Recently, someone told me:

Everything can be explained by science.

Which I found to be a bold assertion.

So I asked him to explain ‘Love’.

Emotional sensations of any kind are the result of complex chemical interactions within a living organism.

Living organisms?

…so my Teddy Bear doesn’t love me back?

There is no scientific reason to assume that inorganic matter experiences emotion.

Disappointing.

Yet I still love Teddy.

Why can’t I stop?

The biochemical reaction occurs involuntarily under conditions that scientists do not completely understand yet. As I said, it’s very complex. The esthesis commonly called ‘love’ is likely brought about when a specific combination of stimuli are detected by the organism. Organisms have evolved to respond to these stimuli in order to propagate the species.

Propagate!

…good heavens!  I don’t love Teddy like that!

Ha ha! Of course not. But the same biochemical process that produces fondness for your Teddy Bear, attracts you to your wife.

Please don’t tell her this.

It’s beyond your control. It’s just molecules. Everything is molecules! Everything is Science!

That would make a lovely Valentine’s Day card.

Scientifically speaking, your wife is just Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Calcium, Potassium, Phosphorus and some other elements. Every person on Earth is made up of exactly the same stuff.

Every woman on Earth is exactly the same?

Yes. Though there is variation in proportions and molecular distribution.

But we must never speak of this.

Science must speak to everything. It is only through Science that we understand anything.

I still don’t understand.

I don’t think you’ve explained love at all.

That’s because you’re deluded. The chemical reactions in your body have tricked you into believing that emotions are real. Love doesn’t actually exist, you only think it does.

How do you know the chemicals in your body haven’t tricked you?

I’m a scientist.

——

Okay. I gotta admit…

…I made up this entire conversation.

Except for the part about being told ‘science explains everything’.

So if someone would like to legitimize the scientific explanation for love…

…my molecules are fabricating a sensation of enthusiasm for hearing it.