KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Given by Claudia Dreifus, writer for the Science Section of the New York Times at the farewell banquet at the Tavern on the Green Restaurant.

Good evening, Neurochemists peaceful soldiers in the war on epilepsy, paralysis, brain injury, spine injury, and the various forms of mental illness. I hope you've had a splendid and productive time here in New York. And how nice of y'all to leave town tomorrow to make room for those fun-loving Republicans.

You know, when Maire Filbin asked me to address your annual meeting, she suggested I prepare what she termed, "a light talk." To be exact, she said, "Keep it light and humorous."

I have a feeling that she suspected that after four days of presentations with titles like "Mechanisms of cell death in central nervous system responses to trauma" you might be in need of some diversion.

And so, off-handedly, I suggested I speak on "Why Scientists Are the Greatest People In This Universe - Or Any Other." People aIways like to hear nice things about themselves!

But seriously - as the interviewer of Science Section of the New York Times - this is a subject that I've come to know a bit about.

And let me say right here that I'm speaking here as an individual and do not represent the newspaper tonight. And also let me a offer a correction to what your website says. I'm afraid I'm NOT the editor of Science Times, but a mere writer for it. Our new editor is the wonderful and truly talented Laura Chang.

At any rate, how did I learn that scientists are the most sterling of all the living primates? Let me tell you a little about my background.

I come from the world of politics. Until about five years ago, I had-- what was for a while - the best job in the world. I traveled around the world for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and interviewed heads of state and actors and sports figures about what they did and why they did it.

But around 1999, I went into a professional crisis where I found myself tiring of spending time with impossibly vain and controlling movie stars, and perhaps more seriously - equally vain and controlling politicians. Around the same moment I found myself at a Christmas party where I met Cornelia Dean, who was then editor of the Science Times.

"Ah, Claudia I LOVE your interviews in the Magazine," she said with genuine enthusiasm. "I've been meaning to do an interview feature in Science Times. Would you be interested?"

Suddenly, a way out of my professional malaise stood before me. Without giving it a second thought, I said, "I'd love to."

Now, the truth was that I had, in the 1970s, done a bit of writing about the politics of women's health. But that was it. In fact, I was one of those people with impossible math blocs who'd failed Geometry four times in high school and who had picked my college - NYU -for the sole reason that it had, at that time, no math requirements. WHAT ON EARTH HAD I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO??? I was terrified.

As I contemplated what seemed like the biggest blunder of my life, I devised a survival strategy. I would focus on people in the earth and medical sciences concrete stuff that everyone could understand. I would avoid mathematicians, physicists, and molecular biologists. In my mind was a chant: "Physicians, yes. Physicists, no."
Yet, for the first year that I did the feature, I must have been given five different types of physicists to interview Sir Martin Rees, Sir Roger Penrose, Leon Lederman, Congressman Rush Holt who is a plasma physicist and more.

What I quickly learned was that scientists are somewhat like artists: they use their creative powers to examine nature and in doing so, they describe everything about us. Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain could laugh with me, when I asked him what his astrologic sign was. He's a "Taurus."

I also discovered that scientists - with an exception or two - are lovely, lovely people. Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, after retiring from a brilliant career directing the Fermi Lab, used his political skills to get the State of Illinois to set up a science boarding school for brilliant youngsters. He's in his 80s, but there he is: educating a whole new generation of scientists.

I found also that the scientists I met had a more appealing type of self-confidence that one never saw in politicians or movie stars. Perhaps it was because they were so in touch with the mysteries of the universe and they also had a kind of sincere humility. I remember an interview I did Baruch Blumberg, another Nobel Laureate, who had discovered both the Hepatitis B virus and later its vaccine. I asked him what it felt like to know that he had saved thousands of lives. He looked at me, without any falseness or guile and said, "Millions. I've saved millions of lives." And he had.

Or your own Maire Filbin, who I interviewed about her work on myelin regeneration. Dr. Filbin often goes to nursing homes and gives talks about her research to those who will, some day, benefit from it. Why does she do that? "It keeps me honest," she said. "And motivated."

As I began working this new beat, what I also discovered was a reservoir of idealism among scientists, the same kind of idealism that used to exist in the political world. Rita Colwell, the former Director of the NSF, had this brilliant idea: she figured out how to cut down the rate of cholera in Bangladesh - just have the women filter their drinking water through bits of sari-cloth. I have an interview coming out with Erec Stebbins, who heads a structural biology lab at Rockefeller. Why has he learnt everything there is to know about Salmonella? Because he thinks he can end a handful of nasty infectious diseases with his work. He wants to do what Baruch Blumberg did and what Maire Filbin may be close to doing: but an end to one chapter of human misery.

There's a wonderful wit with in science. I've spent time with a chemist in Pittsburgh named Robert Wolke, who figures out the scientific principles in the cuisine he cooks.

I've spent some more time with an Oxford geneticist named Bryan Sykes who tries to get DNA swabs of everyone he meets because he's mapping human origins. I gave him some cheek cells and three weeks later, he sent me back a report saying that I was related to Otzi, the Ice Man, found in the Italian Alps some years back. This was a shock to my Aunt Inge - who always thought we were of German-Jewish and Iberian extraction.

There's also a great sense of citizenship among scientists. Though this is a field of work where a huge sector of people are employed by the government, you see an uncommon bravery among scientists when it comes to participating in policy questions.

Those who signed the recent statement that the Union of Concerned Scientists issued are among the most accomplished of American scientists. They don't have to put themselves out on a political limb; but their sense of responsibility was what impelled them. And that's rare. You don't often see leaders in professions snapping at the hand that fees them.

Which brings me to the question: why do scientists have such a bad rep within our society? Why do we live in a culture that often describes these wonderful creative hardworking citizens as pedantic and parasitic grinds? If there's a villain in a movie or a television series, IT'S GOING TO BE a mad scientist? Definitely! ! ! ! Some of it has to do with a growing anti-intellectualism in our culture - where it's okay, even cool, to be "dumb and dumber." But some of it also has to do with scientists not having communicated who you are very well.

When I was little, I remember seeing wonderful Warner Brothers movies about scientists - Greer Garson as Marie Curie, Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur, Edward G. Robinson curing syphilis with a "magic bullet". The stories were inspiring. I remember reading Microbe Hunters and thinking it all wonderful.

In my Science Times Columns, I try to recreate some of that Warner Brothers bio-pic excitement about the lives of scientists. I want to show what brave and innovative Iives people who actually do this sort of work, live. But I'm hoping that you guys will start thinking about how you can get your story out more effectively.

This not something unimportant that scientists can let pass and leave to others. There is no way to be an informed citizen of our country or our globalized world, without widespread scientific literacy. How can Americans make good decisions about some of the policy questions that are before them - stem cells, the possible resumption of nuclear testing by the next Administration, the weaponization of space, global warming - if the public doesn't understand or care about science? How can we respond to the international AIDS crisis, without widespread scientific literacy. Think about what happened in South Africa. There you had a President with a stubborn belief that AIDs was not an infectious disease but an economic issue and that lead to a policy that makes South Africa sadly one oft he most infected corners of the earth.

To combat this, scientists like the one's sitting in this room need to get out and tell people what you do and why it is important. You need to say it not in academic terms, but in language that people can understand. You need to go into the public schools and nursing homes as Maire Filbin does, and get the word out. You need to go to the mass media, rather than shun it.

With that message in mind, I thank you for inviting me here, tonight.