If Science Were Tennis, We Wouldn't Know Love

By Jeffrey Weld

Only a small fraction of Americans like science. Lots of people like tennis. But how many tennis players would there be in the United States if tennis lessons were a series of lectures and fragmented simulations followed by multiple-choice exams over tennis content like, "Who won Wimbledon in 1966?" and, "What are the dimensions of the court?" Who could imagine enduring more than a decade's worth of such lessons before being allowed to actually play the game? If tennis were taught like science, the pool of budding tennis players would gradually dwindle to just a few who persist all the way to game time. By that point, whatever they might lack in court savvy, these tennis academics would certainly be walking encyclopedias of the game. Many might end up with faculty positions at tennis schools--teaching the game just as they learned it.

If tennis were science, most people would view it as a boring compendium of facts that appeals only to eccentric weirdos dressed in white. Remote lobes of everyday folks' brains would house sequestered tennis facts to be called upon for answering sports questions on "Jeopardy." If tennis were taught like science, a majority of us would possess dangerous misconceptions and incomplete pictures of something we should all be playing. We might know some rules, and we could recall some names, but we still wouldn't know...