Naturalist 25th Anniversary Edition Read online

  I left at the end of the spring term, carrying an inoculum of the military culture. Up to college age I retained the southerner’s reflexive deference to elders. Adult males were “sir” and ladies “ma’am,” regardless of their station. These salutations I gave with pleasure. I instinctively respect authority and believe emotionally if not intellectually that it should be perturbed only for conspicuous cause. At my core I am a social conservative, a loyalist. I cherish traditional institutions, the more venerable and ritual-laden the better.

  All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I try to remember to say “With all due respect” or its equivalent at the start of a rebuttal, and mean it. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.

  I have a special regard for altruism and devotion to duty, believing them virtues that exist independent of approval and validation. I am stirred by accounts of soldiers, policemen, and firemen who have died in the line of duty. I can be brought to tears with embarrassing quickness by the solemn ceremonies honoring these heroes. The sight of the Iwo Jima and Vietnam Memorials pierces me for the witness they bear of men who gave so much, and who expected so little in life, and the strength ordinary people possess that held civilization together in dangerous times.

  I have always feared I lack their kind of courage. They kept on, took the risk, stayed the course. In my heart I admit I never wanted it; I dreaded the social machine that can grind a young man up, and somehow, irrationally, I still feel that I dropped out. I have tried to compensate to erase this odd feeling. When I was young I made it a habit to test myself physically during field excursions, pushing myself just enough in difficult or dangerous terrain to gain assurance. Later, when I had ideas deemed provocative, I paraded them like a subaltern riding the regimental colors along the enemy line. I asked myself fretfully over and again: Could I have measured up if ever I had been put to a real test, with my life at stake, at Château-Thierry or Iwo Jima? Such are the fantasies imposed by egoism and guilt.

  I have spent a good deal of time during my career as a scientist thinking about the origins of self-sacrifice and heroism, and cannot say I understand them fully in human terms. The Congressional Medal of Honor I find to be more mysterious and exalting than the Nobel Prize. In leisure reading I browse through the stories of those who won it. I am pleased to know one of them personally, James Stockdale, winner of the Medal of Honor and among this country’s most celebrated military heroes. A copy of my book On Human Nature, which addresses the biological foundations of altruism and leadership and the possible meaning of the Medal of Honor, rests by his arm in his formal portrait as vice admiral.

  Jim Stockdale endured eight years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. During much of that time he was tortured by his captors, who wanted information about his air missions at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He never broke. Once, feeling that his will might not hold, he slashed his wrists with broken window glass to stop the questioning. The tactic worked; he was given better treatment afterward. All the while, as the senior ranking American officer, he organized his fellow prisoners with secret “tap codes” passed from cell to cell, and pulled them together in semblance of a wartime unit. It would have been as easy to rationalize, to say, I have done my part; I am just a little cog and a forgotten player; why risk my life?

  I do not doubt that the steel in Stockdale’s spine was put there in part by the self-discipline and sense of honor the best of the military academies aim to instill. True, the qualities of military heroism can easily be hardened into blind obedience and suborned. But they remain in my eyes the codification of certain virtues necessary for civilization. Their acceptance sacralizes unfurled colors, serried ranks, and ribbons of honor.

  You will understand, then, that the people I find it easiest to admire are those who concentrate all the courage and self-discipline they possess toward a single worthy goal: explorers, mountain climbers, ultramarathoners, military heroes, and a very few scientists. Science is modern civilization’s highest achievement, but it has few heroes. Most is the felicitous result of bright minds at play. Tricksters of the arcane, devising clever experiments in the laboratory when in the mood, chroniclers of the elegant insight, travelers to seminars in Palo Alto and Heidelberg. For it is given unto you to be bright, and play is one of the most pleasurable of human activities, and all that is well and good; but for my own quite possibly perverse reasons I prefer those scientists who drive toward daunting goals with nerves steeled against failure and a readiness to accept pain, as much to test their own character as to participate in the scientific culture.

  One such was Philip Jackson Darlington, for many years Curator in Entomology at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. In the spring of 1953, when I was twenty-three and preparing to leave on a collecting trip to Cuba and Mexico, my first into the tropics, I called upon Darlington seeking advice. We met at his cluttered bench in the far corner of the Coleoptera Room.

  Phil was held in deep respect by young entomologists. A private and single-minded man, he chose, as his wife, Libbie, once put it, to live an unfragmented life. He devoted his career to the study of beetles and the geographic distribution of animals. He conducted research around the world in an era when foreign travel was difficult and expensive. Darlington was a collector of legendary prowess, unmatched in the field. He would zero in on just the right habitat, then toil hour after hour, day after day and sometimes into the evenings, to bottle hundreds of specimens, many belonging to species rare or new to science. If his scholarly interests seem recondite, it should be recalled that Charles Darwin was also an impassioned beetle collector with a special interest in the geographic distribution of animals.

  Darlington was pleased to see me but not inclined to waste words. His manner was professional and reserved, eased by a frequent ironic smile and pursed lips—the scholar’s look. He had thick, black eyebrows that sheltered his eyes, pulled attention slightly upward, and made it easier to hold contact with his face as he spoke. He came quickly to the point.

