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Biologist who unravelled how animal behaviour develops.

Credit: Royal Society

Rarely a day goes by without extravagant claims being made about whether some human characteristic — be it intelligence, violence or sporting prowess — is explained by genes or environment, biology or upbringing, ‘nature or nurture’. Patrick Bateson exposed the folly of such false dichotomies. In a 50-year career, he made seminal contributions to almost every topic in the science of animal behaviour, becoming a leading authority on behavioural development.

Bateson, born on 31 March 1938, decided at an early age to be a biologist. He was influenced by the legacy of his grandfather’s famous cousin, the geneticist William Bateson, and by a keen interest in birdwatching. Bateson was educated at Westminster School in London before beginning an undergraduate degree in natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1957. In 1963, he married Dusha Matthews, with whom he had two daughters. Apart from a two-year fellowship working with neuroscientist Karl Pribram at Stanford University in California, Bateson spent his whole career at the University of Cambridge in the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour.

Bateson’s early research was influenced by two luminaries of ethology, Niko Tinbergen and Robert Hinde. Hinde supervised Bateson’s PhD on behavioural imprinting — the tendency of young birds, such as goslings, to latch on to and follow the first moving stimulus they see, typically their mothers. At the time, the mechanisms underlying imprinting were a mystery and hotly disputed.

Bateson defused the contention through decades of pioneering experimentation into the underlying genetic, neural, physiological and experiential bases of the phenomenon, largely in collaboration with neuroscientists Gabriel Horn and Steven Rose. As psychologists had argued, imprinting is a form of perceptual learning, whereas, as ethologists had maintained, it involves an unlearned predisposition to attend to the physical characteristics of the mother.

Bateson also studied mate choice, animal welfare, play, learning and memory, and the role of behaviour in evolution. He had an eloquent writing style and published influential books. These included Measuring Behaviour (Cambridge University Press, 1986), an introduction to the methodology of the field co-authored with ethologist Paul Martin, and Design for a Life: How Behaviour Develops (Jonathan Cape, 1999), also written with Martin. Some of the volumes edited or co-edited by Bateson, notably Growing Points in Ethology in 1976 and Mate Choice in 1983 (both Cambridge University Press), shaped thinking in these fields. He edited the influential Perspectives in Ethology series for 20 years, and for 5 years was editor of Animal Behaviour, the leading journal in ethology.

Bateson held exalted positions in British science, including provost of King’s College at the University of Cambridge (1988–2003), president of the Zoological Society of London (2004–14) and biological secretary and vice-president of the Royal Society (1998–2003). He proved a leader in other ways too, showing courage, integrity and sensitivity in tackling emotive topics, including dog breeding and the use of animals in medical research. Bateson was also commissioned by the National Trust, a UK conservation and heritage charity, to lead a review into the physiological effects of hunting in deer, which resulted in the trust banning the practice on its land.

Bateson was adept at helping others to develop a more nuanced understanding of tricky issues, such as overly simplistic adaptationism at a time when ‘gene for X’ language was rife. His calm and reasoned writings ensured that the whole organism and a systems perspective remained in sight during the heyday of genetic determinism.

Bateson maintained a keen interest in evolutionary biology, but envisaged a broader conception of evolutionary causation, one that eschewed gene-centricism and placed the organism centre stage. This led some biologists to view him as a maverick. Nonetheless, Bateson was ahead of the curve in recognizing the evolutionary significance of mate choice, sympatric speciation (when populations of a species in one habitat become reproductively isolated from each other) and developmental plasticity, which have since become mainstream concepts.

He also recognized the importance of ideas such as epigenetic inheritance and niche construction, which are now garnering increased attention. Behind the scenes, by organizing conferences and workshops and by promoting the work of progressive thinkers, Bateson helped to incubate ideas that are central to the emerging extended evolutionary synthesis.

An approachable and affectionate scientist, he insisted on being called Pat by everyone. He was open-minded, a good listener and curious about science. Bateson was dedicated to his students and collaborators, and made time for anyone who wanted to discuss their research. He was a loyal colleague, mentor and friend. Pat and Dusha were excellent hosts in their lodge at King’s College. They would warmly welcome all guests, whether graduate students or international dignitaries, introducing them to their collection of cats.

Patrick Bateson died on 1 August, aged 79. His death marks the end of a glorious era of behavioural research. His legacy will long be appreciated.

Author information

Author notes

1. Kevin N. Laland: He worked closely with Pat Bateson for 25 years.

Authors and Affiliations

1. professor of behavioural and evolutionary biology at the University of St Andrews, UK

   Kevin N. Laland

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin N. Laland.

XXXXXXXXXXXX March 27, 2016

William Bateson, (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926)

James Watson (1928-) and Francis Crick  (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004)

Michael Polanyi, FRS^[1] (11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976)

John Charles Polanyi,  (born 23 January 1929)

John Scott Haldane (2 May 1860 – 14/15 March 1936)

J. B. S. HALDANE
Haldane in 1914

(5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964)

Maurice Wilkins (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004)

Erwin Schrödinger (12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961)

Sir Peter Medawar ( 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987)

Barry Commoner (May 28, 1917 – September 30, 2012)

Francis Schaeffer (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984^[1])  and his wife Edith  (November 3, 1914 – March 30, 2013)

C. Everett Koop, MD (October 14, 1916 – February 25, 2013) 13th Surgeon General of the United States

  

 

 

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March 27, 2016

Dr. Pat Bateson, President, Zoological Society of London, Outer Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4RY,

Dear Dr. Bateson,

I learned much from your in-depth interview with Dr. Alan MacFarlane. I noticed that you have been involved with the famous professors William Thorpe and Edmund Leach. Both were quoted in the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop. Did you know them both personally? I was also fascinated that William Bateson was your great uncle.  Concerning William Bateson I read in Wikipedia:

Bateson became famous as the outspoken Mendelianantagonist of Walter Raphael Weldon, his former teacher, and of Karl Pearson who led the biometricschool of thinking. The debate centred on saltationismversus gradualism (Darwin had represented gradualism, but Bateson was a saltationist).^[9]

Reading that prompted me to send you two CD’s today on a similar subject. Recently I had the opportunity to come across a very interesting article by Michael Polanyi, LIFE TRANSCENDING PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY, in the magazine CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS, August 21, 1967, and I also got hold of a 1968 talk by Francis Schaeffer based on this article. Polanyi’s son John actually won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. This article by Michael Polanyi concerns Francis Crick and James Watson and their discovery of DNA in 1953. Polanyi noted:

Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of in
animate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry. Further controlling principles of life may be represented as a hierarchy of boundary conditions extending, in the case of man, to consciousness and responsibility.

I am sending you this two CD’s of this talk because I thought you may find it very interesting. It includes references to not only James D. Watson, and Francis Crick but also  Maurice Wilkins, Erwin Schrodinger, J.S. Haldane (his son was the famous J.B.S. Haldane), Peter Medawar, and Barry Commoner.

In the You Tube video “A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1),” you asserted:
‎”I’m not a believer.”
Are you an agnostic or an atheist would you say?
“Well, that’s a good question, I think… Darwins response when he was asked whether he was an atheist was I don’t know, so I think agnostic. I think I’m actually an atheist when all is said and done, if I’m really honest about it, I really don’t believe in a God.”
Patrick Bateson (biologist, science writer and professor of ethology)

Sometimes a song will just minister to a person in a special way and I wanted to share with you a song called MAN OF SORROWS and it can be found on You Tube Man Of Sorrows – Hillsong Live (2013 Album Glorious Ruins) Worship Song with Lyrics and here are the lyrics:

“Man Of Sorrows”

Man of sorrows Lamb of God
By His own betrayed
The sin of man and wrath of God
Has been on Jesus laid

Silent as He stood accused
Beaten mocked and scorned
Bowing to the Father’s will
He took a crown of thorns

Oh that rugged cross
My salvation
Where Your love poured out over me
Now my soul cries out
Hallelujah
Praise and honour unto Thee

Sent of heaven God’s own Son
To purchase and redeem
And reconcile the very ones
Who nailed Him to that tree

Now my debt is paid
It is paid in full
By the precious blood
That my Jesus spilled

Now the curse of sin
Has no hold on me
Whom the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed

See the stone is rolled away
Behold the empty tomb
Hallelujah God be praised
He’s risen from the grave

We sang that song at our Easter service.

