Alan Cutler

Alan Cutler has a Ph.D. in geology and is a writer affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Cutler was a contributing editor to the book Forces of Change: A New View of Nature, a joint publication of the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Society; contributors included Stephen Jay Gould, John McPhee, and David Quammen.  Dr. Cutler’s writing has also appeared in The Washington Post and The Sciences, among other publications.

Good To Know

""I've never been able to answer the question, ‘How did you become interested in science?' I'm tempted to turn the question around: How do people become uninterested in science? As a child I was curious about everything. With my friends I explored the woods near our home, caught bugs and frogs and turtles, and looked at the moon with binoculars. Naturally, I was fascinated by dinosaurs, too. To be curious about the natural world seemed normal to me then, and it seems normal to me now. I figure that for most people the curiosity is still there somewhere, even if its been dormant for years. My hope in writing about science is to connect with that curiosity and reawaken it if I can.""

""When I was 26 years old, I took a sabbatical from graduate school and hopped a plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For eight months I traveled around the Malay Archipelago -- Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines -- living on the cheap. I climbed smoking volcanoes, tromped through rainforests, sailed across the South China Sea in a small boat, learned to speak passable Indonesian, and lived the life of a footloose vagabond in paradise. Most of the time I was on my own, immersed in a completely unfamiliar culture. It was a great lesson in the diversity of human perspectives and experiences. In Borneo, I met an old Chinese man who had lived on a river all his life but had never seen the ocean. He was astonished to learn that I had crossed the South China Sea in a sailboat. He had never heard of such a thing. A boat powered by the wind instead of a motor, he said, what will they think of next?""

""I was raised as a Unitarian in a home that was respectful of religion but not especially devout. After writing a book such as Seashell on the Mountaintop, which delves into the complicated historical relationship between religion and science, I now take religion a lot more seriously than I used to. I am still not an orthodox Christian, or an orthodox anything else for that matter, but I am impressed by richness of religious thinking through the ages. If I can't abide the cheap shots uninformed fundamentalists often take at science, I can no longer abide the cheap shots uninformed scientists sometimes take at religion, either.""

""I love the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland crab houses. My favorite activities are outdoors -- hiking, birding, boating, camping -- but I don't get out as much as I'd like. I like big cities, but I don't miss their attractions when I'm away from them. On the other hand, if I go for more than few weeks without driving on a dirt road or hearing birdsongs I feel deprived. My wife and I have tried to raise our kids to think of appreciating nature as a normal part of a full life -- not just as a 'hobby' or grist for nature shows on TV.""