Encountering Science in the 1980s – Splice Today

One day in the early-1980s,when I was in my late-teens,Ibought a couple of books and brought themtoNYU Medical Center. Iwas a frequent visitor tothe hospital, given family health conditions and thatmyuncle,BobSilber,headed the hematology division.The books wereThe Creation, by P.W. Atkins, andModern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties, by Paul Johnson.These reflected diverse interests Id developed; as ascience enthusiastabsorbed with questions aboutphysics and free will; andas alibertarian conservativefor whomgrowingdisaffectionwith the rightlay far in the future.

Both books shaped my views of science-related matters. And so did the environment where I began readingthem, a major hospital with research and teaching arms.

The Creationoffered a worldview of extreme rationalism and militant reductionism, as the dust jacket put it. Atkins, an Oxfordphysical chemist,sketchedout a universe with no role for a creator;whereinnatural processes arise from a purposeless collapse into chaos,andcomplex phenomena concealan underlying simplicity.Atkins held thatperfect freedom generates its own constraints, such thatevenspace, time and physical law are products of chance.He noted a debate that would intensify in later years,onclaims thatphysical constants show evidence of fine-tuningfor compatibility with life,buthedismissedthat idea as an illusion.

Atkins sawtheuniversehe describedas compatible with free will. The singular property of the brain is that its response to circumstance is to a degree under its own control, he wrote,though he added that this capacity was ultimately just purposeless dispersal of energy.The Creationwas a fascinating read, with an appealing formatwherethe main narrativewason right-hand pages while left-hand pageshadmore-technical comments.The book bolstered myskepticismtoward claims that scientists had uncovered, or were trying toevade,evidence of the divine; such claimslater became a staple of conservative magazines.

Modern Timeshad a different sensibility. Johnson, a conservative journalist and historian, sawmuch calamityinthe 20thcentury as having arisen from displacement of traditional religion by secular or atheistic ideologies. The book took a tack ofseparatingsciencefromsuch ideologies.It opened with the idea that the modern world began in 1919 when Einsteins theory of relativity was confirmed by solar-eclipse observations. Johnson proceeded to lament that this physics theory helped spur cultural trendsthat underminedtraditional morals and standards. He wrote:Mistakenly but perhaps inevitably,relativity became confused with relativism.

Johnson wrote with verve, putting forward a sweeping historical tableau resonant with Thatcherite and Reaganite conservatism. I was generally receptive to his interpretations, though in retrospectI findthe books tendentiousnessoverwrought, as with Johnsonscontention that Warren Harding was an exceptionally shrewd president,orthatWatergatewitch-hunterstoppled Nixon in what might be described as a mediaputsch.Modern Timess sympathetic treatment of the Franco regime in Spainisan ominous portentin light of right-wing affinities for authoritariangovernments in the 2020s.

Johnsonevinceda disdain for the social sciences as left-wing endeavors to remake society. Economics, sociology, psychology and other inexact sciencesscarcely sciences at all in the light of modern experiencehad constructed the juggernaut of social engineering, which had crushed beneath it so much wealth and so many lives, he wrote. He expressedapprovalthat such disciplines had faced growing disesteem in the 1970s but regretted ithad taken so long.

The effects of the social science fallacy will therefore still be felt until the turn of the century,Johnsonwrote. But its influence will steadily diminish and never again, perhaps, will humanity put so much trust in this modernmetaphysic. This argument influenced menegatively, I now believe, as itfostered a contemptuous dismissal of subjects about which I knew little.(I did, nonetheless, choose economics as one of my majors at NYUa year or so later, seeing it as partly exempt from the negative tendencies that Johnson had described.)

Johnson closedModern Timeswith an encomium to sociobiology, a school of thought led by biologist E.O. Wilson that emphasized genetic factors in understanding human behavior. According to Johnson, sociobiology was an exact science that was opposed by the radical social scientists, especially the Marxists because it suggestedthat their work and beliefs were no more than a metaphysics, a form of superstition. The books final paragraphwondered whether the whole process of seeking social and economic equality might run counter to a beneficial biological process under way in every second of creation, as humans evolve.

I thought back to thatpassagerecently amidallegationsafter Wilsons deaththathe hadracist ideas,a contretemps Ive previouslynoted. Wilson expresslydisavowedany such connection, writing that no justification for racism is to be found in the truly scientific study of the biological basis of social[behavior].Still,Wilsons work could be interpreted in bizarre ways, as with Johnsons suggestionto avoidsocialreforms so as to keep out of the way ofbiological improvementsover vast periods of time.Nearly two decades after readingModern Times, IreviewedWilsons bookConsilience, which sought to link various disciplines into a comprehensiveworldview, with sociobiologyas an important connector.Id maintained skepticismthatthis gene-centeredapproachwas an exact science.

Spending time with Uncle Bob at NYU Medical Center gave me a view of science and its messy realities I couldnt get from books. One day, he asked a young woman who worked in one of the labs to show me around. At one point, she unlocked a door so I could see where the monkeys are kept. Inthat room, the lab animals were in cages on shelves, andtheyreacted with rage at seeing us. At another point, we passed containers of blood, which had a strong smell.

Bob told me stories about scientists he knew. One of them had become well-known as an AIDS researcher andoncetold Bob hewas headingto another scientists lab as there was something theotherwanted him to see. Later, there was a dispute between the two scientists as to whod seen something first, and the well-known guys claim of credit wasfalse. Another anecdote was about a scientist whod bullied another,even overturning the guys desk and scattering his papers. When I asked what motivated this, my uncle described the bully as a psychopath.

There were more inspiring colleagues, such asLinda Laubenstein, famed for her work with AIDS patients.She used a wheelchair because of childhood polio and was called a bitch on wheels for her assertiveness with other doctors. I met her at a hospital party, and she was very nice.

Uncle Bob published over 100 science papers, withafocus on developing treatments for leukemia and other diseases. He was also a popular professor at the medical school. Treating patients was his overriding passion, though.He and they often formed close connections.

One day, I walked into the hospital, and to my surprise heard my name over the paging system. Calling the specified extension, I reached Bob, who told me that a terminally-ill woman he was treating enjoyed milkshakes of a particular type; he recited a list of ingredients, and asked me to get such a shake made. I went to a deli andinstructed a dubious counterman about the elaborate concoction, then brought ittothe womans hospital room, fulfilling her dying wish.

Kenneth Silber is author ofIn DeWitts Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canaland is on Twitter:@kennethsilber

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Encountering Science in the 1980s - Splice Today