have just been lying dormant. The benefits of happy coupledom are plenty, but so is the work getting and staying there. Hats off to them. I try to see Valentine’s Day like Mother’s Day. I don’t lament the fact that I’m not getting breakfast in bed because I’m not a mother.”
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Wow, Wendy, what a stunningly nasty reply by Helen Fisher to your very polite question. Says a lot about her.
Bella DePaulo
Wow–my admiration for Helen Fisher just got thrown out the window! I thought you sent a very respectful (and benign) message. I guess she’s gone from being a researcher to a shill for Chemistry.com. Sad.
I’m positively aghast that Helen Fisher felt your e-mail was hostile. It seems so genuinely inquisitive to me. (Maybe she read my post — which was a little hostile. I had thought, in retrospect, that I was being a little reactionary in my comments about Helen, but seeing her response to your e-mail makes me think that I was presciently insightful.)
While I certainly have moments of personal woe regarding being a genetic loser (and can beat myself up quite well about it without anyone’s help) I think that to limit our purpose here to the propagation of our genes is shortsighted. I can’t imagine Darwin would agree. Darwin’s ideas have had a profound influence on our culture and thinking and I have no idea if he even had children — because nobody cares. As humans, our power extends beyond mere biology. Great thinkers and doers have influence on our culture and our future far beyond their progeny. (And I would argue, that because we are a connected community, how we feel and behave daily has far reaching consequences whether we want it to or not.)
But who would want to stop there? Doesn’t my own experience count? Someone can argue that my worth has to do with my contribution to the group, but how ridiculous when I am me! I matter — to me. I am alive and conscious of my own experience. I might write a great love poem and never share it with anyone. That does not take away from my experience writing the poem. I’m no expert on this, but I think it’s hard to have a strictly biological take on existence when you acknowledge human consciousness.
“People like you”? We all know exactly what she means, and it’s an absolutely awful response. Everyone also knows that landing a gig like this is the stuff that PhD students’ dreams are made of . . . no wonder she’s defensive. (Am I right about the PhD part? She’s not an actual M.D., right? ) Nice post!
Not into mate hunting? You must be hostile! What matrimanical illogic…
There is so much more to evolutionary theory nowadays that spreading your genes… There’s a whole branch on how ideas spread, which according to some evolutionary biologists might even be more important now than genes (for example, Richard Dawkins who coined the term “meme” and has a rather scathing few pages in his book The Selfish Gene about overpopulation…)
I too am shocked by her rudeness!
I’m stunned by Dr. Fisher’s response. Her oversimplification of the question and response, as well as the projection of her own hostility on you seems incredibly unprofessional and damaging to her credibility. If I reacted that way every time someone questioned something I said, I would not have a job.
Chers!
I must add my shock at the Dr’s response to your question – as someone in the midst of ending 22 years with my ‘life’s greatest prize” I was quite interested in her response. And truly, she made no sense and was unbelievably rude. Keep up the great work – your site is an inspiration to me. I especially love the article 40 reasons to be glad about being single and I read it often to remind myself that all is well and that loving myself is my ‘greatest prize” this year, xx Deborah
[…] implication of women outnumbering men on college campuses (from our friends at Onely), a brief, heart-stopping exchange about “life’s greatest prize” from the ever-insightful Wendy Braitman at First Person Singular, and Rachel’s […]
Fine. I’ll say it. What a bitch! Seriously? That’s her response? I thought your questions was totally appropriate and I too was interested in hearing what she had to say.
She can go take a flying leap off the Grand Canyon sans parachute. Jerk.
Who’s hostile? Fisher’s hostile.
I did not find your email rude, hostile or aggressive at all. It’s unfortunate that when people do not know how to answer a question; they immediately get angry and use taunts, instead of just saying I do not know…
Wow. That response speaks volumes. More and more I am beginning to see just how far gone is the insanity surrounding marriage in the U.S. (not sure if it’s this way everywhere in the world). I wonder if anyone here really knows whether or not they want to marry–there’s no room NOT to. Is everyone just psychologically bullied into it? Seems that way to me. And it makes me angry. I would like to decide what is right for me, free from stuff like the skewed message and the simplistic understanding of Darwin found in Dr. Fisher’s reply.
Must say, though–it’s getting easier to spot the madness and easier to tune it out the more I read about positive single lives and partake in the richness of my own life.
We should not be upset by this.
The dr is just an average woman with a fancy credential to cover up her lack of intellect. So apparently chemistry.com is just another vapid marketing sham like e-harmony.
WOW. Wow. Dr. Helen Fisher, PhD (Phenomenally hateful Dingbat) seems disproportionally defensive. Perhaps she was doing drunken emailing.
CC
WHOA! Helen needs to take a big ole pill. Maybe she just found out her “ultimate prize” has been spreading his DNA on to tomorrow with other women. It is our first and foremost purpose for being here after all.
On a lighter note,… Love your blog Wendy. Thank you for this.