  “Ed, don’t stay on the trails when you collect insects. Most people take it too easy when they go in the field. They follow the trails and work a short distance into the woods. You’ll get only some of the species that way. You should walk in a straight line through the forest. Try to go over any barrier you meet. It’s hard, but that’s the best way to collect.”

  He then mentioned some good collecting spots he had worked himself, described the best way to drink Cuban coffee, and the interview was over.

  It was exactly what I wanted to hear. How to do it the right way, the hard way. Words from a master to chosen disciple: grit, work, determination, some pain, and new species—success—await the tough-minded. No admonitions to watch my health or to have a good time in Havana. Just collect in straight lines and get it right. Bring back the good stuff to the M.C.Z.

  As a young man Darlington lived that advice. He climbed the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of northern Colombia, collecting all along the 6,000 meters of elevation. He toiled up in an almost straight line to the summit of Pico Turquino, Cuba’s highest mountain, in the Sierra Maestra, the backcountry made famous by Fidel Castro’s guerrilla campaign of the 1950s. Darlington repeated the feat on La Hotte, Haiti’s highest peak, in the remote massif of the Tiburon Peninsula. He covered the last 1,000 meters of elevation alone, cutting his way straight through the undergrowth of virgin cloud forest, twisting his body through narrow breaks between tree trunks. At the summit he was disappointed to find that a team of Danish surveyors had already ascended the opposite slope, hacked out a clearing, and set up cloth targets for their transects. He had supposed that this would be the wildest spot in Haiti, free and safe for a while from the teeming human population below. He hoped in any case that rare endangered native
mammals, possibly new to science, might still live on the summit. That night he searched for them with a jacklight and found none. All that appeared was one black rat, an Old World species accidentally introduced to the West Indies in early European cargo and the scourge of the native fauna. But the trip was rewarding just the same. Darlington was indeed the first biologist to visit the top. While working across La Hotte’s upper slopes he collected many new kinds of insects and other animals, including a new genus of snakes, later named Darlingtonia in his honor.

  His adventures continued. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Darlington enlisted in the Army Sanitary Corps Malaria Survey as a first lieutenant. He served in the Sixth Army during the campaigns on New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, central Philippines, and Luzon, retiring as a major in 1944. Before leaving New Guinea, he managed to collect great numbers of ground beetles and other insects in several regions of the country, including the summit of Mount Wilhelm, the highest peak in the Bismarck Range.

  One Darlington exploit from that adventure has become a standard of zoology lore. Alone in the jungle looking for specimens, he ventured out on a submerged log to sample water from the middle of a stagnant jungle pool, when a giant crocodile rose from the depths and swam toward him. As he edged back gingerly toward shore, he slipped from the slimy log into the water. The crocodile rushed him, mouth gaping, huge teeth bared. He tried to grasp its jaws, got one grip, then lost it.

  “I can’t describe the horror of that instant,” he told an Army reporter at the time, “but I was scared and I kept thinking: What a hell of a predicament for a naturalist to be in.”

  The thirty-nine-year-old Darlington was six feet two inches tall and weighed 190 pounds; the crocodile, weighing several hundred pounds, was in its element. It spun him over and over, finally carrying him to the bottom.

  “Those few seconds seemed hours,” he said. “I kicked, but it was like trying to kick in a sea of molasses. My legs seemed heavy as lead, and it was hard to force my muscles to respond.” Whether because of a well-placed kick or for some other reason, the animal suddenly opened its jaws, and Darlington swam free. Flailing his legs and torn arms, he made the shore, scrambled frantically up the bank, and tried to keep going, knowing that crocodiles sometimes pursue prey onto land. At the last moment he slipped in the mud and rolled back again toward the water. The predator closed once again.

  “It was a nightmare. That’s the first time I’ve ever hollered for help,” he said. “But there was no one to hear me.” He scrambled up the bank again and this time made it into the shelter of the jungle. Only then did he become aware of the pain in his arms and his weakness from loss of blood. “That hike to the hospital, which I knew was nearby, was the longest I’ve ever made.” The muscles and ligaments of both arms were lacerated, and bones in his right arm were crushed. The crocodile’s teeth had also pierced both his hands. Only his left arm and hand were marginally functional.

  I grant that to fight off a crocodile is an act of survival, not proof of character. But to go where crocodiles live is, and especially to do what Darlington did next. He was in a cast for several months, convalescing at Dobadura, Papua. But nothing could stop this driven man. He perfected a left-handed technique for collecting insects. Have someone tie a vial to the end of a stick. Walk out into the forest, jam the stick into the ground, pull the cork out with the left hand, drop the specimens into the vial, replace the cork. Over several months he eventually regained full use of his hands and arms, pursuing his collecting and research all the while. He was able during that time to assemble a world-class collection. After returning to Harvard he continued to work year after year, expanding our knowledge of the insects of New Guinea and other parts of the world.

