Perhaps anticipating that event, Barbara yesterday sent me a copy of a speech she gave five years ago at the Washington Ethical Culture Society, where she is a very active member. It reminded me in many ways of the reflection I posted fifteen months ago when I turned eighty.
With Barbara's permssion, I reproduce it here. It will give all of you some sense of what an extraordinary person she is. She did not include the graphs to which she refers.
THE SHAPE OF A LIFE
Platform delivered at the Washington
Ethical Society, August 15, 2010
Sometime
early last spring, Mary Herman called and asked if I would give a platform in
August. I said sure, and promptly forgot
about it. Then, last May my son Josh was
up here talking to you, and the commitment came back, now with considerably
more urgency. Mary’s request was
apparently motivated, at least in part, by the WES theme for the summer, which
is science. Having done many things in
my working life, I have now returned, in retirement, to my original fascination
with science. For the last several years
I’ve been teaching biology at a local program for retirees at American University . So I guess I was an obvious candidate for a
science platform.
But who on
earth wants a biology lecture on a Sunday morning in August? What was I to do? Clearly, the first step was to bag the
science theme. And in fact, something much
more pressing is happening to me – I am about to turn 80 years old. Now, we’ve all been through ‘milestone’
birthdays, and so we all have some idea of the combination of disbelief and the
need to take stock that they bring up. But
80??? I have no idea how to process this
rather bizarre occurrence.
Like
everyone, I have always had conceptions of what was ‘old age.’ When I was young, people who were middle-aged
looked old to me. I once described my
fifty year old father as elderly. He was
not amused. And my grandmother, though
quite spry well into her 90s, was clearly old.
But not me!!! So I thought that
preparing a platform might provide a good opportunity to examine what it means
to me to be 80.
Often, when
I think about my life, I think of a graph.
So I decided to call the platform, The Shape of a Life. I’m going to say lots more about the graph in
a few minutes, but now I want to make a connection to science. As I sat at my computer musing, I noticed a
book in my bookcase that I like a lot.
It is called The Shape of Life; it’s written by a scientist named Rudolf
Raff. This was definitely too much of a
coincidence. There must be a deeper
meaning to it all! Thinking more about
the connection brought me to sea urchins.
Yes, you heard correctly, SEA URCHINS.
Have you ever seen a sea urchin?
Probably not. They’re pretty
nondescript. But they are quite fascinating
(to a biologist), and Rudy Raff has spent a lifetime studying them.
One very
interesting thing about some sea urchins is that they go through
metamorphosis. You’re familiar with this
– many insects do it – insects start out as a larva, become a pupa, and then
become an adult. I’m talking about sea
urchins only because I noticed Rudy Raff’s book. The process they go through is roughly the
same as with insects. Let me tell you
something about sea urchins. (So – here
is the science lecture after all!)
Sea urchins
begin their development as all multicellular animals do. Two sex cells, the
sperm and the egg, fuse to form a single cell called the zygote. The zygote divides, first to 2 cells, then to
4, then to 8, and so on. In this
process, every cell that is produced has the same genome—the same set of
genes. But in any particular part of the
animal, at any particular moment, only some of these genes are active, or as
biologists say colloquially, only some genes are turned on.
Animals
that metamorphose have a particularly interesting developmental pathway. Very early in the process of forming the
larva, groups of cells are set aside that will ultimately be used to begin the
transformation to the adult form. While
the sea urchin is functioning as a larva these cells lie dormant, not dividing
and not taking any part in its life processes.
Yet they are an integral part of the animal in that they carry the same
identity as the larva.
When a signal arrives for metamorphosis
to begin, the tissues of the larva are broken down into their constituent
molecules. The cells that were earlier
set aside then begin to develop into adult structures. They use the raw materials that originally
constituted the larva, and the information in the genome, to form an entirely
new kind of organism, the adult.
Why have I
told you all this? Because I want to use
this process of metamorphosis as a metaphor for what happened to me in my
life. Now it is time to turn back to the
graph. About 20 years ago, I gave a talk
about my life to a group I belonged to at the World Bank. Here’s the graph I drew for that talk. On the X axis is age. On the Y axis is success.
In a little while I’ll say more about how ‘success’ is defined. Right now, just imagine it is whatever you
think it is and you will have the general idea.
