E.O. Wilson: Advice to young scientists

270,464 views ・ 2012-06-25

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Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Morton Bast
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What I'm going to do is to just give a few notes,
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and this is from a book I'm preparing called
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"Letters to a Young Scientist."
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I'd thought it'd be appropriate to
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present it, on the basis that I have had extensive experience
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in teaching, counseling scientists across a broad array of fields.
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And you might like to hear some of the principles that I've developed in doing
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that teaching and counseling.
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So let me begin by urging you,
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particularly you on the youngsters' side,
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on this path you've chosen,
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to go as far as you can.
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The world needs you, badly.
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Humanity is now fully into the techno-scientific age.
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There is going to be no turning back.
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Although varying among disciplines -- say, astrophysics,
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molecular genetics, the immunology, the microbiology, the public
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health, to the new area of the human body as a symbiont,
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to public health, environmental science.
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Knowledge in medical science and science overall
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is doubling every 15 to 20 years.
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Technology is increasing at a comparable rate.
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Between them, the two already pervade,
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as most of you here seated realize,
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every dimension of human life.
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So swift is the velocity of the techno-scientific revolution,
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so startling in its countless twists and turns, that no one can predict
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its outcome even a decade from the present moment.
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There will come a time, of course,
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when the exponential growth of discovery and knowledge,
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which actually began in the 1600s,
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has to peak and level off,
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but that's not going to matter to you.
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The revolution is going to continue
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for at least several more decades.
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It'll render the human condition
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radically different from what it is today.
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Traditional fields of study are going to continue to grow
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and in so doing, inevitably they will meet and create new disciplines.
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In time, all of science will come to be
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a continuum of description, an explanation of networks, of principles and laws.
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That's why you need not just be training
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in one specialty, but also acquire breadth in other fields,
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related to and even distant from your own initial choice.
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Keep your eyes lifted and your head turning.
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The search for knowledge is in our genes.
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It was put there by our distant ancestors
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who spread across the world,
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and it's never going to be quenched.
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To understand and use it sanely,
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as a part of the civilization yet to evolve
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requires a vastly larger population of scientifically trained people like you.
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In education, medicine, law, diplomacy,
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government, business and the media that exist today.
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Our political leaders need at least a modest degree of scientific
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literacy, which most badly lack today --
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no applause, please.
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It will be better for all
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if they prepare before entering office rather than learning on the job.
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Therefore you will do well to act on the side,
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no matter how far into the laboratory
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you may go, to serve as teachers
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during the span of your career.
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I'll now proceed quickly,
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and before else, to a subject that is both a vital asset
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and a potential barrier to a scientific career.
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If you are a bit short in mathematical skills,
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don't worry.
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Many of the most successful scientists
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at work today are mathematically semi-literate.
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A metaphor will serve here:
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Where elite mathematicians and statisticians
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and theorists often serve as architects in the expanding realm
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of science, the remaining large majority of
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basic applied scientists, including a large portion of those who could be
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said to be of the first rank, are the ones who map the terrain, they scout
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the frontiers, they cut the pathways,
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they raise the buildings along the way.
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Some may have considered me foolhardy,
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but it's been my habit to brush aside the fear of mathematics
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when talking to candidate scientists.
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During 41 years of teaching biology at Harvard,
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I watched sadly as bright students turned away
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from the possibility of a scientific career
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or even from taking non-required courses in science
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because they were afraid of failure.
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These math-phobes deprive science and medicine
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of immeasurable amounts of badly needed talent.
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Here's how to relax your anxieties, if you have them:
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Understand that mathematics is a language
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ruled like other verbal languages,
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or like verbal language generally, by its own grammar
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and system of logic.
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Any person with average quantitative intelligence
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who learns to read and write mathematics
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at an elementary level will, as in verbal language, have little difficulty
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picking up most of the fundamentals
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if they choose to master the mathspeak of most disciplines of science.
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The longer you wait to become at least semi-literate
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the harder the language of mathematics will be to master, just as again in any verbal
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language, but it can be done at any age.
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I speak as an authority
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on that subject, because I'm an extreme case.
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I didn't take algebra until my freshman year
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at the University of Alabama.
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They didn't teach it before then.
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I finally got around to calculus as a 32-year-old tenured professor at Harvard,
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where I sat uncomfortably in classes with undergraduate students,
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little more than half my age.
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A couple of them were students
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in a course I was giving on evolutionary biology.
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I swallowed my pride, and I learned calculus.
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I found out that in science and all its applications,
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what is crucial is not that technical ability,
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but it is imagination in all of its applications.
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The ability to form concepts with images of entities and processes
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pictured by intuition.
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I found out that advances in science rarely come upstream
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from an ability to stand at a blackboard
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and conjure images from unfolding mathematical propositions
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and equations.
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They are instead the products of downstream imagination leading to hard work,
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during which mathematical reasoning may or may not prove to be relevant.