On Easter morning March 27, 2016 at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH our teaching pastor Brandon Barnarddelivered the message THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING based on I Corinthians chapter 15 and I wanted to share a portion of that sermon with you today.

This day is the day that changes everything. The resurrection changes everything and that is why we are gathered here today to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ because it changes everything.

Some of you are going to be blown away by the opportunity before you this Easter morning because the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands at the very heart of Christianity. If what we we are gathered here to celebrate did not happen then people need to pity us as believers.  They need to feel sorry for you and me more than anyone on earth because we have set our hopes firmly on a lie.

But if the resurrection really did happen, then we need to repent and we need to believe in Jesus and we need to rejoice that we have hope in this life and the life to come. 

Paul wrote this to the believers in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 15:3-6, 13-21 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope^[a] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

_____

If Christ hasn’t been raised then these facts are true:

1. PREACHING AND FAITH ARE IN VAIN.
2. WE ARE FALSE WITNESSES
3. WE ARE STILL IN OUR SINS.
4. THOSE WHO DIED IN FAITH ARE STILL DEAD
5. WE ARE TO BE PITIED MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

Verse 20 says, “but Christ has been raised!!! Therefore, these things are true:

1. Our faith is significant, valuable and eternal.
2. we are truth tellers!!
3. we are forgiven of our sins.
4. death is not our final stop.
5. don’t pity us but join us in believing in Jesus Christ.

DR BATESON, you said above that you are an agnostic. However, would you agree that if the Bible is correct in regards to history then Jesus did rise from the grave? Let’s take a closer look at evidence concerning the accuracy of the Bible.

I know that you highly respected Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and he co-authored with Francis Schaeffer the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? Below is a piece of evidence from that book.

__

Two things should be mentioned about the time of Moses in Old Testament history.

First, consider the archaeological evidence that relates to the period. True, it is not of the same explicitness that we have found, say, in relation to the existence of Ahab or Jehu or Jehoiakim. We have no inscription from Egypt which refers to Moses being taken out of the bulrushes and removed from the waterproof basket his mother had made him. But this does not mean that the Book of Exodus is a fictitious account, as some critics has suggested. Some say it is simply an idealized reading-back into history by the Jews under the later monarchy. There is not a reason why these “books of Moses,” as they are called, should not be treated as history, just as we have been forced to treat the Books of Kings and Chronicles dating 500 years later.

There is ample evidence about the building projects of the Egyptian kings, and the evidence we have fits well with Exodus. There are scenes of brick-making (for example, Theban Tomb 100 of Rekhmire). Contemporary parchments and papyri tell of production targets which had to be met. One speaks of a satisfied official report of his men as “making their quota of bricks daily” (Papyrus Anastasi III vso, p.3, in the British Museum. Also Louvre Leather Roll in the Louvre, Paris, col ii, mentions quotes of bricks and “taskmasters”). Actual bricks found show signs of straw which had to be mixed in with the clay, just as Exodus says. This matter of bricks and straw is further affirmed by the record that one despairing official complained, “There are no men to make bricks nor straw in my area.”

We know from contemporary discoveries that Semites were found at all levels of Egypt’s cosmopolitan society. (Brooklyn Museum, New York, no. 35, 1446. Papyrus Brooklyn). There is nothing strange therefore about Joseph’s becoming so important in the pharaoh’s court.

The store cities of Pithom and Raamses (Rameses) mentioned in Exodus 1:11 are well known in Egyptian inscriptions. Raamses was actually in the east-Delta capital, Pi-Ramses (near Goshen), where the Israelites would have had ample experience of agriculture. Thus, the references to agriculture found in the law of Moses would not have been strange to the Israelites even though they were in the desert at the time the law was given. Certainly there is no reason to say, as some critics do, that these sections on agriculture were an indication of a reading-back from a latter period when the Jews were settled in Canaan.

The form of the covenant made at Sinai has remarkable parallels with the covenant forms of other people at that time. (On covenants and parties to a treaty, the Louvre; and Treaty Tablet from Boghaz Koi (i.e., Hittite) in Turkey, Museum of Archaeology in Istanbul.) The covenant form at Sinai resembles just as the forms of letter writings of the first century after Christ (the types of introductions and greetings) are reflected in the letters of the apostles in the New Testament, it is not surprising to find the covenant form of the second millennium before Christ reflected in what occurred at Mount Sinai. God has always spoken to people within the culture of their time, which does not mean that God’s communication is limited by that culture. It is God’s communication but within the forms appropriate to the time.

The Pentateuch tells us that Moses led the Israelites up the east side of the Dead Sea after their long stay in the desert. There they encountered the hostile kingdom of Moab. We have firsthand evidence for the existence of this kingdom of Moab–contrary to what has been said by critical scholars who have denied the existence of Moab at this time. It can be found in a war scene from a temple at Luxor (Al Uqsor). This commemorates a victory by Ramses II over the Moabite nation at Batora (Luxor Temple, Egypt).

Also the definite presence of the Israelites in west Palestine (Canaan) no later than the end of the thirteenth century B.C. is attested by a victory stela of Pharaoh Merenptah (son and successor of Ramses II) to commemorate his victory over Libya (Israel Stela, Cairo Museum, no. 34025). In it he mentions his previous success in Canaan against Aschalon, Gize, Yenom, and Israel; hence there can be no doubt the nation of Israel was in existence at the latest by this time of approximately 1220 B.C. This is not to say it could not have been earlier, but it cannot be later than this date.

Christ came and laid his life down to die for our sins and there is evidence that indicates the Bible is true!!!!! Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah’s death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

Psalm 22 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

A Cry of Anguish and a Song of Praise.

For the choir director; upon ^[a]Aijeleth Hashshahar. A Psalm of David.

22 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
^[b]Far from my deliverance are the words of my ^[c]groaning.
² O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but ^[d]I have no rest.
⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,

A reproach of men and despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me ^[g]sneer at me;
They ^[h]separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,
⁸ “^[i]Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”

¹² Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
¹³ They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.
¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within ^[l]me.
¹⁵ My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me ^[m]in the dust of death.
¹⁶ For dogs have surrounded me;
^[n]A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
^[o]They pierced my hands and my feet.
¹⁷ I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
¹⁸ They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.

Francis Schaeffer ended HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? Episode 7 with these words:

When we think of Christ of course we think of his substitutionary death upon the cross when he who claimed to be God died in a substitutionary way and as such his death had infinite value and as we accept  that gift raising the empty hands of faith with no humanistic elements we have that which is real life and that is being in relationship to the infinite personal God who is there and being in a personal relationship to Him. But Christ brings life in another way that is not as often clearly thought about perhaps. He connects himself with what the Bible teaches in his teaching and as such he is a prophet as well as a savior. It is upon the basis of what he taught  and the Bible teaches because he himself wraps these together that we have life instead of death in the sense of having some knowledge that is more than men can have from himself, beginning from himself alone. Both of these elements are the place where Christ gives us life.  

 

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

In  the first video below in the 22nd clip in this series are his words and  my response is below them.
In the You Tube video “A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1),” Patrick Bateson asserted:

‎”I’m not a believer.”
Are you an agnostic or an atheist would you say?
“Well, that’s a good question, I think… Darwin’s response when he was asked whether he was an atheist was I don’t know, so I think agnostic. I think I’m actually an atheist when all is said and done, if I’m really honest about it, I really don’t believe in a God.”

Patrick Bateson (biologist, science writer and professor of ethology)

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

_________________________________

________

Related posts:

__

Interview of Paul Rabinow, part one

Mailed Venter on 3-18-18

To Professor Rabinow, From Everette Hatcher, I enjoyed this book on the life of Craig Venter & thought it would interest you too since it is filled with the names of scientists who you probably know

CRAIG VENTER, JOHN SULSTON, FRANCIS COLLINS, HAMILTON SMITH AND JEAN WEISSENBACH

RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Part 144 Paul Rabinow, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California (Berkeley), “I am not a believer or a theist,…never felt the need to go [into that debate]” POSTED ON 8-22-17

Quote from Paul Rabinow:

In other words I am not a believer or a theist, but I am not also a militant atheist. I think that debate leads into a range of different and diverse existential corners that I don’t want to go to and never felt the need to go to.

