[From Seeing What Others Cannot See by Thomas
G. West]
Chapter One
Seeing the Whole
“What
this analysis showed was that Mars had almost nothing but carbon dioxide. Just
bare traces of other gases were present. And I knew immediately that this meant
that Mars was probably lifeless. And at that moment, suddenly a thought came
into my mind. But why is the Earth’s atmosphere so amazingly different.” -- James Lovelock
Looking for Life on Mars -- Understanding Life on
Earth
In September 1965, the
British scientist James Lovelock was asked by NASA to help with the design of
ways to see if there was life on Mars. He met with other scientists, mostly
biologists, to discuss the design of instruments and detectors that could be transported
to Mars -- which was then thought to be somewhat similar to the Mojave Desert.
So they talked of soil types and landing craft. One scientist even built a tiny
metal cage for the fleas that might be found on the animals that might be
living in the Mars desert. Lovelock said this approach made no sense to him
since we could not know if life on Mars would be in any way similar to life on
Earth. The director of the scientific group was not happy and challenged
Lovelock to come up with a better idea -- “by Friday.”
Under time pressure,
Lovelock had a “Eureka moment” -- an idea that had not occurred to him before.
He thought one had to only analyze the gases in the atmosphere of Mars (from a
distance) to see whether life was there. He thought that, if life were there,
the organisms would have to use gases from the atmosphere to help build their
bodies and they would have to give off their waste gases to the atmosphere as
well. He happened to be working in the group with the astronomer Carl Sagan --
who, with an associate, used data from a special telescope to analyze the Mars
gases from the Earth. They found that almost the whole Mars atmosphere was
nothing but carbon dioxide -- with only a few traces of other gases.
Accordingly, Lovelock considered that there was probably no life on Mars, after
all.[1]
However, in rapid fashion,
Lovelock started to ask himself -- if this is true for Mars, how does this work
on Earth? Initially, Sagan did not like Lovelock’s idea. But then Sagan noted a
long-standing scientific puzzle: Over billions of years, our Sun has increased
in power by 30 percent -- yet the Earth has remained habitable for life. If it
was warm enough for life long ago, how come “we are not boiling now?” Lovelock
asked himself. How was this possible? How could the Earth continue to be cool
enough for life even when the Sun was growing so hot? How was Earth different
from Mars? Could it be that living things on Earth were somehow regulating the
gases on Earth -- and this, in turn, was regulating the temperature of the
Earth as well?
In this way the idea of a
self-regulating Earth was born -- now known as Lovelock’s “Gaia Hypothesis” or later “Gaia Theory.” As
other scientists have noted, this leap required an unusual kind of mind -- one
capable of seeing the Earth from the “top down” as a whole, not just from the
perspective of one scientific discipline or another. Because of a rather
unconventional career, Lovelock was famous for having knowledge and experience
in many different disciples and well as hands-on instrument invention. He was
perhaps more able than most to integrate the various parts of the puzzle.
In the BBC documentary
“Beautiful Mind: James Lovelock” where he tells this story, Lovelock also says
“it so happens that I am dyslexic, but not seriously.” He says the dyslexia
slows him down on exams and causes confusion in handling certain mathematical equations.
We may well wonder to what extent Lovelock’s dyslexia (and the kinds of
thinking that seem often to go along with it) would have helped him to see the
really big-picture and, as a consequence, see what others could not see,
forever altering the way we all see our whole planet. [2]
* * * * *
Looking at the life story of
James Lovelock, one can hardly imagine anyone who fits better the kind of
pattern that we are focusing on in this book. Over and over again he has seen
what others could not see or would not see. As one scientist observed:
“[Lovelock’s] mind is able to make intuitive leaps or connections in things
that the rest of us would always keep separate in our heads and it is these
connections that he has been able to see that he has gifted us.” [3]
Lovelock has always independent
and unorthodox, certainly not a specialist. And he was clearly, by his own
account, dyslexic, although as we noted, “not seriously.” He has described his
father’s reading problems. Like James, his father was also an inventor,
tinkerer and had a great knowledge of the world of nature. We see that that we
have some evidence for at least two generations of these traits.
Lovelock is the author of a
number of books, but mostly not about himself. However, fortunately, we have now
access to a number of interviews and some very well done documentaries on his
life and on his distinctive approach to science. Indeed, one documentary by the
BBC in the series of “Great Minds” (quoted above) is so well put together, with
material so well selected, that one could write a small essay on almost every
one of Lovelock’s assertions and stories. It is quite remarkable.
