by Dan Rather
So how did we get to a juncture in our history where we are rallying, marching, and lobbying to defend science against the forces of misinformation, greed, and narrow self-interest? There are many factors contributing to our current crisis: the political divide, a general loss of faith in experts and authority, and suspicion of corporations (such as Big Pharma and agribusiness). Science has also had some self-inflicted wounds. We have been told that chemicals like DDT were safe, we have seen unethical research like the Tuskegee Study exposed, and we are confused by shifting directives from scientists on our own health (Is fat in our diet bad or good?). In the main, these concerns are on the periphery of the vast body of scientific research, but they cannot be overlooked.
Finally—there is no kind way to say this—the press has often failed in the way we have reported on scientific findings. In many ways, television news has been the worst offender, and I do not exempt myself from this criticism. For starters, scientific issues are often complex and don’t lend themselves to the simple sound bites of short news packages. We have overhyped “medical breakthroughs” that haven’t been fully vetted by the scientific community, often favored the most outspoken scientific self-promoters instead of seeking out more responsible voices, and focused on gee-whiz angles instead of trying to teach the public about the important scientific principles at play.
But perhaps the biggest mistake the press makes is falling into false equivalence. Not every scientific issue has two sides, or certainly two equal sides. And yet science “debates” are far too often reported in just such a manner. A particularly damaging example of this phenomenon can be seen in irresponsible concerns over vaccine safety. Immunizations have arguably saved more lives than any scientific advance in human history. And yet a few decades ago, charlatans—led by a now disgraced British doctor named Andrew Wakefield—started to raise fears about the general safety of vaccines. Wakefield claimed that vaccines could lead to autism, and even though his studies were highly flawed, he was given prominent press attention, including an infamous piece on 60 Minutes. In the name of balance, Dr. Wakefield was often pitted against reputable scientists who extolled the virtues and the safety of vaccines. But when you put two people on-screen to tell both “sides” of the story, in the viewer’s mind it immediately connotes fifty-fifty, even if you say it doesn’t. The comedian John Oliver dramatically illustrated this point on the issue of climate change by bringing ninety-seven scientists onto the set of his HBO program to vividly demonstrate the fact that 97 percent of scientists believe human activities are leading to global warming. Needless to say, that is not how the issue has been generally covered.
There is a specialized press that covers scientific stories with skill and nuance, and there are journalists who approach these topics thoughtfully. But in local and national newsrooms across the country, those who are tasked with covering scientific topics often emerge from the ranks of general reporters. Scientists tell me that far too often when they do engage with the press, they find that reporters oversimplify, distort, and sometimes seem bent on proving a preconceived angle. It is incumbent on journalists and storytellers to handle science better, a mission that has become a growing passion in this late chapter of my life.
I recently went to San Francisco for a meeting at the city’s University of California campus (UCSF). Other schools in the state—such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford—are far more famous. UCSF doesn’t have a football team or even undergraduates, but it is one of the best science and medical research centers in the world. I toured the lab and met the students of Dr. Ron Vale, a world-renowned professor of cell biology. While still a graduate student, he discovered an ingenious chemical machine—a type of protein—that carries material around your cells by walking along specialized tracks. Vale continues to do cutting-edge research, but he also has taken on the mission of science communication with a level of passion that is inspiring. A little over a decade ago, he founded an effort aimed at democratizing science knowledge for the research community by filming seminars from famous scientists and putting them online. More recently he has become interested in expanding the scope of his program to reach a general audience, and I am trying to help him with the effort. (Full disclosure: I met Vale through my colleague Elliot Kirschner, who is working with him on these projects.)
When I visited Vale’s lab, I was fascinated by how his team of thoughtful young researchers approached their work. Looking through microscopes and listening to their passionate explanations, I could grasp some of the scientific principles, but more important I could feel their enthusiasm. These women and men are explorers, as assuredly as Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong were. They are probing the unknown world on a microscopic level and uncovering the equivalent of new moons and continents. We may live in difficult and trying times, but these young people fill me with hope. It is our job as citizens to make sure they are supported, and my job as a journalist to effectively share their stories with the world.