More lengthy quote from Paul Rabinow:

on religious belief – don’t believe in God; there are passages in Levi-Strauss’ ‘Tristes Tropiques’ on Buddhism which are relatively close to what I felt much more strongly as a younger person; this question is interesting because in recent years I have been working with a student who has just finished a degree in theology and is now doing a degree in anthropology; he is a practising Christian and we get along remarkably well, discussing ethics etc., but it is clear that the larger theist dimensions are radically disparate; this is an interesting anthropological dimension where ethically this seems to not cause any problem; I frequently related to people with strong but quiet religious beliefs; Michel de Certeau was a Jesuit and I had a number of other Jesuit friends; I think it is the fact that they care about the world and other people, are thoughtful, committed and concerned, and I don’t have to share other parts of their belief system while finding them worthy of friendship; I am uninterested in the Dawkins’ argument of science disproving religion, I am not a positivist, there is a big difference between this form of nineteenth century militant positivism and a Weberian position in which science does not answer ultimate questions; when science becomes a world view, a cosmology, it seems to part company with its deep critical functions; I may not be a believer or theist, but I am not a militant atheist; I also part company with people like Jurgen Habermas or Charles Taylor who feel that unless we have sure foundations for our ethical life that we flounder, which seems wrong; no one has ever proved the ultimate foundations of anything to everyone’s satisfaction yet ethical life and decent human relations seem to me not all that common, but not impossible either; I am not looking for ultimate stopping points, and there is some anthropological dimension to that through respect for the complexity of different commitments; cosmopolitan enlightenment sense that we have to live with difference which can be a good thing, and that intolerance –even in the name of tolerance — is not so admirable

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 118th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

___________________

Quote from Paul Rabinow:

In other words I am not a believer or a theist, but I am not also a militant atheist. I think that debate leads into a range of different and diverse existential corners that I don’t want to go to and never felt the need to go to.

More lengthy quote from Paul Rabinow:

on religious belief – don’t believe in God; there are passages in Levi-Strauss’ ‘Tristes Tropiques’ on Buddhism which are relatively close to what I felt much more strongly as a younger person; this question is interesting because in recent years I have been working with a student who has just finished a degree in theology and is now doing a degree in anthropology; he is a practising Christian and we get along remarkably well, discussing ethics etc., but it is clear that the larger theist dimensions are radically disparate; this is an interesting anthropological dimension where ethically this seems to not cause any problem; I frequently related to people with strong but quiet religious beliefs; Michel de Certeau was a Jesuit and I had a number of other Jesuit friends; I think it is the fact that they care about the world and other people, are thoughtful, committed and concerned, and I don’t have to share other parts of their belief system while finding them worthy of friendship; I am uninterested in the Dawkins’ argument of science disproving religion, I am not a positivist, there is a big difference between this form of nineteenth century militant positivism and a Weberian position in which science does not answer ultimate questions; when science becomes a world view, a cosmology, it seems to part company with its deep critical functions; I may not be a believer or theist, but I am not a militant atheist; I also part company with people like Jurgen Habermas or Charles Taylor who feel that unless we have sure foundations for our ethical life that we flounder, which seems wrong; no one has ever proved the ultimate foundations of anything to everyone’s satisfaction yet ethical life and decent human relations seem to me not all that common, but not impossible either; I am not looking for ultimate stopping points, and there is some anthropological dimension to that through respect for the complexity of different commitments; cosmopolitan enlightenment sense that we have to live with difference which can be a good thing, and that intolerance –even in the name of tolerance — is not so admirable.

______________

________

Related posts:

__

—

Paul Rabinow est Mort: A Memoir
By Nancy Scheper-Hughes
April 12, 2021
I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am
and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see
that our papers are in order.
—Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge
How is one to decide where one is? And where one is going? —Paul Rabinow, Marking
time. On the Anthropology of the Contemporary
On January 23, 2002, a few minutes after my Air France Airbus took off, the captain of
the ‘ship’ interrupted our thoughts with a message: “ I am grieved to tell you that Pierre
Bourdieu est mort’. There were gasps, and even some tears as the French passengers
discussed one or other of Bourdieu’s scholarly work but also his status as a public
intellectual. French citizens were proud of him, and even if they hadn’t read any of his
work they embraced him as their own, a French sociologist. His death mattered.
I am amazed that Paul Rabinow has not been given a proper obituary in The New York
Times as had Marshal Sahlins who died on April 5th two days before the death of
Rabinow< https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/marshall-d-sahlins-dead.html&gt; or
months previously the death of David Graeber
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/books/david-graeber-dead.html&gt; Was it because
Paul was as much a historian of the contemporary, a philosopher , or a molecular
scientist as he was an anthropologist? Paul once told me that he felt alienated in the
2
department of anthropology and that he might be more comfortable in another
department. I told him that we all at various times feel that way. Anthropologists are the
lone strangers of social science. But Paul’s voluminous writings and interpretations of
Michel Foucault should have been enough to be on those NYT’s pages. His classic texts
are read around the scholarly world and his invitation to Foucault to give a series of
lectures in 2008 brought the house down and led to UC Berkeley briefly renamed,
‘Foucault U’.
Paul, I missed saying goodbye to you by a day and now it will be a multitude of days of
regret and sorrow.
AIDS Heretics: Comrades in Arms
In the fall of 1992 Paul and I decided to co-teach the first UCB undergraduate class on
AIDS. By then, AIDS was a disaster, having surpassed cancer, heart disease, and
accidents to become the leading cause of death among men ages 25 to 44 in California.
AIDS accounted for 24% of all such deaths at that time according to the first systematic
study of its kind by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Paul had begun
his research on DNA and molecular anthropology, while I was studying the much
criticized and reviled AIDS sanatorium in Havana. Our class was held in a large room in
Wurster Hall. A hundred students enrolled but just about anyone who wanted to come to
the class were welcome.
Some of our Berkeley students, faculty and other colleagues had died or were dying of
AIDS. For one, the Medical Director of then Cowell Hospital, Dr. Jim Brown had died of
AIDS following an early attempt to educate Berkeley students about the risks of condom-
free sex. Jim was a friend from our Peace Corps days in Brazil. I suggested that we pay
the local poster artist, David Goines, to create a visual message warning of condom-less
sex. The poster he produced and that the university paid for was immediately rejected as
an anti-sex poster complete with a Biblical snake [devil] tempting the ‘innocent’ to eat
the red apple (gay sex)
3
Paul Rabinow had begun his study of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic following Peter Deusberg,
then a still highly respected UC Berkeley Professor of Molecular Biology, who in 1991
released a report entitled “Everything You Know About AIDS Is Wrong”. As a member
of the National Academy of Sciences, Deusberg was one of the world’s foremost experts
on retroviruses and HIV is a retrovirus. However, Deusberg concluded that the
Immunodeficiency Virus—HIV— did not cause AIDS, thus dismissing the most
cherished hypothesis of the world’s AIDS experts. His alternative hypothesis was that
AIDS was caused by toxins in the form of cocaine, speed, and other drug substances that
were popular in the IV and gay communities, and which he said were destroying the
immune system. Going against the grain of medical science, Deusberg described HIV as
a harmless fellow traveler along for the ride. Paul Rabinow was initially intrigued by
Deusberg’s conclusions. Meanwhile I had recently returned from Cuba in 1991 where I
was totally convinced that HIV/AIDS was a global killer and that the Cuban government
was correct in its heretical approach to confining HIV patients to a well-structured
sanatorium that was not a hospital but a complex of residential houses and buildings
including art and recreation until there was a sound medical response to the AIDS virus.
Thus, in the fall of 1992 Paul Rabinow and I agreed to teach an Anthropology 119 class
on “AIDS: The Disease and its Doubles”. Paul covered the history of reason, life, and
science while I covered irrationality, unreason, denial, and death. When I opened a
lecture with Camus’s The Plague, Paul demolished Camus as a weakling intellectual and
brought Sartre into the dialogue.
Luckily, we brought many faculties across the disciplines to speak in the class from
Deusberg to Tom Laqueur. In one of our classes we invited two men from San
4
Francisco, one white an affluent from the Castro district and one Black from Bayview-
Hunters Point each of whom had been diagnosed with HIV. It was during their
conversation and the Q&A period that they compared each other’s T-cells and how these
had interfered in their lives that Paul came up with the idea of biosociality which he
quickly published as “Artificiality and Enlightenment: from sociobiology to biosociality”
in a Zone book.
In November 1992 as our AIDS class was winding down Paul and I co-organized a
special panel at the American Anthropological Association convention in San Francisco.
We sent a late letter to the President of the AAA asking permission to organize a special
event during the convention on December 5th in the Hilton Hotel on “AIDS and the
Social Imaginary”. It was not an official AAA panel but announced as a special event to
all the AAA members. We invited what some members of the AAA saw as an elite
‘celebrity’ panel—Jean Comaroff, Mick Taussig, Renato Rosaldo, Ralph Bolton, Paul
and me. Our purpose was to use whatever influence we might have in anthropology to
make AIDS as visible as possible.
Paul and I entered a tense and over-crowded conference room. We carried a poster that
read: “We All Have AIDS” meaning that we all had relatives, children, neighbors,
students, etc. who were suffering and dying from the virus. It was to be a sign of
solidarity. It did not work. To the contrary the room was over-crowded with protestors,
many from SOLGA, the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists, now known as
AQA, the Association for Queer Anthropology (AQA) wearing T-shirts and waving
alternative posters: “These Natives Can Speak for Themselves” expressing their
dissatisfaction with the senior, presumably heterosexual anthropologists who would be
the speakers.
The room was a jumble, hot, loud and threating. People were pushing each other to get
inside the room. It felt like the beginning of an insurrection. I wanted to call the hotel
security. But the speakers began. Jean Comaroff discussed the racism associating the
origins of HIV with Black Africa (similar to today’s Asian origin of Covid-19). Mick
Taussig read a paper with extensive quotes from the book Closer to the Knives, an AIDS
memoir by David Wojnarowicz supplemented with four slides of artwork which may
have been painted or sketched by Taussig, but their relevance to the paper was
questioned. I spoke about AIDS and Brazilian women, transvestites, prostitutes and
street kids who had been infected with AIDS and left without any government health
support, which I contrasted to the medical success of the Cuban AIDS sanatorium albeit
at the cost of authoritarianism and individual freedom. Paul Rabinow spoke about AIDS,
ethics, activism and politics in AIDS research. He compared the work of Peter Deusberg
(the AIDS denier) and Robert Gallo, an American biomedical researcher who was once
known for his discovery of HIV as the agent responsible for AIDS. Gallo and his
collaborators published a series of papers in Science demonstrating that a retrovirus that
they alone had isolated, called HTLV-III, was the cause of AIDS beating the French
discovery. Both Rosaldo and Bolton were acutely aware of the situation and both stayed
in the audience in an attempt to show their support for the protestors. When Bolton was
called up to speak as the invited discussant he introduced a second uninvited discussant,
5
Steven O. Murray (who died in California in 2019 from an aggressive diffuse large B-cell
lymphoma) repeated Bolton’s “anti-elitist” and “anti-colonialist” accusation to the
panelists and demanded that all AAA panels must include sexual diversity.
The floor then opened for the audience to respond. One member in the audience, a UC
Berkeley visiting postdoc, rose and read a passage from Mein Kampf calling me a
Hitlerite for my visit to the AIDS sanatorium in Havana. Another protestor was swinging
a chain that had been wrapped around her body toward Paul and me. Time for tea? I
asked.
During the open questions Paul Rabinow tried to respond to some of the criticisms. He
began by saying that AIDS does not belong to one group or another, and that we all live
with the disease in some sense. But when he began to say “Back in 1984, when my dear
friend Michel Foucault died of AIDS.
”
— A loud hiss went up from the audience. Paul
took a step back, shocked. Why could he not talk about Foucault? In the pause someone
yelled out,
“Foucault was a closet case!” Another said; “He never went public with his
AIDS”. “ Foucault never said ‘queer’ he always referred to “homosexual’ another
commented.
But Paul ended the panel defending his right to speak in behalf of the man that he loved,
Michel Foucault, who had died in Paris in 1984. He feared that Foucault had contracted
HIV/AIDS in the bathhouses of San Francisco during his invited series of lectures at UC
Berkeley, in 1983. He felt that he was the cause of Foucault’s AIDS by telling him about
the bathhouses.
Paul Rabinow had this to say after the messy 1992 (AAA) AIDS panel:
“The pain, suffering, death, loss, bigotry, hatred and division brought forth by the AIDS
epidemic are a pressing source of concern to us all. I entered upon the study of AIDS and
co-organized this AAA session in an effort to make a simple statement of solidarity. That
it was not interpreted in this way by some is a source of sadness…AIDS can and must be
studied from different vantage points— from outside as well as from within the groups
that have suffered from it, from the point of view of experts as well as those whose
concerns arise from different perspectives…. There were many panels on the program
that dealt with diverse aspects of the AIDS epidemic. The only group of anthropologists
threatened with silence was we. Threats and attempts to muzzle others have all too often
been the first reflex of those who consider this horrible epidemic their own property.
ACT UP and others have courageously, imaginatively and constructively challenged this
stance. Surely we all know that silencing = death. … I studied the origins and identity of
the HIV strains in Robert Gallo’s Laboratory in 1983-4. Truth and Power are the main
focus of my study. In this epidemic, the scientific establishment has shown us too much
of the corruption of scientific norms, of attempts to silence their opponents, of abusive
ambition of some of its leaders, of endless turf wars, of the manipulative recourse to the
media, of bureaucratic maneuvering…One thing should be clear to all, once special
interest groups control (or attempt to control) the production of truth, science and
democracy are the losers.”
6
Epilogue
Years later Paul and I realized how naïve our early orientations to the AIDS epidemic had
been. For Paul it was his first acceptance of Professor Peter Deusberg’s denial of the
agency and power of the AIDS virus. Prof. Deusberg, now 80 years old, was still sitting
in the Roma café across from what was once Kroeber Hall, until the COVID shutdown. I
wonder what he thinks about the Covid-19 virus? But until 2020 Peter still refused to
accept that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Meanwhile, following the years of controversy
surrounding a 1987 out of court settlement between the National Institutes of Health and
France’s Pasteur Institute, Dr. Gallo finally admitted the virus he claimed to have
discovered in 1984 was in reality a virus sent to him from France the year before, thus
putting an end to a six-year effort by Gallo and his employer, the National Institutes of
Health, to claim the AIDS virus as an independent discovery of the United States.
Paul, of course, was a rational atheist and no believer in an afterlife. I was the irrational
sometimes believer that, whatever an afterlife might be, our spirits will meet again.
I love you Paul, wherever you are.
Reference
A collection of discussions between Foucault and Paul Rabinow in 1983 are available by
UCB archives.(The collection was generously donated to the Media Resources Center by
Paul Rabinow, Professor of Social Cultural Anthropology and digitized, corrected and
arranged by Gisèle Tanasse in 2009.
• Discusion of Biopower in Paul Rabinow’s Office, May 5, 1983
• Further Discussion of Biopower in Paul Rabinow’s Office, May 11, 1983
• Discussion with Michel Foucault in Paul Rabinow’s office, n.d.
• Rabinow-Foucault phone call (in French), May 21, 1983

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September 28, 2015

Dr. Paul Rabinow, c/o Anthropology Dept, UC Berkeley, 232 Kroeber Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-3710,

Dear. Dr. Rabinow,

I must tell you how much I enjoyed your in-depth interview that you gave Dr. Alan Macfarlane. His series of interviews have been helpful to me and I wish more people would take time to ask questions as he does. Thank for you taking the time to do that interview.

Recently I had the opportunity to come across a very interesting article by Michael Polanyi, LIFE TRANSCENDING PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY, in the magazine CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS, August 21, 1967, and I also got hold of a 1968 talk by Francis Schaeffer based on this article. Polanyi’s son John actually won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. This article by Michael Polanyi concerns Francis Crick and James Watson and their discovery of DNA in 1953. Polanyi noted:

Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of in
animate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry. Further controlling principles of life may be represented as a hierarchy of boundary conditions extending, in the case of man, to consciousness and responsibility.

I would like to send you a CD copy of this talk because I thought you may find it very interesting.It includes references to not only James D. Watson, and Francis Crick but also  Maurice Wilkins, Erwin Schrodinger, J.S. Haldane (his son was the famous J.B.S. Haldane), Peter Medawar, and Barry Commoner. I WONDER IF YOU EVER HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO RUN ACROSS THESE MEN OR ANY OF THEIR FORMER STUDENTS?

Below is a portion of the transcript from the CD and Michael Polanyi’s words are in italics while Francis Schaeffer’s words are not:

My account of the situation will seem to oscillate in several directions, and I shall set out, therefore, its stages in order. 

