| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Roy Caldwell Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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What does it takes to be a biological scientist? What are the skills you need?
To work on whole animals, like I do -- animal behavior and ecology take a sense of observation, a lot of patience, a lot of ability to tolerate frustration. Things just don't always go right. In fact, they usually don't go right, and you muddle along until something does go right, and you seize it and work on it.
Then it's back to the drawing board, and you sort of muddle along on it some more. So it has to be an opportunism, patience, and you have to be a good observer. And you have to respect your animals. You have to really understand them, try to understand them, want to know what it is that makes them tick.
In the biological sciences, it's important to focus on the part but also see the whole.
Yes. What you call a gestalt. If you look at just how the leg works, or how the eye works, or how the reproductive system works, very often you don't have the context for how that system came into being, and you miss how it works in the overall context of the animal. I think you have to know your animal,at least to some extent, even if you are going to work on the parts.
Is there, in biology especially, a sense of wonder that comes with the field as you contemplate the ecology of a particular animal?
There are times when you say, "How did this ever come to be?"
And then you stop and think about it and go through the evolutionary steps of how we got from point a to point b to point c, and it falls into place. But you can't help but be in awe at how well the overall system works. How impervious to change it can be, but how rapidly it can change.
What about creativity in the biological sciences and the work that you do? You mentioned frustration. It must be the case that often you are on a path and your hypothesis proves entirely wrong, and then suddenly you stumble into something new.
Yes. You have to know when to cut your losses, there's no question about that. There are times when you are absolutely convinced you're right, and you know what the animal is going to do, and it won't do it. And at some point you have to say, no, I'm going to try something else. How you figure out what that other thing to try is, is something I still don't understand. But I think it helps, again, if you have a feeling for the animal. You can almost listen to the animal and it will give you some hints as to how the system might be working: "Where do I go next?" If you just read the books, read the physics and chemistry, very often you won't find the answer.
So you come back to this point about observation.
Yes. It's really important that you spend some time getting to know the beast before you start working on it. And it will teach you a lot about itself.
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