I believe the public is hungry for better science reporting; it has been my experience that people of all backgrounds tend to be naturally curious and eager for knowledge about the world and their place in it. Several years ago, I did a report on neuroplasticity, the ability of our brains to keep changing even as we age. We included an interview with Nobel Prize – winning scientist Eric Kandel, who helped pioneer the field, and his mind, keen and imaginative well into his eighties, seemed to be living proof of his discoveries. We also interviewed the Dalai Lama. It turns out His Holiness is a science enthusiast, and we learned that researchers studying Buddhist monks have discovered that their deep meditations actually alter the structure of their brains. We got a wonderful response to the program, but one viewer’s email stood out. It came from a woman from Oklahoma whose job it was to work heavy construction on highway repairs. This is not the demographic that news executives think would be interested in a subtle examination of neuroplasticity, but this woman was effusive about how much she had learned. She ended her appreciative note with a phrase that has stuck with me ever since: “I always knew my mind could grow.”
When I learn about scientific discoveries, I feel that my mind is growing also, but this wasn’t always the case. When I was in high school, science class was an elective while woodworking and auto mechanics were required courses. At the time, this was unremarkable, the natural order of things, especially in a blue-collar neighborhood like mine. Learning about cars or carpentry was a path to good jobs. Esoteric knowledge about bacteria or the forces of physics was not perceived as a road to employment, especially for people like us. The economic needs of society were far different back then, and so too were the expectations when it came to our education.
By the time I entered college, two science courses were required for graduation, and we had our choice of chemistry, physics, biology, and botany. I took a chemistry class first, and it was not a pleasant experience. My professor was a walking stereotype who insisted on wearing a tweed jacket despite the oppressive East Texas heat in an age before air-conditioning. He was stiff and strict, and I extrapolated that science must also be a joyless pursuit. We had to memorize long lists of jargon and the entire periodic table. It might as well have been written in High Norse given my inability to understand it. Unfortunately, all this rote learning wasn’t how my mind worked. I faltered, and it was one of the few Cs I got in college. When I took physics the following year, it wasn’t much better. Science courses scared me, so science scared me. I was happy to leave it behind when I graduated.
The first time the importance of science really struck me was back in the early 1960s. I was working with producer David Buksbaum on the CBS News documentary investigating the tragedy of the USS Thresher, a nuclear submarine that was lost—with no survivors—during a deep dive exercise off the coast of Cape Cod a year earlier. I headed out to La Jolla, California, to interview celebrated oceanographer Roger Revelle about the physics of ocean depths. From the moment I met him, I could tell I was in the pre
sence of a world-class mind, and while I had to interview many senior navy brass for the report, no one impressed me as much as he did. He gave me a tour of his research facilities: the rows of lab benches, the unfamiliar equipment, and the tanks teeming with odd sea creatures. There was an air of exhilaration in the lab. It was a world away from my boring college science lectures. Revelle spoke humbly of the limits of our knowledge and how much of our world remained undiscovered, and suddenly it struck me: This was what science was all about. I saw a vista of exploration stretching out into the future. I left feeling more than intrigued. I was inspired.
Looking back, I now see my experience in school as a cautionary tale. I had always liked to try to figure out how things worked. And yet all that creative energy slammed into a wall of mindless memorization. I have heard many similar stories of students being turned off by science. When I recently interviewed the British Nobel Prize – winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse, I was shocked to learn that he too had struggled in some of his introductory science classes in college. He confessed to having a terrible memory for “all the bits of information that you needed to pass exams.” Like me, he also had trouble with the periodic table, but once he could make sense of the basic physics that led to the structure of the elements, then he said it all came into focus. “What really mattered for me,” he explained, “was understanding the basis and the order. Then I could put the names to it. If I was just learning the names with no order, I was hopeless.”
Although we have made progress, I fear that too many of our young students are getting turned off and thinking, like I did, that somehow science is not for them. Textbooks still often double as long lists of meaningless vocabulary to memorize, and the standardized tests by which we measure achievement also favor rote learning. Many scientists I have talked to bemoan the current environment. They worry that most of the lay public is unaware of the curiosity and excitement that guides the global pursuit of scientific research.
When I asked Sir Paul Nurse how to inspire young minds, he said children should do what he did when he was growing up: Head out into the night and look up at the moon and stars. “Wonder what it all means and you’re already on the first step to science.” The famed researcher Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer in cutting-edge gene-editing technology, told me something similar. She grew up in Hawaii spending time outdoors among all of the islands’ unusual animals and simply wondering, What makes them the way they are?
Science is much more than the accumulation of facts; it is about the willingness to reevaluate our assumptions in the face of data to better see, understand, and improve our world. These are values that have shaped the evolution of our modern democracy, so I think science can be a bridge that helps unite us as a nation. If our elected officials turn their backs on this process, they will be undermining the forces that have elevated our country.
