The Life of The Party

It should have been that the most offensive thing I did for the World Science Festival was to write a blog criticizing the Templeton Foundation, and the invitation of Francis Collins (http://my.technologyreview.com/mytr/social/blog/post.aspx?wuid=121430&bpid=746). Though I don’t really feel much differently about the fact that a religious fundamentalist should not be the most powerful government funder of science, I do think that I may have been too hard on the science festival. I went to the Collins event “Our Genomes, Ourselves”, and thought it was thought-provoking, and completely scientific. Collins did not appear to be an extremist. What I really regret though is that even though this year’s festival was so wonderful, and my family was involved in a number of ways, I still managed to be on the obnoxious side at the Jazz Party that my wife and I were hosting. The issue was that our featured band “Wake Up!” who I consider the best live band in New York was well-liked, but several people complained that the music was too loud. Instead of being a gracious host I said things like “if you don’t want to stay, no one is forcing you.” I did this for two reasons, as inexcusable as they may be. The first is that the music is so important to me that I wanted to share it with the World Science Festival which is also very important to me. It made me think that these people who wanted it quieter did not appreciate the brilliance of the band, and that frustrated me for artistic reasons. The other reason is more unreasonable, which is that I think music should be loud.

My visceral response to loud/quality music is certainly not unique to me. The desire to create music which has a level which physically alters the surrounding through power and volume goes at least as far back as Vivaldi and Bach. At St. Thomas in Leipzig Germany where Bach was the music director for much of his life, he spent a great deal of time raising the funds for large pipes for the organ. The purpose of large pipes is similar to the purpose of large sub woofers that people put in their cars. It is so that you feel the low tones. Bach combined this with as many pipes of various sizes as possible in order to have such a sound that the “Passions” were truly passionate. The floors, walls and ceiling of St. Thomas shook with beautiful, stunning and yes…loud music.

I do want to make it clear that I don’t think Bach was equivalent to a car stereo system. There is something moving about the live experience. I also think this is true of “Wake Up!” which played unamplified at this party. I also don’t think that Bach or “Wake Up!” wanted to inflict pain. If the experience is actually painful, as it may have been for some, then that is a problem. Instead it is more a question of focus. While a party is about being with other people, if music is the centerpiece of that party it must also be the most present participant in the room.

Another example of having music which is felt, rather than just heard comes from the inventor of the phonograph. Thomas Edison had very poor hearing to begin with, yet he was able to go to concerts and hear the music. Just hearing it was not enough for him. Once he invented the phonograph, he would literary bite down on the frame of the machine in order to feel the sound. As strange as this sounds, we know that the human ear in its present form is a rather recent evolutionary development. Mammals used to do much of their hearing though interpretations of vibrations in their bones, eventually (like Edison) in their jaws. This was naturally a survival mechanism at the time, as mammals needed to hear dangers coming from nocturnal predators. Since early instruments came so early to humans, it is likely that music has always been both felt and heard.

This doesn’t excuse my rudeness, but it does explain my priorities a bit. The World Science Festival is successful because of its highly engaging blend of arts and sciences, and its ability to do this without dumbing down either the science or the art. Furthermore the audiences really do come from various backgrounds, unlike most conferences. At the Armitage Dance Event associated with the Festival, the moderator of the science discussion Steve Mirsky following the performance took an informal poll of the audience, asking who comes from the arts, and who from science. The audience appeared almost equally divided. This is such an inspiring and hopeful sign. My desire for people to feel the power of a new form of musical expression comes from the same place as my desire for people to hear Stephen Hawking, or watch Armitage’s dance. Like those two things it is important, and can’t be done quietly.

A Speck in His Eye or a Plank In Mine?

Hopes have been ridiculously high for the Obama administration during his first year and a half.  I have been the first to criticize him from the comfortable position of Paris, which I realize is unfair. I will refrain from discussion about extra troops in Afghanistan, a watered down health care bill or the slowness of financial regulation, mainly because I still think “yes we can”, even if history would show that “maybe if we are lucky we can”. The one decision that I haven’t been able to come to terms with is one that most people think was either an inspired choice, or at least a benign one. That is the appointment of Francis Collins to be the Director of the NIH (National Institute of Health). For anyone who doesn’t know about Dr. Collins, he is indeed an important figure in science. He was in charge of the Human Genome Project, which together with the private company headed by Craig Venter decoded the human genome. He has had a distinguished career, which no one would deprive him of. Equal to his science fame however is his fame as a born again Christian. He has recently been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. People’s personal faith is there business, and certainly not something I should criticize. That is unless that person writes books about it, and says why that faith influences their jobs. For Collins, he does not speak of faith as something which is only personal; he speaks of it as an evangelical, and one which is especially delusional in my view. Central to his conversation to Christianity is a vision he had of the trinity in a three spring waterfall, which is not so entirely different than seeing Jesus Christ in a grilled cheese sandwich (a not unheard of thing). Still, that is just personal, but now he is in a place of power when it comes to handing out the majority of federal biology research dollars. He has said that work on biology is simply a means by which he can understand his Christian god. To me this is a bias that science cannot have. The scientific method must lead down a path that the evidence leads you, not your faith.

This complaint is now old. The reason it comes back to me is that Collins is a participant in an event that I have been involved with, The World Science Festival (WSF). I am not an organizer for WSF, but still I care deeply about it, and support it a number of ways. Still when people look at the WSF website they will see Francis Collins on the schedule and a religious/science organization (Templeton) as a major sponsor. I have to ask myself if my involvement in this group makes my criticism of Obama hypocritical.  In the end I hope, and think that it is different. I think that on average the WSF participants are non-religious, so Collins involvement is more of a balance than a standard. I write this only because our choices are not without consequence. I would not want to be involved with a science festival which promotes public understanding of science, only for the public to be exposed to superstition such as waterfall trinities.