Lovelock has had recognition
for many inventions and discoveries. Chief among these are the electron capture
detector and the Gaia Hypothesis. The electron capture detector is extremely
sensitive. Some say that the sensitivity of this detector allowed the careful
measurements of small amounts of chemicals in the atmosphere. The detector is thus
credited with helping to start the green movement with the concern about the
CFCs in the atmosphere and the well-known “ozone hole.” Two scientists, not
Lovelock, received the Nobel Prize for their work with CFCs and the ozone hole.
But all of their attention was based on data originally collected by Lovelock
using his own invention.
Originally these data were
collected mainly because Lovelock was personally curious about the new haze
that he had seen over the woodlands where he used to walk with his father. This
was a change. He saw that CFCs were a “people marker.” He found that they had
spread all over the planet and they did not degrade. Fortunately, the problem
could be addressed but stopping production by a few companies. Lovelock notes
that dealing with “global heating” is not so simple or easy.
As everyone knows, the
controversies about climate change and global warning are endless. However,
cool minds continue to shed light on this hot topic. Referring to a very recent
book (Anthony McMichael, Climate Change
and the Health of Nations) reviewer Anita Makri summarizes the author’s
position and recommendations:
“Scepticism,
doubt, and denial don’t escape McMichael’s attention. He argues that not
believing in climate change originates from a human tendency to favor urgent, survival-enhancing
reactions over responding to gradual changes. Can the brainpower we evolved in
times of climatic stability be channeled toward changing the behavior that
undermines this stability? he asks. McMichael
concedes that change is not easy. He focuses on motivating action by speaking
to the public about climate change not in the abstract but in terms that are
closer to home, akin to everyday experience. Through education and informed
discussion, let’s talk of debilitating heat, not emissions; parched crops, not
scenarios; infectious microbes in the water we drink, not targets. This way, he
says, there may be a chance to activate the “fight or flight” response that
befits this threat to our survival.” [4]
Visual Thinkers and
Visual Discoveries
For centuries, those who
think visually and those who think differently have struggled at the edge of a
world of education and work mostly dominated by those who think in words and
numbers instead of images and mental models. It is not often fully appreciated
how much these two groups represent vastly different cultures -- different in
ways of working and different in ways of thinking.
Visual thinkers and
different thinkers like Lovelock have long been, apparently, among the most
creative and innovative in the sciences as well as art, design and other fields.
In recent decades, the rapid rise of information-rich computer graphic data and
information visualizations -- coupled with new global economic challenges and
easy access to massive data sources -- has turned the conventional world of
information upside down, although few with conventional “expert” knowledge have
yet noticed. (Sociologists and psychologists have just begun to realize that
their conventional studies of 20 subject individuals seem as nothing when
social media can easily and rapidly survey thousands or millions.)
It seems clear that recent
educational reforms (and more recent reforms of the reforms) in the U.S. and
elsewhere have merely reinforced the long standing conventional values and
methods -- leading to “teaching to the test” along with almost universal boredom
and widespread fear -- while the visual and other creative talents (actually
the most valuable talents in this new visual-digital world) are misunderstood
and ignored.
More recently, as visual
thinkers and other different thinkers aided by these new technologies
increasingly move toward center stage, it is hoped that their capabilities will
come to be recognized and fully valued -- and that these thinkers will be in a
better position to formulate actions based on big-picture solutions to
big-picture problems.
The
growing awareness of the value of visual-spatial talent is a topic I have been
dealing with explicitly as a researcher and writer for over 25 years – yet in
many ways, I now realize, it has been a topic that I have been thinking about
for most of my life. Coming from a family of artists and engineers, silver
smiths and millwrights, and at least one movie stunt pilot, I have always
recognized the value of thinking in pictures and the value of precision motion
in 3D space.
But in the early days, my great puzzle always was how to bring visual
talents to bear on conventional school subjects, especially in the early years.
Visual talents are so often not understood or are misunderstood. The usual
formal academic approaches did not seem to be appropriate. I finally settled on
the notion that what would be most useful to readers would be to describe a
more personal story – with a series of examples, as one problem and one
discovery led to another series of observations and insights – those that in
time resulted in my two earlier books, In
the Mind’s Eye and Thinking Like
Einstein.