Very early
in my life, when I was 17, I had a wild success. My science teacher in high school groomed me,
and others, to enter the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. This is a science prize given to high school
students who take a test and do some sort of science project. It is now run by Intel instead of
Westinghouse. The test is given
nationwide and the pool narrowed to several hundred kids, who are all
guaranteed Honorable Mention. Another
selection process yields 40 finalists, who come to Washington for the last round. In
that last round I won one of two top prizes (the one for girls!).
Then, four
years later, I graduated from Swarthmore
College with highest
honors in Biology.
I feel
awkward telling you this history. It’s
not something I bring up often. But it
is essential to my story.
Now, in my
world, in those days, the most prestigious goal I could achieve would be to
become a research scientist. By age 21 it
seemed I was well on my way.
However,
after college, something strange happened.
It began when I went to graduate school at Harvard. For a bunch of reasons, my experience at
Harvard was a great disappointment. But
I soldiered on, and eventually was awarded a PhD. Following a well-beaten track, I got a
post-doctoral fellowship in a wonderful laboratory. But my professional life continued to
deteriorate. Hard as it was to admit to
myself, I hated working in the laboratory. I hit bottom when I was 30. That’s this point here. [on the graph] I found myself taking naps in the ladies room
during the day. Clearly something was
drastically wrong. I resigned my
fellowship and sank into a depression so deep I could scarcely find the energy
to walk to the end of the driveway to get the mail.
Like the
sea urchin undergoing metamorphosis, I literally came apart. Of course I didn’t disintegrate physically,
like the sea urchin. But my aspirations,
my expectations and standards about what constituted a valuable and productive
life, in short my very conception of myself, needed to be completely dismantled
before I could reconstitute myself, just as the larval sea urchin’s body
dissolves until only the basic molecules, the genome, and the special groups of
cells are left. Let me be a bit more
specific. I had grown up believing that science
was the most prestigious field, and doing research was the most laudable
science occupation. Now I had to give
that up. And worse yet, I had nothing to
replace it with!
Luckily, a
few months later, my first child was born.
(That’s the Josh that many of you know!)
Having a baby was enough of a distraction that I was able to pull myself
out of the depression, and set aside the identity problems. A bit later my daughter was born, providing
me with some more breathing time. Then,
when I was about 35, the slow rebuilding process began. It was still underway when I gave that talk
at the World Bank 20 years ago. As the
graph shows, I knew the curve was still rising.
But I was very pessimistic about ever reaching the height of the earlier
peak I’d reached between 17 and 20.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I know
now, that in part my pessimism was the result of the way I was defining
success. As you will have noted from
what I’ve said about those early years, my definition of success was completely
external – that is, it was based on what the rest of the world, including my
family, thought of me. The inner truth
about the science prize is that I KNEW that I really didn’t deserve it, that it
was the result of some lucky circumstances, and a glib tongue. Oh, of course I was smart, but so were lots
of other people, and in particular the 39 other contestants were REALLY smart. What I did was nothing special. Four years later, the award of highest honors
was a little less a reflection of luck and more a matter of work, but luck
played a big part there too. Behind all
the insecurity I knew one thing – I was fascinated by genetics and evolution. But I had no idea where that fascination could
possibly fit into my life. So, at age
35, when the reconstruction process began, I not only gave up my notions about
what constituted success--that is, being a research scientist. I also gave up my fascination with biology.
The years
between 35 and 65 were, in their way, remarkable and satisfying. I really did recreate myself, several
times! I ended my career as the
Ombudsman of the World Bank—quite a distance from being a laboratory
scientist. I no longer felt so alienated
from what I did professionally. But,
looking back, its clear to me that what I did in the work world did not truly
engage all of me. So, when I retired I
began the reconstruction process all over again. (One thing I did, by the way, was to join WES—a
good move!) Fortunately I was free of
the necessity of earning a living (thanks largely to the Bank, but also to
other pensions, including social security).
Among other things, I began reading books about science. But it was almost ten years before I actually
found myself teaching biology. And
immediately, I knew I had found my niche. I am, as it turns out, a good
teacher. But more important, I care
deeply about the ideas that permeate everything I teach. In fact, I have become something of a
missionary. I truly believe that
enlightened citizens, today, need to understand how our biology – that is how
we are put together and function as living organisms – should be playing a
central role in how our society is organized.