When you hang around scientists for a while, you are likely to hear a remarkable anecdote that looms large for them and should be a repeated lesson for the nation. The scene was 1969 on Capitol Hill at a hearing before Congress’s Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Answering questions was Robert Wilson, the director of the National Accelerator Laboratory (now called Fermilab), which was under construction in DuPage County, Illinois, just west of Chicago. The project was a particle accelerator to study seemingly abstract physics. It was a costly proposition. Dr. Wilson was questioned about the lab by Democratic senator John Pastore of Rhode Island.
SENATOR PASTORE: Is there anything connected in the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?
DR. WILSON: No, sir; I do not believe so.
SENATOR PASTORE: Nothing at all?
DR. WILSON: Nothing at all.
SENATOR PASTORE: It has no value in that respect?
DR. WILSON: It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with those things. It has nothing to do with the military. I am sorry.
SENATOR PASTORE: Don’t be sorry for it.
DR. WILSON: I am not, but I cannot in honesty say it has any such application.
SENATOR PASTORE: Is there anything here that projects us in a position of being competitive with the Russians, with regard to this race?
DR. WILSON: Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country, but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.
A country “worth defending”—how true. And how elegant a plea for patriotism. Science, like the arts, is about the most creative applications of the human mind. We as a species have been able to figure out so much about life and the universe—a process of discovery that is only accelerating. The fact that the United States has been a beacon for that progress should fill all Americans with pride. When the great histories of this nation are written centuries from now, I am confident that the role of science will occupy many chapters. I desperately hope we can keep that narrative going, and even growing. Our country’s future place in the world depends on that.
Books
Danny, show them your library card.”
I was a young boy, on my first journey downtown to the main branch of the Houston Public Library. It was the most spectacular building I had ever seen. And I was being told I had a special key—a library card—that could unlock all the knowledge that surrounded me: the thousands of titles printed in the card catalog, the stacks that seemed to go on for miles. I, the son of an oil field worker, now belonged here among the books. I dug in my pocket and produced my prized possession.
This experience was not unique. In small farming towns and big industrial cities, in immigrant neighborhoods and in wealthy communities, young children and people of all ages could, and did, head to libraries in large numbers to access a world of knowledge for free. Hundreds of libraries across the nation, often among the most beautiful buildings in their communities, had been built over the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries through the largesse of the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. As a young man, Carnegie hadn’t been able to afford a fee to a private library, and it was an experience he never forgot. He believed there should be no barriers to books and study, that knowledge should be democratic. As with so much of the American story, a glaring exception to this narrative centered on race. Most libraries in the South—including Houston—were segregated, and some Carnegie funds were set aside for “colored” libraries.
I recognize a quaintness in waxing nostalgic about libraries in an age when we have instantaneous access to more information than was contained in all the combined library collections of my youth. Still, libraries represent an aspirational notion of democracy. They were, and still are, civic institutions that welcome anyone who wishes to become a more informed and independent citizen. In books we can find expert and trustworthy scholarship on any subject imaginable. By reading books, we can continually challenge our own biases and learn beyond our level of formal education. These are qualities that are needed now more than ever.
Historically, leaders across the political spectrum have encouraged a reverence for knowledge. There was a belief that our civic discourse should be infused with informed and well-reasoned arguments. This has been a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy, stretching back to the birth of the United States. Just as we have statues and memorials to great battles and political leaders, we have monuments to knowledge. Perhaps one of the most elegant examples is the Dome Room in the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. If you stand in the center and look in all directions, you will see columns framing magnificent windows with sweeping views. Hidden from your sight line, in an ingenious piece of architectural design, are grand bookshelves radiating out toward the windows like spokes in a great wheel of learning.
The expanse of the beautiful Virginia landscape is what is visible, but the words, the scholarship, and the books, though invisible in the moment, are what give the space its meaning. This room, the building that houses it, and the University of Virginia itself were the creation of Thomas Jefferson, who embodied the contradictions into which our nation was born. He loved learning and reason and wrote eloquent pleas for freedom and enlightenment in our Declaration of Independence. But in a spectacular example of human frailty, he failed to extend his grand notions of the brotherhood of the human race to men, women, and children in bondage—including those he owned and the mother of his unacknowledged children.
Jefferson’s beloved library reminds us that reason and knowledge are necessary but ultimately insufficient for a moral government. On the one hand, words have power—the power to declare independence, establish a government, and draft a bill of rights. But since words are interpreted by imperfect men and women, the history of this republic is full of countless examples of those in power failing to live up to the spirit of “all men are created equal.”