Visual Thinking: Amazing Shortcomings,
Amazing Gifts
During my
historical research, I had learned about how visual thinking and visual-spatial
talents (together with varied learning difficulties) seemed often to be
associated with major scientific discoveries of the past. However, I did not have to look long for
current examples of major scientific discoveries. As sometimes happens, the
examples and stories came to me – as in the case of the molecular biologist
Bill Dreyer, who, in an interview, explained:
“I knew I was different in the way that I thought, but I didn’t
realize why I was so dumb at spelling . . . and rote memory and arithmetic. . .
. The first time I realized how different . . . brains could be . . . was when
I bumped into Jim Olds at a dinner party back in the late sixties. Jim . . .
was a professor here [at Caltech] . . . famous for his pleasure center work. .
. . A speaker talked about the way we think and compared it to holography. Jim
was across the table from me. I said, “Oh, yes. When I’m inventing an
instrument or whatever, I see it in my head and I rotate it and try it out and
move the gears. If it doesn’t work, I rebuild it in my head.” And he looked at
me and said, “I don’t see a thing in my head with my eyes closed.” We spent the
rest of the evening . . . trying to figure out how two professors -- both
obviously gifted people at Caltech in the Biology Division -- could possibly
think at all, because we were so different. So then I took this up with Roger
Sperry [Nobel Laureate and near laboratory neighbor] and I realized that I had
some amazing shortcomings as well as some amazing gifts.”
The passage
above is excerpted from the oral history project at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. [5] The speaker is the late
William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., who has been increasingly recognized as one of the
major innovators in the early days of the biotech revolution that is now
washing over all of us. In September 2007, one of his inventions was placed in
the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. -- the first
gas-phase automated protein sequencer, which he patented in 1977. The sign over
the machine on exhibit reads: “The Automated Gas-Phase Protein Sequencer:
William J. Dreyer and the Creation of a New Technology.”
A strong visual
thinker and dyslexic, Dreyer developed new ways of thinking about molecular
biology. With his powerful visual imagination, he could somehow see the
molecules interacting with each other. Sometimes he was almost entirely alone.
He (with his colleague J. Claude Bennett) advanced new ideas based on new data
about how genes recombine themselves to create the immune system.
These ideas
turned out to be 12 years ahead of their time -- well ahead of everyone else in
this emerging field. Most did not like this new theory because it conflicted
with the conventional beliefs held by most experts in the field at the time.
“It was so counter to the dogma of the time that nobody believed it,” his
widow, Janet Dreyer, explained to me. Dreyer’s approach also used a form of
scientific investigation (“peptide mapping”) with which most immunologists were
then unfamiliar. “Knowing what we know now pretty much any biologist would look
at Bill’s data and say that is what it has to mean. But few could understand it
then,” she noted. However, gradually, they all learned to think the way Dreyer
thought. Then, it was obvious that Dreyer (and Bennett) had to be right.
To See What Others Cannot See
In his earlier
school days, Dreyer had the usual difficulties experienced by dyslexics who are
also very bright. But in time, in college and graduate school, he began to find
roles that that made use of his strengths -- while he learned to get help in
his areas of weakness. He joined a study group. The others in the group all
took careful notes in the lectures. He took no notes. He just sat there while
he listened and observed carefully. Then after the lecture, they provided him
with the detailed data, and he told them what it all meant. “He was giving the
big picture and all the major concepts, . . .” explained Janet Dreyer.
Eventually, surviving a major life-threatening illness made him realize it was
time to refocus his life -- and then his fascination with the laboratory work
began to draw him in.
Soon, the young
Bill Dreyer became a star in the laboratory. While in graduate school in
Seattle, Washington state, and while working at the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, he could tell his professors and colleagues
which were the best experiments to do. Somehow he knew how to proceed and where
to go in this brand new field of study that came to be known as protein
chemistry. His professors and section heads would write the grants, get the
funding and write the papers for him based on his ideas and observations. “The
money just came. Because he was doing good work, grants would just be there for
him,” observed his widow Janet Dreyer. He was happy at NIH but eventually
(after a previous Caltech offer had been refused) in 1963 Caltech persuaded
Dreyer to come to Pasadena as a full professor at the age of 33. Clearly, the
value of his pioneering work had been recognized.
Later, however,
because of the further development of his then heretical ideas, William Dreyer
could not get funding from academic or foundation sources for inventing and
building his new instruments. His department head would get irate phone calls
from professors from other institutions complaining about Dreyer’s publications
and talks. He gave many talks at the time, making some attendees angry,
although others could see the importance of his innovative observations.