  The standards I use for my heroes were first implanted by a tough military academy, whose instructors believed that little boys should be treated essentially like big boys. It was an accident of timing with an odd result. I thought the academy presaged real life. For the rest of my childhood and through adolescence I assumed, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that hard work and punishingly high standards are demanded of all grown men, that life is tough and unforgiving, that slipups and disgrace are irreparable.

  This ethic stirs faint and deep within me even now, although I know it is not entirely reasonable. Nothing will change. There are certain experiences in childhood that surge up through the limbic system to preempt the thinking brain and hold fast for a lifetime to shape value and motivation. For better or for worse, they are what we call character.

  I have told you of two such early formative experiences, the embracing of Nature and military discipline in turn, very different from each other in quality and strangely juxtaposed. There were three such episodes during my early childhood. I now come to the last, which in the genesis of a scientist may seem the most peculiar of them all.

  chapter three

  A LIGHT IN THE CORNER

  ON A SUNDAY MORNING IN JANUARY 1944, I SAT ALONE IN A back pew of Pensacola’s First Baptist Church. The service was almost over. The pastor, Dr. Wallace Roland Rogers, walked from the pulpit to the center aisle, raised his arms with palms turned up, and began to intone the Invitation:

  Won’t you come? Jesus is calling; Jesus is our friend; let us weep with Him; let us rejoice with Him in knowledge of everlasting life.

  As he repeated the cantorial phrases with variations, a familiar hymn rose from the organ behind him in muted reinforcement. The congregation did not need to sing the words. They are graven in the hearts of every born-again Baptist. Loved like scripture, the text teaches the suffering and redemption of evangelistic Christianity.

  On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,

  the emblem of suffering and shame.

  And I love that old cross where the dearest and best

  For a world of lost sinners was slain.

  Rogers as I beheld him was a dignified, friendly man in his mid-forties, with the broad, open face, the steel-rimmed glasses, the quick smile of a Rotary Club president. A leader of the Pensacola community, he was also much respected at the nearby naval air base for his religious leadership during the early months of the war. He was a builder of his church, a warm but disciplinarian friend of youth, a crusader against alcohol and legalized gambling, and a surprising progressive in a racist city in racist times. He represented northwest Florida actively in the national affairs of the Southern Baptist Conference. His sermons and lectures were intelligent and well crafted.

  This morning as always the service began at eleven, and as always the choir and congregation rose to sing the Doxology: Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Rogers offered a prayer, and we sang another hymn. The congregation resumed their seats. Then came announcements from the pastor, of parish news, special church events, and the names of ill members to be included in the prayers of the congregation. A second hymn followed, and a welcome to visitors. Ushers proceeded down the aisle to collect the offering, with organ music in the background. Next the choir sang; then a soloist rendered “Amazing Grace,” in achingly pure soprano. The hymn captured the central theme of redemption: How precious did that Grace appear, The hour I first believed.

  Finally Rogers rose to deliver the sermon, starting, in traditional form, with a reading from the Bible.

  Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet possessing everything.

  Second Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 10. After the reading he told a story, lightly humorous in tone as usual, this one about two young farm boys who had come to the big city in order to enlist. Having risen as was their habit just before daybreak, they were wandering somewhat bewildered through the still-empty city streets between tall buildings, lost, unable to find anyone for directions. One turned to the other and said, “Where do you reckon they all go in the morning?”

  The congregation chuckled in appreciation. The sermon had been personalized, brought to earth. We were now relaxed, in friendly contact. Rogers paused, grew serio
us. He began the homily, leading off from the quoted scripture and his story. We Americans, like these boys, may be simple people, he intoned; we may be innocent, but we are winning the war, because this country was founded on faith in God and Christian values, on the pioneers’ courage in adversity, and on a willingness to sacrifice for others. If the cause is just, if Jesus is truly in our hearts, no one can stop us. That is the way it was with the disciples, simple men who left all behind them and abandoned all their material desires to suffer unto death if need be in the name of Jesus Christ. They were not the mighty rulers of Rome or rich Sadducees of Jerusalem. They were not men of steel and power. But they changed the world! They came as little children in their hearts to serve the Lord.

  And Jesus said, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And Jesus said, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. And Jesus said, over and over, to each of us, Hold fast till I come.

  Now came the Invitation, the call to those not yet saved and those who wished to reaffirm their fellowship in Jesus Christ. Several rose in response and walked forward down the aisle. They shook the pastor’s hand, took his embrace, and turned to pray with the congregation. There were tears in their eyes. I was one of them, fourteen years old, able and ready to make this important decision on my own. The choir sang “In the Garden,” sweetly, adagio,

  And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

  And He tells me I am His own,

  And the joy we share as we tarry there,

  None other has ever known.

  Evangelical Protestantism does not waste time with philosophy. It speaks straight to the heart. The message draws power from the simplicity of the story of Christ expressed as a mythic progression. From the pain and humiliation of earthly existence, the soul can be redeemed by union with the sacred fellowship and thereby enter eternal life in heaven.