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Ideas emerge when a part of the real or imagined world is studied
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for its own sake.
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Of foremost importance is a thorough, well-organized knowledge
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of all that is known of the relevant entities and processes that might be involved in that domain
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you propose to enter.
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When something new is discovered,
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it's logical then that one of the follow-up steps is
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to find the mathematical and statistical methods to move its analysis forward.
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If that step proves too difficult for
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the person or team that made the discovery,
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a mathematician can then be added by them
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as a collaborator.
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Consider the following principle,
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which I will modestly call Wilson's Principle Number One:
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It is far easier for scientists
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including medical researchers, to require needed collaboration
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in mathematics and statistics
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than it is for mathematicians and statisticians
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to find scientists able to make use of their equations.
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It is important in choosing the direction to take in science
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to find the subject at your level of competence that interests you deeply,
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and focus on that.
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Keep in mind, then, Wilson's Second Principle:
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For every scientist, whether researcher, technician,
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teacher, manager or businessman,
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working at any level of mathematical competence,
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there exists a discipline in science or medicine
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for which that level is enough to achieve excellence.
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Now I'm going to offer quickly
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several more principles that will be useful
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in organizing your education and career,
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or if you're teaching, how you might
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enhance your own teaching and counseling of young scientists.
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In selecting a subject in which to conduct original research,
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or to develop world-class expertise,
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take a part of the chosen discipline that is sparsely inhabited.
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Judge opportunity by how few other students and researchers
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are on hand.
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This is not to de-emphasize the essential requirement
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of broad training, or the value of apprenticing yourself
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in ongoing research to programs of high quality.
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It is important also to acquire older mentors within these successful
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programs, and to make friends and colleagues of your age
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for mutual support.
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But through it all, look for a way to break out,
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to find a field and subject not yet popular.
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We have seen this demonstrated already in the talks preceding mine.
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There is the quickest way advances are likely to occur,
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as measured in discoveries per investigator per year.
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You may have heard the
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military dictum for the gathering of armies:
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March to the sound of the guns.
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In science, the exact opposite is the case: March away from the sound of the guns.
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So Wilson's Principle Number Three:
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March away from the sound of the guns.
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Observe from a distance,
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but do not join the fray.
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Make a fray of your own.
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Once you have settled on a specialty,
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and the profession you can love, and you've secured opportunity,
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your potential to succeed will be greatly enhanced if you study it
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enough to become an expert.
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There are thousands of professionally delimited
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subjects sprinkled through physics and chemistry
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to biology and medicine.
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And on then into the social sciences,
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where it is possible in short time to acquire
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the status of an authority.
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When the subject is still very thinly populated,
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you can with diligence and hard work become
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the world authority.
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The world needs this kind of expertise,
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and it rewards the kind of people
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willing to acquire it.
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The existing information and what you self-discover
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may at first seem skimpy and difficult to connect
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to other bodies of knowledge.
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Well, if that's the case,
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good. Why hard instead of easy?
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The answer deserves to be stated as Principle Number Four.
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In the attempt to make scientific discoveries,
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every problem is an opportunity,
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and the more difficult the problem,
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the greater will be the importance of its solution.
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Now this brings me to a basic categorization
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in the way scientific discoveries are made.
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Scientists, pure mathematicians among them,
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follow one or the other of two pathways:
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First through early discoveries,
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a problem is identified
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and a solution is sought.
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The problem may be relatively small;
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for example, where exactly in a cruise ship does the norovirus begin to spread?
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Or larger, what's the role of dark matter in the expansion of the universe?
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As the answer is sought, other phenomena are typically discovered
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and other questions are asked.
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This first of the two strategies is like a hunter,
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exploring a forest in search of a particular quarry,
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who finds other quarries along the way.
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The second strategy of research
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is to study a subject broadly
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searching for unknown phenomena or patterns of known phenomena
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like a hunter in what we call "the naturalist's trance,"
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the researcher of mind is open to anything interesting,
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any quarry worth taking.
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The search is not for the solution of the problem,
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but for problems themselves worth solving.
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The two strategies of research,
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original research, can be stated as follows,
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in the final principle I'm going to offer you:
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For every problem in a given discipline of science,
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there exists a species or entity or phenomenon
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ideal for its solution.
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And conversely, for every species or other entity
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or phenomenon, there exist important problems
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for the solution of which, those particular objects of research are ideally suited.
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Find out what they are.
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You'll find your own way to discover,
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to learn, to teach.
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The decades ahead will see dramatic advances
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in disease prevention, general health, the quality of life.
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All of humanity depends on the knowledge and practice of the medicine and the science
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behind it you will master.
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You have chosen a calling that will come in steps
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to give you satisfaction, at its conclusion, of a life well lived.
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And I thank you for having me here tonight.
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(Applause)
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Oh, thank you.
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Thank you very much.
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I salute you.
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