I shall show that:

1. Commoner’s criteria of irreducibility to physics and chemistry are incomplete; they are necessary but not sufficient conditions of it. 
2. Machines are irreducible to physics and chemistry. 
3. By virtue of the principle of boundary control, mechanistic structures of living beings appear to be likewise irreducible. 

4. The structure of DNA, which according to Watson and Crick controls heredity, is not explicable by physics and chemistry. 

5. Assuming that morphological differentiation reflects the information content of DNA, we can prove that the morphology of living beings forms a boundary condition which, as such, is not explicable by physics and chemistry (the suggestion arrived at in the third item). 

…Now, from machines let us pass on to books and other means of communication. Nothing is said about the content of a book by its physical-chemical topography. All  objects conveying information are irreducible to the terms of physics and chemistry. 

I could throw the article away for some of you that understand what DNA is because Polanyi has shot Francis Crick’s theory through the head and its dead. The argument is: Suppose someone describes a book to you and they only describe it in terms of its physical and chemical properties. What then do you know about the information transmitted by the book? Zero!! Somebody could run a chemical analysis of the book but it would carry nothing about the information contained in the book. That is impossible. This is something added to the chemical and physical properties.

Might machines and machine-like aspects of living things not be shown one day to result from the working of physical or chemical laws? 

We can exclude this for machines. Our incapacity to define machines and their functions in terms of physics and chemistry is due to a manifest impossibility, for machines are shaped by man and can never be produced by the spontaneous equilibration of their material. But morphological structures are not shaped by man, could they not grow to maturity by the working of purely physical-chemical laws? 

So he says it is inconceivable for machines but what about the machine-like parts of man.

Such a highly improbable arrangement of particles is not shaped by the forces of physics and chemistry. It constitutes a boundary condition, which as such transcends the laws of physics and chemistry. 

This of course is his big argument.

Laplace thought we would know all that can be known in the world if we knew the course of its atoms. But for this he required a complete map of atomic positions and velocities to start with. Physics is dumb without the gift of boundary conditions, forming its frame; and this frame is not determined by the laws of physics. 

Polanyi says here you need to know these boundary conditions and without this physics is dumb and the frame is not determined by the laws of physics. There is something else in the structure of what is there. Thinking of my constant emphasis on Jean Paul Sartre’s statement “the basic philosophic question is not that something is there rather than nothing being there.”

Then Albert Einstein’s statement “the universe is like a well formulated word puzzle and only one word fits.” The world has a form but it is so definite that it is like a well formulated word puzzle. Two steps in the structure of the universe. First, something is there that must be explained. Second, the niceness of its form and its order.

What Polanyi is saying is if you are going to understand what is there you must not only understand merely the chemical and physical laws but you have to be faced with the boundary conditionswhich constitutes the form. Do you understand? For some of you this may be a little abstract but it won’t be abstract if you get into a discussion with your university friends if you can really get a hold of it.

The boundary conditions of the physical-chemical changes taking place in a machine are the structual and operational principles of the machine. We say therefore that the laws of inanimate nature operate in a machine under the control of operational principles that constitute (or determine) the boundaries. Such a system is clearly under dual control. 

In the machine made by man you have a dual control.Firstly, the devices of engineering, that is how you are going to make it. For instance, your plans for making a bridge or watch. Secondly,  the laws of natural science. The laws of physics and chemistry and the material you use to make the bridge or watch.

________

Thank you for your time. I know how busy you are and I want to thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher,

P.O. Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221, United States, cell ph 501-920-5733, everettehatcher@gmail.com

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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Page 253 of Volume 1

Francis Schaeffer michel foucault what foucault is finally against, however, is the authority of reason…In this Foucault represents an important tendency in advanced contemporary thought. In his despair of the transcendent powers of rational intellect he embodies one abiding truth of our time–the failure of the nineteenth century to make good its promises.” In other words, the heirs of the Enlightenment had promised that they would provide a unified answer on the basis of the rational. Foucault maintains correctly that this promise has not been fulfilled.

_______

Foucault was not too far removed from Aldous Huxley. He is not to be thought of as too isolated to be of importance in understanding our era,

Michel Foucault is talked about by Schaeffer a lot.

___________________________

on religious belief – don’t believe in God; there are passages in Levi-Strauss’ ‘Tristes Tropiques’ on Buddhism which are relatively close to what I felt much more strongly as a younger person; this question is interesting because in recent years I have been working with a student who has just finished a degree in theology and is now doing a degree in anthropology; he is a practising Christian and we get along remarkably well, discussing ethics etc., but it is clear that the larger theist dimensions are radically disparate; this is an interesting anthropological dimension where ethically this seems to not cause any problem; I frequently related to people with strong but quiet religious beliefs; Michel de Certeau was a Jesuit and I had a number of other Jesuit friends; I think it is the fact that they care about the world and other people, are thoughtful, committed and concerned, and I don’t have to share other parts of their belief system while finding them worthy of friendship; I am uninterested in the Dawkins’ argument of science disproving religion, I am not a positivist, there is a big difference between this form of nineteenth century militant positivism and a Weberian position in which science does not answer ultimate questions; when science becomes a world view, a cosmology, it seems to part company with its deep critical functions; I may not be a believer or theist, but I am not a militant atheist; I also part company with people like Jurgen Habermas or Charles Taylor who feel that unless we have sure foundations for our ethical life that we flounder, which seems wrong; no one has ever proved the ultimate foundations of anything to everyone’s satisfaction yet ethical life and decent human relations seem to me not all that common, but not impossible either; I am not looking for ultimate stopping points, and there is some anthropological dimension to that through respect for the complexity of different commitments; cosmopolitan enlightenment sense that we have to live with difference which can be a good thing, and that intolerance –even in the name of tolerance — is not so admirable

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 118th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

___________________

Quote from Paul Rabinow:

In other words I am not a believer or a theist, but I am not also a militant atheist. I think that debate leads into a range of different and diverse existential corners that I don’t want to go to and never felt the need to go to.

More lengthy quote from Paul Rabinow:

on religious belief – don’t believe in God; there are passages in Levi-Strauss’ ‘Tristes Tropiques’ on Buddhism which are relatively close to what I felt much more strongly as a younger person; this question is interesting because in recent years I have been working with a student who has just finished a degree in theology and is now doing a degree in anthropology; he is a practising Christian and we get along remarkably well, discussing ethics etc., but it is clear that the larger theist dimensions are radically disparate; this is an interesting anthropological dimension where ethically this seems to not cause any problem; I frequently related to people with strong but quiet religious beliefs; Michel de Certeau was a Jesuit and I had a number of other Jesuit friends; I think it is the fact that they care about the world and other people, are thoughtful, committed and concerned, and I don’t have to share other parts of their belief system while finding them worthy of friendship; I am uninterested in the Dawkins’ argument of science disproving religion, I am not a positivist, there is a big difference between this form of nineteenth century militant positivism and a Weberian position in which science does not answer ultimate questions; when science becomes a world view, a cosmology, it seems to part company with its deep critical functions; I may not be a believer or theist, but I am not a militant atheist; I also part company with people like Jurgen Habermas or Charles Taylor who feel that unless we have sure foundations for our ethical life that we flounder, which seems wrong; no one has ever proved the ultimate foundations of anything to everyone’s satisfaction yet ethical life and decent human relations seem to me not all that common, but not impossible either; I am not looking for ultimate stopping points, and there is some anthropological dimension to that through respect for the complexity of different commitments; cosmopolitan enlightenment sense that we have to live with difference which can be a good thing, and that intolerance –even in the name of tolerance — is not so admirable.

______________

________

Related posts:

__

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

In  the second video below in the 64th clip in this series are his words and  my response is below them. 

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

_________________________________

Lewis Wolpert Quote:

I am not against people being religious. I think it helps you a great deal. I am against religion when it interferes in the lives of other people…If you believe for example that the fertilized egg is really a human being which some people in your religious organizations believe then I am very hostile to you because it is nonsense and this is one of my subjects developmental biology or if you are against contraception for religious reason  then therefore AIDS can become more common. So I am not against people having a belief in God. I do believe that believe is false. Whatever arguments I  give you I have no delusion that I will persuade you to change your minds.

