As a young and aspiring scientist I read continuously. Not just the latest research paper on the ecotoxicology of aluminium or my weekly delve into Nature magazine but books. Well, primarily biographies, usually of scientists, but also general science and specifically the musings of great scientists on science. Regarding the latter, perhaps top of my list was Peter Medawar. One of his books Advice to a Young Scientist was particularly influential in guiding my early years.
I was never your archetypal scientist, never mind biologist. However, I was inexorably drawn to the lives and writings of what we used to call, ‘the great and the good’, not only in science. Looking back, I suppose that these persons, see Lord Norfolk’s description of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, contributed to my self meaning. They helped to give my everyday life in the laboratory the meaning required to sustain the long and often tedious hours of repetitive work. Yes, good science is hard work and often tedious to an extreme.
Since I have now equalled Peter Medawar’s age, when he wrote the aforementioned book, if not his many accolades, I wondered if my musings on science and doing science might be of interest to someone. I was lucky in my scientific career. My first stroke of luck, of true significance, was in meeting and then working with JD Birchall OBE FRS, a truly great British scientist and, at the time, ICI's senior research scientist. ICI funded my PhD and Derek, as he was known, acted as my supervisor. Derek inspired my science as well as my interest in scientists and, luckily, I was willing to learn and to question. Both attributes of equal importance.
While I was not aware of this at the beginning of my career as a scientist I was, retrospectively, pleased to learn that I was following one important piece of advice. If you are going to do science then make sure you are striving to answer as big a question as possible. In my example, the role of aluminium in life and living things. Of course, the path taking you through towards your ‘answer’ is made up of many steps, not always forward. Perhaps what is important is that you can envisage how each step is leading you ahead, as a jigsaw, one piece at a time. Sometimes a piece opens up a particular pathway, on other occasions it may simply be a filler, part of the sky making up your blue sky research.
I began this substack writing about reading and for a very good reason. The Japanese, I believe, have a saying, know your enemy. I think I read this somewhere (Lao Tzu?) as an impressionable young scientist and it struck a chord. I interpreted the saying as ‘know what you are writing and talking about’ and ‘don’t talk or write about something that you do not know’. Practically it meant read as deeply and widely as possible to the extent that you are confident in what you have to say. However, in achieving this position you must also be open to learning something new which, often in my case, meant being wrong. Ask well founded questions, well founded because you have done your research, but prepare to be found out. You defend the ground that you stand upon but only until it collapses beneath you and presents you with a new platform. You are learning and we should all hope to learn something new as often as possible. Many of you will already be aware that I am often asked to comment upon subjects out of my area of expertise. While I may sometimes offer an opinion more often as not I will simply decline to comment. I can only defend my ground and I will do that as long as it remains steadfast below me.
Perhaps one other piece of advice that was pivotal in my career was one that I ignored. On more than one occasion I was strongly advised to change subjects, that is if I wanted to succeed in science. In many cases this may be sound advice. It was not for me. What those offering this advice had failed to understand was my primary motivation for being a scientist. As I said earlier in this piece, I am and was not your archetypal scientist. I was just a young man who loved nature and fishing at least until two things happened. I found aluminium, see my book, and I found the inspiration I needed, JD Birchall, to pursue just one question in science, one question in life. To my mind, the great unanswered question in biology. How did life evolve on Earth in the apparent presence of the most ubiquitous toxic substance, aluminium.
So, when you have a passion and your only wish is to pursue that passion do not be deterred, do not change, do not give in. You may not receive the awards and accolades as someone like Peter Medawar, you may well be censored (I see another of my videos has been taken down by YouTube), silenced but your reward will be in your personal achievement and when this is recognised you may then become the subject of a best-selling biography.
Directing science to locating the TRUE causes of human suffering and disease, in order that we might remedy them, is about the best possible use one could make of science.
THANK YOU CHRIS.
Pleased to see you followed your passion and to learn and to question. Attributes which, I feel, are becoming lost to our younger generations, as they drown in the quagmire internet and bought and paid for educational system. Hope you’ve settled in!