“He was on the
lecture circuit then and he [gave these talks] a lot.” Of course, these were
not really unproven theories, explained his widow Janet. She pointed out that
Dreyer was sure of his ground because he had the data to prove the veracity of
his ideas. “It was not merely a hypothesis in that paper, it was real data.”
However, it was data in a form so new and so alien that almost everyone in the
field could not understand what he was talking about. In time, these
professors, and all their students, came to see, much later, that William
Dreyer had been right all along. [6]
Because he could
not get funding from the usual sources, Dreyer went to private companies to
manufacture his instruments -- something quite unusual and discouraged at the
time -- but now wildly popular among
universities hoping for a share of large royalty payments. Seeing the potential
for his inventions (and their scientific impact) but having a hatred of
administration and corporate politics, Dreyer came to be, as he told me, the
“idea man” for seven new biotech companies (including Applied Biosystems) and
bought himself a high-altitude, pressurized, small airplane with some of the
proceeds.
Years later,
when Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (Physiology or Medicine, 1987)
for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work proved
(through experiments that were illegal in the US at the time) that Dreyer and
his colleague had been correct in their predictions many years earlier. [7]
[End of excerpt.
Seeing What Other Cannot See, 2017,
pages 21-30.]
End Notes for Chapter One
[1] As Lovelock tells the story in the BBC documentary:
In September 1965, Lovelock met with Carl Sagan and another astronomer, Lou
Kaplan. They had sheets and sheets of computer paper showing a complete
analysis of the Mars atmosphere. “What this analysis showed was that Mars had
almost nothing but carbon dioxide. Just bare traces of other gases were
present. And I knew immediately that this meant that Mars was probably
lifeless. And at that moment, suddenly a thought came into my mind. But why is
the Earth’s atmosphere so amazingly different?” This brief version of the story
is supported by a much more detailed version from a long interview with
Lovelock provided in “An Oral History of British Science” (in Partnership with
The British Library) 2010.
[2] On YouTube, the BBC documentary titled “Beautiful
Minds: James Lovelock.” Total time, 58:40. Lovelock’s non-specialist
perspectives on science, the NASA Mars story and related stories begin at time
mark 25:50. With Lovelock mostly speaking for himself, this documentary is rich
with important details about his early life, his unusual education -- and how
his unusual ways of thinking and working have led to major inventions and
discoveries. Repeatedly we are told about how his “out of the box” and top
down, big-picture thinking led to insights that other over-specialized
scientists could not see or were unlikely to see. They are mostly trained and
hired to focus on narrow problems -- so they have a hard time seeing the really
big picture that requires the integration of knowledge and understanding of
many related disciplines.
[3] Prof. Tim Lenton, School of Environmental Sciences,
University of East Anglia, quoted in BBC documentary, “Beautiful Minds: James
Lovelock.”
[4]
Makri, “Back to the Future,” summarizing, McMichael, Climate Change, 2017, Science,
January 27, 2017, p. 355.
[5] William J. Dreyer, PhD, California Institute of
Technology, Oral History Project, session one, tape 1, side1, interview of
February 18, 1999 with Shirley K. Cohen, published by Caltech Archives 2005.
(Available as PDF at http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/108/.) Dreyer’s
high interest in his own visual thinking is evident in his first introductory
remarks at the beginning of the five days of interviews: “I was just at UCLA
two days ago with people studying brain imaging. . . . They tended to want a
uniform brain, with everyone having the same anatomy and thinking the same way.
That isn’t at all true; it’s amazing how different people can be. And in
particular the book that I loaned to you -- In
the Mind’s Eye by Thomas G. West -- is about the only one I’ve ever seen
that deals with the subject of people who have extreme visual imagery in the
way they think. I wanted to preface all of this [set of interviews] with this
little story, because . . . it has a profound implication.” The passage quoted
above (“Amazing Gifts”) immediately follows Dreyer’s introductory statement.
(It happens that the Jim Olds mentioned here is the father of another Jim Olds
who was the former director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George
Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Roger Sperry, Dreyer’s near lab neighbor,
also mentioned in this quotation, was Caltech Hixon Professor of Psychobiology
1954-1984. Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
1981.)
[6] Janet Roman Dreyer, Ph.D., molecular biologist,
second wife and widow of William J. Dreyer. Based on interview with Thomas G.
West, June 28, 2005.
[7] Tauber and
Podolsky, Generation of Diversity,
1997, p. 207. In the words of Tauber and Podolsky, this page: “This experiment
marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity
question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the
Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction
enzymes.”