From 6-23-14 profwolpert@yahoo.com “Lewy Wolpert”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Emailed in response to his email on 6-25-14

Dear Dr. Wolpert,

In the question and answer time after the debate with William Lane Craig, you noted concerning the starting of the universe:

There is nothing to be ashamed about admitting ignorance. I don’t understand the big bang. I have discussed it with people, and there are things we don’t understand, and we just have to say we don’t know.

I find that very refreshing that you don’t just jump in there and take all of the scientists’ speculations as set in stone. Many times my own Christian friends will be critical of me when I say I don’t know how old the world is. WHY DO PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE TO KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS?

Let me say how I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and getting back to me. I was very honored to get a response from you. By the way I have always been an avid watcher of the Charlie Rose Show over here in the USA and I noticed last year an episode on the brain and it featured your son Daniel. I also have been a big fan of your son Matt’s comedy and especially the Ralphie series on You Tube.

I have often thought of you as the universal man and the fact that you have a son that has excelled at learning and one that is an expert in the area of comedy brings me back to the 8th grade when Adrian Rogers our chapel speaker talked about Solomon’s  search for the meaning in life “under the sun” (without God in the picture), and the 5 “L” words that Solomon looked at first. Laughter and Learning were two of those words. Ecclesiastes 1:16-17 states: I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

In Ecclesiastes 2:2 he starts this quest with the subject of laughter but he concludes it is not productive to be laughing the whole time and not considering the serious issues of life. (The ironic thing is that my son Hunter is trying his hand at stand up comedy too.) Then Solomon also asserted the nihilistic statement in Ecclesiastes 2:17: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

In the Book of Ecclesiastes what are all of the 5 “L” words that Solomon looked into? He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).  Your good friend H. J. Blackham has actually said, “On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit.” Here is a post I did on him at this link.

Is a optimistic humanism possible?

Here below is the song DUST IN THE WIND performed by the rock group KANSAS and was written by Kerry Ligren in 1978. I challenge anyone to  read these words of that song given below and refute the idea that accepting naturalistic evolution with the exclusion of God must lead to the nihilistic message of the song!

DUST IN THE WIND:

I close my eyes only for a moment, and the moment’s gone

All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea

All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Now, don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy

______________________

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

_______________________________________________________

Dr. Wolpert, you want some evidence that indicates that the Bible is true? Here is a good place to start and that is taking a closer look at the archaeology of the Old Testament times. Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology., 

It is obvious from your debates on You Tube that you are a delightful person with a very good heart. With that in mind I wanted to share a feel good story that happened to one of our customers back in September. Melvin Pickens is now 81 years old and he has been selling our brooms here from Little Rock Broom Works since 1950. The amazing thing is that Melvin is partially blind and he is a cancer survivor and he had a stroke a couple of years ago. However, with the help of a caregiver he still meets up with his customers and sells them our Airlight Broom. Steve Hartman of CBS News found out about it and did a story on him. Here is the clip from CBS and an article about Melvin too at this link:

https://thedailyhatch.org/2013/09/20/melvin-pickens-the-broom-man-of-little-rock-does-a-great-job-on-the-cbs-evening-news-interview-with-steve-hartman/

I got a good trivia question for you? I wondered why my friend Melvin had been a LA Dodger fan the last 30 years I knew  he had always lived in Arkansas and most fans around here are St. Louis, Atlanta or maybe Ranger fans. Why was Melvin a LA Dodger fan?   He told me that in 1947 when he was at Henry Clay Yerger High School in Hope, Arkansas, Branch Rickey (the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers) stood up for Jackie Robinson and made him the first black baseball player to play professional baseball with the whites. Every person he knew at Henry Clay Yerger High School became a Dodger fan that year, and he has been a faithful fan ever since!!! I found that out back when the movie “42” came out about Jackie Robinson and when I saw the movie I knew how much Robinson had impacted one of my good friends.

Thanks again for taking time to respond.

Everette Hatcher, cell ph 501-920-5733, everettehatcher@gmail.com

MelvinPickens pictured below:

_____________

http://talkbusiness.net/2013/09/arkansas-broom-man-makes-national-news/Tolbert: Arkansas ‘Broom Man’ Makes National News

______________

• Brian Chilson
• ON THE JOB: Melvin Pickens strolls Kavanaugh in a 2011 photo

________

• Lewis Wolpert (1929–2021)

  Author links open overlay panelNeil Vargesson

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  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdev.2021.203673
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  Abstract

  Lewis Wolpert was a brilliant and inspiring scientist who made hugely significant contributions which underpin and influence our understanding of developmental biology today. He spent his career interested in how the fertilised egg can give rise to the whole embryo (and ultimately the adult) with one head, two arms, two legs, all its organs and importantly how cells become different from each other and how they ‘know’ what to become. His ideas revolutionised the way developmental biology was perceived and also reinvigorated, in particular, the key question of how pattern formation in embryonic development is achieved. He published over 200 scientific articles and received many accolades over his career for his work and services to science in the UK. These included a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) from the Queen, being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was also a recipient of the Waddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology and was awarded The Royal Society’s top honour, the Royal Medal in 2018. Lewis was also a gifted teacher and communicator, including being the author of a textbook on developmental biology used around the world to train the next generation of developmental biologists. This contribution was recognised in 2003, by the award of the Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Award from the Society of Developmental Biology in the USA. Lewis always enjoyed giving talks and lectures, having an infectious and persuasive enthusiasm coupled with a sharp sense of humour. He also published articles in popular science journals (aimed at the public) such as New Scientist, Scientific American and The Scientist. Lewis also wrote several popular science books. He was a passionate advocate for the public understanding of science and was the Chair of The Royal Society/Royal Institution/British Association for the Advancement of Science Committee for Public Understanding of Science (1994–1998). For this contribution he was awarded The Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal for “excellence in communicating science to UK audiences”. He presented the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1986 entitled ‘Frankenstein’s Quest: development of life’. These lectures, six in total, are presented by leading scientists and aimed at the general public and broadcast on national television. On a personal level, Lewis influenced all who came into contact with him, shaped his students and postdocs careers and instilled in them, and the community as whole, a life-long love of developmental biology.

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  Keywords

  Positional Information

  French flag problem

  Progress zone

  Chick limb

  Hydra

  Sea urchin

  1. His early career

  Lewis was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1929. As a young man he studied civil engineering as he wanted to do science of some sort, but he was unsure at the time. He also got involved with politics even meeting and helping Nelson Mandela in the early 1950s. He came to the UK in 1954 and studied soil mechanics at Imperial College London before realising his calling was cell and developmental biology. He carried out his PhD at Kings College London with Dr. James Danielli, a biophysicist, and studied the mechanics of cell division and measured the mechanical forces used in cell division in sea urchin embryos (Wolpert, 1960; Wolpert, 1966). To continue his research on sea urchin embryos he would travel to Sweden most Summers in order to have access to the embryos and published widely on their development (Gustafson and Wolpert, 1963; Gustafson and Wolpert, 1967). In 1966 he took up the position of Chair of Biology as Applied to Medicine at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (now part of University College London) and initially studied regeneration in the freshwater invertebrate Hydra(Wolpert et al., 1971). He was also interested in the basis of polarity of the Hydra, that is, how does the Hydra know its head from its tail (Hicklin et al., 1969) (also see Section 2). He soon moved into the developing chick limb as a model system to study development, because he felt the developing limb was more appropriate at a Medical School (Wolpert, 2015).

  2. His scientific contributions and the concept of Positional Information

  Wolperts studies on early development of the sea urchin contributed to him coining the famous quote ‘it is not birth, marriage or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time of your life’ celebrating the essential and wondrous event that occurs in all early vertebrate embryos that converts a mass of cells into germ layers that gives rise to all the organs and tissues of the body. Wolpert is equally famous for his concept of Positional Information also known as the French Flag problem (Wolpert, 1968; Wolpert, 1969).

