What role does contemporary science play in shaping our perspectives, and is there a place in it for the unfettered curiosity and excitement accompanying the discovery of the unknown? This is a question worth considering when reading about its humanist roots and the story of a certain extraordinarily-colored duck.

One day in 1807, while locked in his lab, Humphry Davy intended to connect one of the terminals of his substantial electrical battery (it has a good few hundred volts enclosed in a layer cake of metal and tissue paper sheets soaked in acid) to his new contraption. At the very center of the device was a small crucible with a crushed white substance heated by a burner placed underneath the vessel. The white powder was potash, or potassium hydroxide—a corrosive chemical compound that melts when exposed to heat, turning into an oily, cloudy liquid. One drop of this boiling concoction can burn out a person’s eye. The scientist, however, ignored the danger. The metal melting pot was already connected to the battery. To start his experiment, Davy only had to plug the cell into the electrode stuck into the boiling potash. When