On Science as a Vocation

"In the face of so much uncertainty, would I recommend a career in science to my grandchildren? Emphatically yes! Science is unique among all human activities -- unlike law, business, art, or religion -- it is identification with progress...There were no grants then, laboratory resources were meager, and academic jobs were almost nonexistent. Those were not the good old days, but rich or poor, science is great! To frame a question and arrive at an answer that opens a window to yet another question, and to do this in the company of like-minded people with whom one can share the thrill of unanticipated and extended vistas, is what science is all about. That is what will sustain us in the days and years ahead."
- Arthur Kornberg in "Science in the stationary phase", Science 1995, 269, 1799.


On Meeting Remarkable People






Company of distinguished fellows at U.C. San Diego (1994)






Standing: (left to right) Jannette Rusch, Joe Corbo (now at Washington University), Scott Barolo (U. Michigan), Bob Zeller (San Diego State U.), Haini Cai(U. Georgia), David Arnosti.
Seated: Michael Levine (U. California, Berkeley), Christianne Nüsslein-Volhard (U. Tübingen, Nobel Prize 1995), Keith Maggert (Texas A & M), Susan Gray (University of Massachusetts, Worcester)


On Life
"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love."
 -Reinhold Niebuhr, in The Irony of American History

On Middle Western State Universities

Vignette:Press Relations from Science
 -from the experience of James A. Van Allen, cited in Discovery of the Magnetosphere
 (C. Stewart Gillmore and John R. Spreiter, Eds.; American Geophysical Union)

"This is John Lear, Science Editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, calling from New York". (Heavy emphasis on "calling from New York," then a long pause waiting for me to recover from the thrill of hearing from such an important person, in New York, no less.)

Actually, I did know who he was and had often characterized him as the anti-science editor of the Saturday Review.

He continued: "I read of your recent report of the discovery of radiation belts of the Earth and thought that I would do a piece on the subject. What I found remarkable was that such important work had been done at a midwestern state university."

Well, I don't think that I responded with any profanity but I did manage to convey a suggestion as to what he could do with his piece and hung up.

The next day, the president of my university, Virgil M. Hancher, called me to report that Mr. Lear had called him to complain about my discourtesy. I then gave a brief explanation of my reaction, at the end of which Hancher replied "I promised Lear that I would call you and you may now consider that I have done so. And, by the way, Van, my congratulations!"

I never heard from the matter again. It's great to have a boss like that."