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Also, as a present to Arlo, I wanted to pass on the link to an article Liz just shared w/ me, from January 8, 2010 Chronicle Review of The Chronicle of Higher Education, about the value of informed speculation. Called "How the Scientist Got His Ideas," it urges scientists to "stop running from 'just-so story' as an epithet and start embracing its merits," to recognize what a good way it offers "to joust, mentally, with the world": science

"nearly always begins as...such a story...emerging from curiosity, questioning, and uncertainty. It then progresses to reasoned conjecture...and then...to validation...or...further refinement....Throughout, the enterprise is steeped in wonder....just-so story is simply a story, a tentative, speculative answer to a question, and, as such a clarification of one's thinking, ideally a goad to further thought, and, not incidentally, a necessary preliminary to obtaining the kind of additional information that helps answer a question...when the narrative is testable..then...it is no longer a just-so story, but science...."

The nicest bit about the essay, really, is its characterization of scientists as "among the most playful of people, constantly trying out various 'mind games' on the natural world"--as well its attempt to just plain "free up" everyone to play at being human in this way. What I love about all this is the interpretative quality, so long/often seen as the province of humanists alone.