| July 10, 1995
Society Author: S. James Gates, Jr. The first commitment of a scientist ought to be to using logical and rational effort to comprehend objective reality without regard to one's emotions or prejudices. Those of us who have had the privilege of a scientific career and love the doing of science are hard pressed not to accept this as one of the paradigms in our view of life. Recently, as an African American, I have often been asked about my attitudes and opinions regarding affirmative action and diversity in scientific, engineering, and technical fields. In response to this, I have spent some effort thinking about these matters.
Before I address the former issue, I wish to propose some reasons as to why the issue of diversity is of such paramount importance in complex endeavors like science. These reasons are themselves based on experience with the natural world. It is almost universally accepted that diversity is of great importance in biological realms. The genetic diversity of an organism or group of organisms is almost always found to enhance long-term prospects for survival. A diverse genetic pool is the reserve from which biological systems draw in order to adapt to changing environments. Diversity is often associated with enhanced levels of vigor and performance. The recent upswing in the world's food production for humans to some degree depends on the creation of new botanical adaptions that have greater yields.
I argue by analogy that these same types of effects can be seen in the more complicated area of human endeavors. In particular, there is what I like to call the "rock-and-roll effect," which corresponds to the second of the two points discussed previously in relation to the importance of diversity. I take the name from one of the most identifiably American contributions to world culture (although some disagree over rock-and-roll's cultural value). Independent of how one might feel about this type of music, it is one of the main prisms through which this country is viewed around the world. It is also one of the most forceful avenues by which this country is brought to the attention of young people the world over. Many youth are first attracted to our music and later become interested in our democratic values and traditions.
This music (like that other new American contribution, jazz) is a derivative of two older forms. It was (and is) the result of a dialogue between practitioners of African musical forms and European musical forms. The medium for this dialogue is the creative activity of artists as they composed new songs, taking elements from both older forms and in the process creating new forms. The diversity of the discussants increases the chances for the enfolding of older forms. This process can be seen time and again in the natural world from botany to the evolution of species. I argue that this "natural law of the efficacy of diversity" likely holds in the realms of human creativity.
If this is an acceptable argument to answer the question of why diversity is important, then we must confront the circumstances that are most likely to foster diversity in the marketplace of ideas. The fact is that it has been part of our national customs, laws, and traditions particularly to discriminate against African Americans. This is not a unique circumstance; we could also make this statement about women and other groups. While our nation has made progress in eliminating the legal basis of the systematic denial of constitutional rights, the accumulated result of this pattern of behavior is that it accords inherent and unfair advantages to some by virtue of gender, race, or other circumstance not related to merit.
Yet, the effort of doing science particularly makes one aware that it is the individual from whom basic progress is derived. Ideas come to people, not to committees or groups. The mind is really only an attribute of the individual. Thus, in science one must eschew the concept of group entitlements while simultaneously working to achieve the greatest possible diversity. Diversity is derived from being different! We must promote equity because that provides our field with the greatest possible opportunity to draw individuals who can bring that vitally important, distinct set of perceptions and abilities to the scientific effort.
In the United States we tend to be very short-sighted from the perspective of history. Edward Alexander Bouchet stands as a example. He was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1852. He entered Yale College in 1870, graduated with his B.A. in 1874, and two years later obtained his Ph.D. in physics. He was the first African American to receive this degree in any subject, his being among the first 20 Ph.D.'s awarded in physics to members of any race in the United States. He was also the first African American member of Phi Beta Kappa. Bouchet was never permitted to pursue a scientific career despite--given the facts of the time and place of his accomplishments--his rather obvious individual merit.
I think that most people would accept that affirmative action means that an individual is accorded some advantage or preference owing to an attribute of gender, race, or other circumstance not related to the performance of a job. By this definition, any individuals with whom Bouchet might have been in competition for the opportunity to pursue a scientific career certainly were the beneficiaries of a traditional program of affirmative action.
This nation desperately needs to use all the means at its disposal to achieve the highest level of performance in the increasingly international competition in science and technology. Diversity in both nature and other fields of human endeavor has shown to lend itself to increased level of performance. Is it not prudent to at least be open to this possibility in the pursuit of excellence in scientific, engineering, and technological achievement?
So when answering the question of what I believe about affirmative action, I answer that it, or something very similar, has a definite role to play if this nation is ever to get beyond the issue of race and to the more central issues of the content of individuals' hearts and minds. It is paradoxical, and somewhat like the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD, the theory underlying the dynamics of quarks and hadrons), that color must play an important role in reaching a colorless standard of fair competition based on merit.
It is my belief that affirmative action should never be used to reward the less-qualified over the more so. Instead, if two individuals are both seen to be qualified, then affirmative action should play a role in a decision that has a wider societal importance! However, the relevance and appropriateness of the qualifications and the methods used to assess those must be scrupulously proved to be free of the traditional American biases against minorities and women. It is my opinion that the African American community is well able to acquit itself in any fair competition and with good achievement. This is regularly done already in many fields in which the standard of success is not at the whim of subjective interpretation.
One of the most difficult questions that this nation has yet to successfully address is how to use fair access of individuals competing for resources to provide redress for the denial of rights undertaken against a group. Our society has not, is not now, and is unlikely to be truly color- (and gender-) blind in the foreseeable future. Affirmative action is (or was) an attempt to counteract a basic unfairness that we have all inherited and to offer the possibility of fostering increased diversity across a broad range of human endeavors in this nation.
In the present round of assaults on affirmative action, one of the first purported intellectual arguments in opposition was provided in part by physicist and Nobel laureate William Shockley. There is a direct lineage from today's "Bell Curve" back to the work of Shockley and his collaborators.
And yet despite all of the controversy raised by the work of the "Shockleyites," there is a voice that spoke out clearly in opposition. This voice belonged to another physicist and Nobel laureate, Albert Einstein. I quote in part an excerpt from his writings (A. Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New York Philosophical Library, 1950).
"In the United States everyone feels assured of his worth as an individual. No one humbles himself before another person or class. Even the great difference in wealth, the superior power of a few, cannot undermine this healthy self-confidence and natural respect for the dignity of one's fellow-man. There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins. Even among these there are prejudices of which I as a Jew am clearly conscious; but they are unimportant in comparison with the attitude of the 'Whites' toward their fellow-citizens of darker complexion, particularly toward Negroes. The more I feel American, the more this situation pains me. I can escape the feeling of complicity only by speaking out.
"Many a sincere person will answer me: 'Our attitude towards Negroes is the result of unfavorable experiences which we have had living side by side with Negroes in this country. They are not our equals in intelligence, sense of responsibility, reliability.' I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers from a fatal misconception. Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force, and in the white man's quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery. The modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the desire to maintain this unworthy condition.
"What, however, can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by word and deed, must watch lest his children become influenced by this racial bias.
"I do not believe there is a way in which this deeply entrenched evil can be quickly healed. But until this goal is reached there is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause."
So, from the view of a scientist and particularly from that of a physicist, there is a rather stark choice in setting one's beliefs and behaviors on these issues. We can choose to believe and behave in accord with the ideas of William Shockley or those of Albert Einstein.
S. James Gates, Jr., is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park.
- (The Scientist, Vol:9, #14, pg.12 , July 10, 1995)
- (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
