| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Roy Caldwell Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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If students watch this interview and they say, "Hey I think I would like to be a marine biologist," what advice would you give them to prepare for this kind of world and this kind of research?
Well, I didn't do a very good job of it. I started trying to chase insects around a corn field. I think you have to get a good, solid, basic education, and that starts with an overall basic education. And then in the sciences, physical sciences, a strong background. You have to know plants and animals, so you need some good diversity courses. Cultivate some of the tools that might be useful. In what I do, diving is important. A lot of people like to learn to dive. If you're going to be doing this for the rest of your life, you'd better enjoy it. And so some components of it had better be enjoyable to you. I like to travel, I like animals, I like diving (I don't like swimming, but I like diving), I like photography. So, put together a set of tools that might be useful. A good basic knowledge. And then from there you're on a stochastic walk and somewhere down the line you'll probably end up doing what you like doing.
I'm always amazed. Students apply to graduate school and they ask me if they can come and work on sensory communication in the stomatopods or something like that. And my first answer is usually no. I don't even encourage them to want to be a marine biologist or an animal behaviorist. It turns out though, that if that's what the person really wants to do, and they're persistent, they usually end up doing it. Persistence is very, very important. So, you have to enjoy it, you have to be persistent, you have to get some tools, good background, and then a little bit of luck, and then you'll probably end up doing something that you enjoy.
I'm curious as to whether you started as an environmentalist, as you've done marine biology, or have you become more of an environmentalist through the years as you've done this work. And, if so, why?
I was not an environmentally concerned biologist up until a few years ago. Over the last ten years or so, I've seen the pace of degradation of the environment accelerate to such an extent that it can no longer be ignored. I've gone places in the Pacific where for literally hundreds of miles you can't find an intact reef. I've watched the Florida Keys around Aquarius degrade over the last ten years. It can no longer be ignored. At this point, it may be a bit late, but I have to add my voice to say: we have to do something. So I've become more aware and more active. But that awareness was late in coming, and it took some pretty rude observations to wake me up to what's happening to the world, and particularly to the oceans.
What you're talking about is going back to parts of the world a few years later, not having been there, not being there every day and seeing the changes that have happened.
Yes. Between the first Aquarius and the second Aquarius trip it was obvious that the sea fans and the sponges and the corals were in much poorer condition than they had been just five years earlier. To go back to Indonesia, just two or three years later from one of our first trips, and see an entire reef gone. Just nothing left but pulverized coral. You can't ignore that.
Is this a sensibility that is common among the people who do the work that you're doing? And are they having a policy impact, do you think?
I think so now. I think ten years ago, there were not many marine biologists who were really calling for immediate action. I think it's the exceptional one now who isn't. We can't ignore it anymore. The oceans are warming. Pollution is increasing. The environments are falling apart. I'm not sure we can save them all. I think we can save some if we start soon enough.
Professor Caldwell, thank you very much for taking the time and for taking us on this fascinating intellectual journey and helping us understand how important "the vision thing" is in this little creature called the stomatopod.
I enjoyed it. Thank you.
Thank you. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.
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