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AVOID BORING PEOPLE: Lessons from a Life in ScienceThe book that influenced me most, however, was Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Parrington. It was the first to push me above the canned versions of American history, emphasizing names, dates, maps, and tables to reckon with economic and religious determinism. Much more clearly than before, I appreciated the ideological differences between the Democrats and Republicans and their respective alternatives for coping with the Great Depression, which now only a major war, it seemed, could bring to an end. Inserting the great books into the science surveys was from the start a controversial idea totally opposed by the science faculty, who considered teaching the history before the facts of science a lunacy of mad medievalists. My introduction to physical science survey, taught by the biologist Tom Hall, was a hodgepodge of these two approaches. Much of the time I couldn't tell what was required of me, and my self-esteem fell when I received a B on my exam at the end of the summer term. Fortunately, only the results of the comprehensive exam taken at the end of the full year's work would appear on my official record ...» |
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