Let me take
another science detour, and give you a flavor of two of the topics that
fascinate me and what I think you, as intelligent citizens, should know about
them.
The first
has to do with genes. When I was in
school, everyone thought of genes as beads on a string. When the idea of a gene was invented, no one
knew what they were. By my high school
days we knew that the string was the chromosome. All research in genetics and evolution
treated the genes as independent entities, not interacting with one
another. Furthermore, most research
questions were about connecting external features of organisms, what we call
traits, with genes. So it was natural to
use ‘gene for’ language. There was a
gene for this and a gene for that. Some
traits didn’t fit the paradigm, like height.
But adjustments were easy to make.
This ‘gene for’ language grabbed the public imagination, and continues
to be deeply entrenched in the way all of us talk about heredity. And it is basically WRONG (or at least
grossly misleading). The more we learn
about living organisms, the more wrong it gets.
It leads to formulations that are sometimes ridiculous and sometimes
pernicious. Some examples: there’s a
gene for marital infidelity, or a gene for violent behavior, or a gene for
homosexuality, or a gene for musical talent.
You get the idea, because if you pay any attention at all to science
reporting in the media, you’ve heard it or read it dozens of times. Why is it wrong? It’s a long story, but one which all of you
can understand, without any special knowledge of genetics. Take one of my courses and you’ll see how
straightforward it is!
A second
topic that fascinates me is a bit less accessible. It has to do with how novelty arises in
living organisms. You will remember that
Darwin ’s famous
book was called On the Origin of Species.
Well, the truth is, Darwin had practically nothing to say about this
topic, since the knowledge needed to think systematically and constructively
about it simply didn’t exist in his time.
One thing Darwin
believed deeply, and what his book was at pains to demonstrate, is that new
species were not the work of a designer.
Everyone understood that ‘designer’ was a euphemism for God but he tread
very carefully in this area. One
important reason is that such talk deeply offended his wife.
With regard
to evolution, I think it is important for
the intelligent public to be able to differentiate between those who deny
evolution because they want or need to attribute life to a deity and those who
have genuine questions about the explanations they encounter in school and the
media., which often do not seem to make sense.
Even where evolution is actually taught, it is often taught badly – at
least to my way of thinking.
On a more
general level, I believe that societies are going to be called upon to make
increasingly nuanced and difficult decisions about the ethical consequences of
biological technologies, for example, the capacity to manipulate genomes and
transfer genes between species. To
participate effectively, we need to be sophisticated in our understanding of both
the ethical and biological dimensions of such issues. In my view, we, as a humanistic religious
society, have a heavy task in front of us.
Ok, enough
biology. Now, for an important caveat: You will have noticed that I’ve said little
about my family and friends. They are
tremendously important to me, and greatly enrich my life. In telling the full story of my life, they
would have a huge role to play, but I’ve chosen today to focus on only one
small part – that is, me and biology.
Now, back to
the shape of my life. A question may
have occurred to you: During that long
time between 35 and 65 did I know how it was all going to turn out? Of course not. But one thing was always obvious. Whenever I looked back, I could see that, no
matter what the ups and downs of the moment, where I was now was basically better
than where I’d been. But even more
important, I felt less and less of a fraud.
The gap between who I felt myself to be and how I appeared on the
outside got smaller and smaller. There
were a few occasions, like the talk at the World Bank, when I was asked to
reflect on my life, and as I did so, I began to see patterns emerging. But only now am I aware of how coherent the
whole story is. Not only that, as I
approach the end, I can look forward as well as backward. What do I see? Well, on the downside, my body is beginning
to fall apart. I guess that’s
inevitable. That’s why I’m sitting
instead of standing. But on the upside,
until nature intervenes, I expect to continue to experience the deep
satisfaction of doing things I love and I’m good at.
So what
does my life look like from the perspective of 80? I’ve drawn a new graph that says it all!
5 comments:
A fascinating life, indeed. And a nicely written piece too; clean and simple language. I can't help but think that Barbara's return to biology somewhat parallels your return to a great love as well, your viola.
Yes, save that she plays Biology a lot better than I play viola!
What extraordinary lives you both have had. There has been human frailty but rare indomitability and you are both still soaring.
Please pass on my warmest regards to your sister. She is held in special and high regard ever since I first met her in Papua New Guinea. I think about her fondly and often.
I certainly will!
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