  Wolpert chose Hydra to work on originally because it regenerates and regulates following tissue loss, so enabled him to investigate the specification of the spatial organisation of an embryo in a simple organism. Lewis, admittedly, was not very practical in the lab, he was a theoretician, and he worked with his technician Amata Hornbruch for a large part of his career and who was ‘his hands’ in the lab (Wolpert, 2018). Lewis also hired gifted and talented students and postdocs who carried out experiments and creatively discussed/debated his ideas (for a list of Wolpert Lab Staff, see Vargesson, 2020). In the Hydrahe demonstrated that the head was formed by the creation of a diffusible inhibitory gradient, that prevented the head forming in the incorrect place (Hicklin et al., 1969; Webster and Wolpert, 1966; Wolpert et al., 1971). He also showed that a second gradient was present to determine where the head would form (Wolpert et al., 1971). Wolpert was also influenced by work from Hans Driesch, who separated the two-cell stage sea urchin embryo into single cells and found each made complete embryos but were half the normal size, and which indicated the cells had an idea of position and spatial awareness (Driesch, 1908). Together, his work on Hydra and the work by Driesch provided the basis for his concept of Positional Information by devising the “French Flag Problem” (Wolpert, 1968). This is where Wolpert realised that the embryo was behaving like a flag, where the pattern remains the same irrespective of the size of the embryo. The “problem” was how does a line of cells, then create three different colours or patterns to produce the French flag? (Wolpert, 1968). He proposed that a concentration gradient of a signalling molecule or morphogen, or through cells counting cell divisions, could provide Positional Information so that cells acquire different positional values depending on their position (Wolpert, 1969). Cells then interpret their positional values according to their developmental history and behave appropriately to produce specific cell types and patterns (Wolpert, 1969). He proposed this model was universal and could be applied to practically all multicellular organisms, for example, Positional Information could account for the patterns being the same for ‘flags’ (tissues/embryos) of different sizes (Wolpert, 1969) (for further detail on the origins of the Positional Information concept please see Vargesson, 2020).

  This incredibly simple concept explained how a group of homogenous cells in a tissue can all become different from another and produce different patterns. When Wolpert first proposed the concept of Positional Information to explain pattern formation, it was controversial and was disliked by many of his peers. However, support from Sydney Brenner and Francis Crick encouraged him to publish and it changed and inspired the field (Wolpert, 2015; Wolpert, 2018). In 2019, his concept celebrated its 50th anniversary since publication and continues to be highly cited, remains a central concept in all the major developmental biology textbooks, created a framework for understanding embryonic development and has influenced multiple generations of students and scientists, which include me, to become developmental biologists (Vargesson, 2020).

  2.1. The concept of Positional Information and chick limb development

  Wolpert also proposed that Positional Information acts ‘universally’, that is, it acts in multiple developmental systems including early embryonic development of sea urchins, amphibians, Hydra, insects, regenerating salamander limbs and the early chick limb (Wolpert, 1969). Around this time, he was influenced by the experimental embryologist, John Saunders jr, who had discovered the Zone of Polarising Activity in the chick limb and its ability to duplicate digits, as well as demonstrated the role of the Apical Ectodermal Ridge was to control limb outgrowth in a proximal to distal manner (ie: the humerus forms first, then the radius/ulna and finally the digits) (Saunders, 1948; Saunders and Gasseling, 1968; Tickle, 2017). Wolpert realised from Saunders work that he could study his concept of Positional Information in the chick limb and he and his talented students and postdocs then set about using the developing chick limb as a primary model. The list of people who went through his lab is an amazing legacy and many of whom are leaders in their fields today, underlining the influence he still has on the field, for example some of the students he supervised included Jim Smith, Dennis Summerbell, Nigel Holder, Michael K. Richardson and some of his postdocs included Cheryll Tickle, Jonathan Slack, Julian Lewis, Philippa Frances-West. For a detailed overview of the Wolpert Lab Family Tree, please see Vargesson (2020).

  Wolpert proposed that in the developing limb Positional Information was specified with respect to a three dimensional coordinate system. Cells needed to be informed of their position in relation to the three main axes of the limb. This was a radically different way of thinking about limb development. He proposed two models. One, the morphogen gradient model, where positional values across the antero-posterior axis (thumb to little finger) were specified by a gradient of a long-range signalling molecule produced by the zone of polarising activity in the posterior-distal margin of the limb bud (Tickle et al., 1975). Today we now know that molecule is Sonic Hedgehog (Tabin and Wolpert, 2007). In contrast, he proposed another model, the Progress Zone model to explain how positional values along the proximo-distal axis of the limb are specified by a timing mechanism that operates in a Progress Zone model. The Progress Zone is a region of undifferentiated mesoderm cells beneath the apical ectodermal ridge, the thickened rim of ectoderm required for limb bud outgrowth. Depending on how long cells remain in the Progress Zone determines their positional value. Cells that fall out early, become proximal limb elements, whereas cells that remain in the Progress Zone the longest ended up as the digits (Summerbell et al., 1973). His group also showed that when early limbs were X-irradiated this resulted in thalidomide-like phocomelia – the loss of proximal long bones (Wolpert et al., 1975). This could be interpreted in terms of the Progress Zone model as the irradiation kills cells and because the remaining cells stayed in the Progress Zone for longer in order to repopulate the Progress Zone, distal structures develop, at the expense of proximal ones.

  Both these models stimulated research in the field as well as many challenges and Lewis always enjoyed debates and controversies with other scientists, but his ideas moved the field forward.

  Wolpert was also interested in understanding the basis of ‘handedness’ or left-right asymmetry and establishment of symmetry. Using the chicken embryo he proposed that a molecule displaying asymmetric expression could explain left-right asymmetry differences in embryos; a question still at the forefront of developmental biology today (Brown and Wolpert, 1990; Wolpert, 2010).

  In the 1990s, the Wolpert Lab had several students and postdocs looking for molecular cues that underpin Positional Information (Fig. 1). It was an exciting time as molecular biology and genetic misexpression strategies were taking over science, although still primitive compared to today. In addition, the Wolpert lab adjoined the group of Cheryll Tickle, which altogether made for a stimulating, supportive and productive environment. (for a detailed overview of the Wolpert Lab Family Tree, see Vargesson, 2020).

  

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  Fig. 1. Lewis at a party celebrating the achievements of his and Cheryll Tickle’s labs at the Windeyer Building, Middlesex Hospital Medical School (UCL) before moving labs to the Medawar Building on Gower Street (UCL) in June 1996.

  Some of the work that was ongoing on in the Wolpert Lab when I joined his lab as a PhD student in 1994 included using a reaggregated limb mesenchyme model (where limb mesenchyme is dissociated into single cells and placed in an ectodermal jacket) and found different parts of the limb mesenchyme can reaggregate to make different digits, using a different combination of signalling molecules (Hardy et al., 1995); Investigating the role of Bmp2 and Bmp4 in skeletal development (Duprez et al., 1996); Studying feather patterning, specifically as they are formed in periodic patterns, and how they do this was unknown. Work in the lab proposed early globally distributed signals specifying the field (including Shh, Fgf-4) and then localised inhibitors, Bmp2 and Bmp4, triggering feather bud position (Jung et al., 1998). My PhD studies focused on cell fate and their relationship to gene expression patterns. I produced detailed (hand-drawn) fatemaps after labelling limb mesenchyme cells with the fluorescent dye, DiI, and in collaboration with Cheryll Tickle and Jonathan Clarke, showed how cell behaviour and movement follows the changes in expression patterns of genes during limb development (Vargesson et al., 1997). Taken altogether, these studies helped begin, along with other labs work, to shed light on the molecular signalling pathways underlying limb and embryonic development. While the molecular basis of Positional Information and determination of positional value in the developing chick limb is still not clear, there is some evidence for such a signal in the regenerating salamander limb, where a gradient of a signal called Prod1 provides Positional Information (Kumar et al., 2007; Wolpert, 2015; Wolpert, 2018).

  Today, the focus is on interactions between the antero-posterior and proximo-distal axes of the limb rather than a co-ordinate system. Several other models have been proposed to explain antero-posterior and proximo-distal patterning including the Turing reaction-diffusion model which has been shown to play a role in digit specification and which could interact with a graded signal to determine digit specific identities (Delgado and Torres, 2016; Delgado and Torres, 2016; Kumar et al., 2007; McQueen and Towers, 2020). Yet a timing mechanism and Positional Information remains involved in the process and it is now likely that reaction-diffusion, timing and graded signalling are all involved in limb patterning and outgrowth (Cooper et al., 2011; Delgado et al., 2020; Delgado and Torres, 2016; Grall and Tschopp, 2020; Green and Sharpe, 2015; Onimaru et al., 2016; Pickering and Towers, 2016; Rosello-Diez et al., 2011, Rosello-Diez et al., 2014; Saiz-Lopez et al., 2015; Sharpe, 2019; Tabin and Wolpert, 2007; McQueen and Towers, 2020).

