Peter Medawar - The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice: and Other Classic Essays on Science

Stephen Jay Gould

Peter Medawar was a paragon of rationalism. I have never met a man more committed to that combination of logic and common sense that we call science at its best. I have also never met a tougher or more confident man. Reason and fortitude forge an unbeatable combination. One personal story: I attended a scientific meeting with Peter Medawar after a stroke had made half his body virtually unusable. We had to move from the thirdfloor lecture room to the basement restaurant -- and the building had no elevator. Peter could only go down stairs backwards, and slowly. Most people in his condition would have meekly waited for everyone else to descend and then painfully made their own way down, no doubt missing half the lunch by late arrival. Peter was the star of the meeting -- and he knew it. He went down first, one step at a time, slowly as could be -- and everyone followed at his pace. How entirely right and proper, we all agreed.

Peter Medawar was also a paragon of humanism -- and this form of compassion took the edge off the occasional harshness of his rationalism. He loved people and their foibles, and he loved to laugh. He was a true philosopher, but he also reminded me of the fellow in Johnson's famous quip about the man who wanted to be a philosopher, but failed because cheerfulness was always breaking through. Another personal story: A year or two after the British forum with the luncheon descent, Peter and I attended another meeting in Minnesota. He had suffered another stroke, and was now confined to a wheelchair. Meanwhile, I had come down with an apparently incurable cancer. Peter was my guru

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and I wanted, more than anything else at the meeting, to ask him as an immunologist by trade, and especially in the light of his own severe problems of health, how and whether, in his opinion, attitude might help in the palliation or remediation of physical illness. So I asked him what traits of character or action might help and he replied simply: 'a sanguine personality'. We both benefited by his judgment, having been endowed for whatever reason with such a view of the world. I recovered, and he lived far longer (and better) with half a body than the vast majority of people could ever hope to survive with all systems functional.

This toughness, combined with compassion and good humor, represents the persona that a commitment to rationalism is supposed to induce, but so rarely does (for personal philosophy does not always overcome personal insecurity). The dispelling of illusions, and acceptance of the world as we actually find it (rather than as we could wish it to be) should be profoundly liberating, though not always joyous. These views underlie the great Spinozistic notion -- the deep meaning of true liberty to a philosophic determinist (as the extreme), or simply to one who does not deny the constraints of objective reality -- that 'freedom is the recognition of necessity'. With such acceptance, one can be truly sanguine and accept all the outrageous slings and arrows of life's misfortune with both good grace and good humour. A fine idea -- although most people don't have the internal strength to embody the consistent philosophy. But Peter Medawar did. Let him speak for himself:

What matters is not to be defeated. I do not regard myself either as a victim or a beneficiary of divine dispensations, and I do not believemuch though I should like to do so -- that God watches over the welfare of small children in the way that small children need looking after (that is, as fond parents do, and paediatricians, and good schoolteachers). I do not believe that God does so because there is no reason to believe it. I suppose that's just my trouble: always wanting reasons.

In a world awash in new-age mysticism and old-fashioned, pervasive anti-intellectualism, it may be something of a clich

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to point out that salvation requires rationalism now more than ever. Equally obviously, such salutary, attitudes need to be embodied in passionate and persuasive individuals, not only in abstractions or collectivities. In this sense, although independently minded intellectuals like myself are not supposed to have gurus, I don't mind admitting that Peter Medawar was, for me, closest to that status of more than mere mentor. I was not blind to his faults (and will mention some later on), but I never met more qualities that I wanted to emulate all rolled up into one person. It goes without saying that Peter Medawar, Nobel laureate for work in immunology, was a pre-eminent biologist. But he was also a great intellectual and committed rationalist, a firm moralist with a redeeming sense of humour, and a wonderful writer especially gifted with the skill to turn a fine phrase. These combined qualities, so rarely conjoined in a single individual, made Medawar our century's greatest spokesman for the power and humanity of science. Just consider a pair of his bon mots: first, an incisive comment on psychobabble in the search for intrinsic meaning in dreams:

those who enjoy slopping around in the amniotic fluid should pause for a moment to entertain (perhaps only unconsciously in the first instance) the idea that the content of dreams may be totally devoid of 'meaning'.

Or this, in a kinder mode, on the difference between art and science:

Wagner would certainly not have spent twenty years on The Ring if he had thought it at all possible for someone else to nip in ahead of him with Gtterdmmerung.

I have frequently argued (see my books Bully for Brontosaurus and Eight Little Piggies