Celebrated Scientists Share Their Thoughts With 1994's New Graduates

Editor's Note: Social and ethical responsibilities of researchers, the public's skepticism about science, the threat of tighter economic constraints on biomedical investigation, equality for women and minorities, the increasing difficulties in building a stable career in research--these were among the themes addressed by this year's commencement speakers at academic institutions throughout the United States and Canada. Following are excerpts from speeches made by several noted scientists; the selections are drawn from transcripts supplied by the institutions. Now I stand at the helm of the Human Genome Project, an audacious effort to determine the sequence of the entire human blueprint and the hundred thousand genes that make us what we are. We expect to have this done by year 2005. This is the most important scientific effort that humankind has ever undertaken. And yet there are times--and you will experience this, too--when I'm restless, when there seems that there must be something that I'm called to do. And twice over the last four years, I've taken three or four weeks and gone off to Nigeria to work in a small jungle hospital. Now I went full of enthusiasm. Then I began to wonder, "What am I doing here?" I knew that although I might be able to help a particular patient, get them better over some terrible disease, they would go out again into an environment where some other scourge would quickly strike them down. As I struggled with that, realizing how insignificant my contribution was, a patient who I was taking care of, a young farmer from Nigeria who had come in with fluid around his heart, was close to death, and whom we were able to save by drawing that fluid off, said to me, "You know, I sense that something's troubling you and you're wondering why you're here. I have a message for you. You are here for one thing--for me. To save me. And that's enough." That was a profound moment for me. To touch one human being. To change one other human being's existence for the better. That's enough. Have your goals, have them be grand, but remember what really counts are those single human beings that you come in contact with. School of Medicine In the long run, I don't care how many policies are promulgated, how many diversity watch-dogs are appointed, how many interminable committees are formed to examine issues of race, racism, gender, or sexism--nothing will change in the world of medicine for women and minorities until there is a culture shift, and I have become absolutely convinced that the only true change of culture will come through the leaders we select. A racist and/or sexist tone at the top translates into validation of racism and sexism and perpetuates bigoted ideas for yet another generation. The process by which leaders are chosen needs revamping; power cannot continue to be defined simply as "power over others." Along with the traditional evaluation of technical talent and academic acumen, leaders need to be assessed for their degree of behavioral decency. Deans, department chairs, program directors must be reprogrammed to view every student accepted, every resident selected for postgraduate training, every faculty appointed, as having the requisite intellectual promise and personal values to qualify as a potential physician for his or her own medical care. Only with leaders in place who are passionately committed to developing the careers of others based on their ability and resolve, rather than simply on the basis of gender or race, will the medical profession enter the 21st century maximally prepared for the challenges presented by such aspects as managed health-care systems, cost containment, rationing of medical resources, and ever-increasing technology. Group; Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada Is technology up to the challenge that environmental problems present? What answers can it provide? What can't it do? Do we need to do more than recycle pop cans and magazines? Will environmental impact studies, environmental cost/benefit analyses, mitigation programs be sufficient to guide change? Will the environment be safe? Will it be justly and fairly managed? Are present visions of the partnership between humankind and nature adequate to restore a balanced, sustainable partnership? There is lots of room for pessimism. What is needed is a fundamental reexamination of our species and humankind's relationship with nature. First, it is certainly true that my technical training has given me some tools useful for problems of ecological management and human ecology. But this technical side ignores vast areas of human experience: values, intuition, common sense. It has in fact given me only a little with which to understand and to help. Decisions about fish and their environment are not made divorced from people and their cultures. If graduates slide into the seductive security of American materialism, worry only about an environment that is safe for the American way of life, accumulate only personal satisfactions and pleasures, and do not use the wealth of the educational gifts they have been given to solve environmental problems--then, simply, there is no hope. You have acquired responsibilities. You are the solution to the environmental problems which will continue to face humankind for your entire working lives. My hope is that students will reflect on their gifts and consider their responsibilities for discovering and inventing new ways and means for restoring the necessary partnership between nature and humankind. You will be the ones that make a difference. Historically, the way society views the role of science has oscillated. Ever since Plato first placed his faith in objective truth, the anti-science tide against rational thought has come in and out, more or less at its own natural frequency. During the 1950s, '60s, and '70s the biomedical research element of science flourished in such areas as biotechnology and there were major advances in health care. However, in the 1980s came a perception that such endeavors actually added to the cost of health care; next came a heightened public awareness of fraud in science. As a result, in some sectors, an attenuation of the public faith in biomedical research now parallels a disillusionment by some with science in general. There is a growing feeling by some that there is little evidence that objective scientific knowledge leads to subjective benefits for humanity. In this regard, there lies a final, important, and rather unique challenge to you. Although history at times has tended to separate the two, it is essential that we preserve this marriage of science and humanitarianism that forms the very foundation upon which our profession is built. The solution must be anchored in principles that have guided generations of physicians, health- care professionals, and basic biomedical researchers. You must be guided by integrity, unselfishness, perseverance, inquisitiveness, and a compelling thirst for scientific knowledge with the patient as the focus and beneficiary of all that you do professionally. If you are a basic scientist, your integrity, your scholarship, and