  2.2. Retirement and awards

  Even after retirement and into his late 70s Lewis was still thinking, writing, publishing and discussing Positional Information (Kerszberg and Wolpert, 2007) (Fig. 2). Indeed, in an interview in 2015 for the journal ‘Development’, he also stated ‘if I still had an active lab, finding the molecular basis for Positional Information would be my objective’ (Vicente, 2015), underlining his continued search for answers. He also joined in other scientists lab meetings, specifically the lab of Claudio Stern at University College London, and discussed science with the same twinkle in his eye and excitement for finding out new information, including, publishing a paper on a topic close to his heart (and which started off his science career), gastrulation (Voiculescu et al., 2007).

  

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  Fig. 2. Lewis Wolpert enjoying a discussion with colleagues at the 2008 International Limb Development and Regeneration Conference in Madrid, Spain.

  For his life long service and impact on developmental biology Lewis Wolpert won the British Society for Developmental Biology Waddington Medal in 2015 (Waddington Medal Lecture, 2015). He mentioned how proud he was to have been awarded the medal, not least because he knew Conrad Waddington, the great developmental biologist after whom the medal is named after. Something he was more proud of however, and which underlines the huge legacy he leaves behind and his generosity of spirit, was that several of his former students and postdocs had won the Waddington Medal before he did. He was very pleased about this and mentioned the wonderful and stimulating environment and rewarding discussions he always had with his students and postdocs. His achievements are underlined with the award of The Royal Society Royal Medal in 2018, the highest honour of The Royal Society, for his research on morphogenesis and pattern formation.

  3. His books and other contributions

  Lewis was also a talented writer and communicator and had the remarkable ability to explain complex concepts in simple, logical and clear ways. His textbook ‘Principles of Development’ was first published in 1998 and is now into its 6th edition (Wolpert et al., 2019). He persuaded many talented developmental biologists to help him write this text book, which has become one of the premier books for undergraduate students. He wrote several popular science books for the public. Perhaps the best known are ‘The Triumph of the Embryo’ (Wolpert, 1991) describing in laymans terms how a fertilised cell becomes a fully formed organism; his book ‘The Unnatural Nature of Science’ where he reviews the history of science and elegantly explains why science is counter-intuitive and hard work (Wolpert, 1992) and ‘Malignant Sadness’ where from his personal experience of depression, he writes lucidly and clearly about his own battle with depression (Wolpert, 1999). He also wrote popular science books about belief and religion and publically debated his views on science and religion (Wolpert, 2006). He was an atheist and was for a long time a vice-president of The British Humanist Association (now Humanists UK). I recall when he gave an invited lecture in Aberdeen in 2008, he was asked why he was an atheist, he said ‘when I was a youth growing up in South Africa I played a lot of cricket. One day while playing in a match I couldn’t find the ball, I asked God for help to find the ball. I never found the ball and this led me to atheism’. However, he also stated that religion does benefit some people.

  4. His personality and my personal experience as a PhD student of Lewis

  I joined Lewis Wolpert’s lab in October 1994, and left the lab in April 1998, not long before he retired and took up emeritus status (though he never did confirm if it was my performance in the lab that contributed to his decision to retire). Everyone who spoke with or worked with Lewis has their own stories and memories of him. Amongst my favourite memories are when I first met him at my PhD interview. I was an undergraduate student and had been influenced by his 1978 Scientific American article on Positional Information and his ‘The Triumph of the Embryo’ book that I had read during my studies at Kings College London. My PhD interview was in his huge office in the Windeyer Building, part of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. He arrived late, and brought his bike into his office, much to the upset of his secretary (Maureen Maloney). He smiled at me, removed his bicycle helmet and took a seat at his beautiful desk, surrounded by an amazing library of books and pictures and he asked me ‘how do you make an elbow?’. I came up with an answer, which I thought was good (I had done my homework or so I thought) and he simply said ‘no that’s wrong, my dear boy’ and we then had a wonderful discussion on how he thought the elbow formed. He then called the MRC and asked them to give me a PhD studentship. Years later I looked back on this conversation as one of the reasons for my long-standing interest in understanding thalidomide embryopathy, as an elbow joint forms in many survivors at the expense of many of the other bones. I shall always fondly remember that twinkle in his eye and his questioning excitement when discussing data, limb development, Positional Information, and our latest research findings.

  Lewis was an inspirational supervisor. Always full of advice. One of the lessons Lewis taught me (and others) was to never be afraid of asking questions. He often said ‘always ask questions, there is no such thing as a silly question, because if you have a question someone else will as well’. This was demonstrated sometimes at lab meetings and seminars where he might nod off but he would almost always ask an amazing question at the end. Or, if he didn’t understand or thought the speaker was being highly detailed, would look around and find a PhD student and ask ‘do you understand what is being said?’. Of course the PhD student would think ‘..i thought I did, but if Lewis doesn’t, perhaps I don’t’… Lewis would then raise his hand and politely mention ‘this dear child behind me doesn’t understand’. Lewis always encouraged people to think and to question and to not be afraid of saying ‘I don’t understand’.

  Lewis while focused on the principles and the ‘big picture’ of the questions being addressed (Vicente, 2015) would remind his staff and students to always consider this in their experiments or to re-inspire them, if their experiments were not going well. For example, I recall one time when he was giving a Talk at a Scientific Meeting, he asked some starry-eyed students who were all gripped by his ideas and advice ‘…to close your eyes, stretch your arms out in front of you, close your hands together and then bring your hands up to your face’. He asked them ‘to open their eyes’ and asked ‘what do you see?’ Of course, he remarked, ‘you see your arms are precisely the same length’. ‘Isn’t that amazing. Explain it to me’.

  Lewis was also a very supportive and generous supervisor allowing staff freedom to develop, to think independently and follow their own ideas and took no credit on some publications that came from his lab that were devised and carried out by his students and postdocs (for example, Summerbell and Lewis (Summerbell and Lewis, 1975), Smith (Smith, 1980), Tickle (Tickle, 1981), Akita (Akita, 1996), Akita et al. (Akita et al., 1996)). Equally, Lewis remained supportive of his students and staff throughout their careers and was always available to glean advice.

  Lewis also cared about staff. He always took time to enquire if staff and students were happy, and if they weren’t he spent time with them, offered them parental-like advice and/or told them an anecdote to make them smile, or tried to take their mind off things by talking, for example, about his interest in bicycles and playing tennis. One such occasion I shall never forget was when there was an incredibly sad occasion in 1995 when a PhD student from a different lab died suddenly. It affected many of the students and postdocs greatly. On the day we heard the news, Lewis came into the office, pulled up a chair and after sitting down asked how we were and spent a long time with us, checking we were okay, asking how we felt and discussing why we felt the way we do, and genuinely giving us a shoulder to cry on. This underpins what an extremely kind and caring person he was.

  5. Concluding remarks

  Lewis Wolperts remarkable and long career encompassed soil engineering, cell biology and gastrulation in sea urchins, regeneration in Hydra and chick limb development. His main passion was understanding how pattern is generated. His concept of Positional Information provided a new way of understanding how cells become different from one another, how they make the right tissues and in the right places, ideas that are still influencing the field today. He trained some of the leaders of the developmental biology field and inspired many others leaving a remarkable, important and sparkling scientific legacy which will continue to influence many more generations. He was also a kind and generous human being who is already deeply missed.

  Credit author statement

  NV wrote the article.

  Declaration of competing interest

  None.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Lewis for the opportunity to do my Ph.D in his group, for everything he did for me and for being a constant inspiration to me. With thanks to Cheryll Tickle for constructive comments and reading the manuscript. Thanks also to the many former students and postdocs of Lewis Wolpert as well as former staff from the lab of Cheryll Tickle, for sharing memories and thoughts of Lewis. These include Keiichi Akita, Helge Amthor, Esther Bell, Martin J. Cohn, Megan Davey, Litsa Drossopoulou, Delphine Duprez, Philippa Francis-West, Pantelis Georgiades, Adrian Hardy, Han-Sung Jung, John McLachlan, Imelda McGonnell, Ronald Nittenberg, Ketan Patel, Michael K. Richardson, Joy Richman, Katie Robertson, Juan Jose Sanz, Geoff Shellswell, Jim Smith, Cheryll Tickle, Matthew Towers, Astrid Vogel.

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