your commitment should match the importance of your task, the advancement of knowledge for the good of mankind. There have been five great extinction spasms in the past 450 million years of geological history, causing major losses of biodiversity. The latest was 65 million years ago, caused by a giant meteorite strike near present-day Mexico. Each spasm required 10 million years or more for evolution to restore. Humanity has now begun the sixth great spasm. If we allow it to go on, and our descendants realize that they must wait millions of years to recover what we carelessly threw away in two or three generations, they are going to be peeved. We are entering, I believe, the Century of the Environment. The opportunities before you, in citizenship and new employment, of finding a good life in a stable, healthy environment, will be intimately tied to the environment. This will be the idealism of the new generation. And for biodiversity, it isn't too late to make a big difference. We are going to lose a lot of species all over the world, but we can slow and eventually stop the hemorrhaging. Our goal should be to carry as much of the rest of life as we can through the bottleneck of the next 50 years, when at last population stabilizes and, we most fervently hope, the quality of life improves, to hold on to every species and race we possibly can. Along with culture itself, that inheritance will be the most precious gift we can give to future generations. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., May 29 We are on the brink of discovery more adventurous and promising than any explorer ever dreamed. We have already discovered the genes for cystic fibrosis and colon cancer. Next it'll be the gene or genes for breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease; maybe for addictive behavior and schizophrenia. The revolution in the life sciences will also go way beyond medicine into agriculture, chemical production, environmental sciences, microelectronics. Biotechnology will be creating jobs that we don't even have names for yet. But for science to flourish and all the dreams of tomorrow realized, we must acknowledge that ethics and public interest are to become companions wherever science goes. This explosion of knowledge in biology and medicine is changing not only the nature of healing, but also the society in which we live. We are seeing large shifts in demography, with an aging population living longer and longer. The meaning of life and death is being reexamined. Extending life will be easier than deciding when not to. New diseases will emerge as people survive the old ones. We will confront new problems from new perspectives. We will come face to face with a whole new realm of ethical and legal issues. Today we are confronting the economic challenge--the dollar cost- -of the extraordinary success of the wonders of biology and medicine. But tomorrow we will confront ethical, social, and moral challenges that will make the problems of economics we are facing now seem very easy. What this brave new world of tomorrow will demand is a generation of informed leadership who have the courage and the wisdom to get it right. Think back to where it was that we started, say about 20 or 30 million years ago. We were in the middle of a continent that was really heavily forested, and we were the cute little animals up in the top of the trees, eating the leaves. And we didn't go down to the ground, we were up on the top, protected from the cats by the fact that we could climb fast and jump. Change trees if necessary. So don't forget how to jump from one tree to another. You might have picked the wrong field, for instance. Maybe you are getting a degree in something that you are thinking, "Boy, this is a bad place to work." Don't be afraid to jump--you know, change trees. It takes probably, in science, about two years to learn the vocabulary in a new field and another year to learn the important people that you need to know; and then you can move from being, like, a chemist, to a biochemist, to physicist. You might have made a mistake and might admit it quickly and get into something if you don't like where you are. Be ready to do that. Don't plod, don't try to be uncomfortable. Don't say, "Well, I chose this horrible life for myself. And I am just going to do it." Now we're witness to the information revolution--the joining of computers and communications, to create wholly new industries, to organize services electronically, to transform how we communicate and use information. Some political scientists credit the changes in Eastern Europe and the growth of democracy to the transistor and the information revolution it spawned. And we are at the edges of the biological revolution--the exploitation of our understanding of how cells are built, work, and copy themselves. That revolution already has created new industries, new ways to detect and treat terrible diseases, and to make old products in new and often better ways. What's happening, of course, holds great meaning for you. Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the greatest hockey player ever, was once asked why he was so good. He answered that he "skates to where the puck is going to be, not where it's been." The point is universal. You have spent years immersed in your studies. I'd argue that what you've been taught has less to do with getting ready for a specific career, and more with "skating to where you want to be." Why would I praise the fact that your education probably had little to do with getting ready for a specific career? Because, as Gertrude Stein once put it, there may be no there there. Any job you tried to train for may be gone by the time you get there. The economic change is happening so fast that what matters is knowledge and the will and ability to use it and to continually acquire it. University of California; former director, National Science Foundation Along with [our] skills and attitudes, we also need to develop certain values. We have to know what we stand for, the limits and boundaries of our actions, the ethical and moral principles that will guide us as we try to navigate our way in a world in which signposts are not always clear and the directional signals are not always stable. Honesty--especially honesty to oneself--and integrity are among those values. We also need to develop a personal center of gravity that can keep us firmly guided on the paths that we have set for ourselves, even as the events and people around us change. It might seem presumptuous for me to say this, but as a scientist, I believe these skills, attitudes, and values are the kinds of things that one learns in pursing an education in the sciences. Analytic ability is an obvious requirement, as are curiosity and confidence. I would also argue, very strongly, that the values of honesty and integrity are not only consistent with scientific values, but are what have made the scientific enterprise so successful. I say this in spite of some very notable cases of scientific fraud and misconduct.

Celebrated Scientists Share Their Thoughts With 1994's New Graduates

The Scientist Staff

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