Think About the Green Rabbit

Several weeks ago during my introductory cell biology course, my professor interrupted the usual drone about the fascinating world of cellular processes with a picture of Alba, a fluorescent green rabbit. The professor showed Alba—the brainchild of a sick-minded conceptual artist—to raise the ethical question of whether it is acceptable to genetically engineer animals for artwork. But no sooner did he get a perfunctory guffaw from the class for effect, than he gave a brief exhortation to the class to go home and think about the interesting ethical dilemma of engineering life as artwork. Without further comment, he clicked the slide continuing the lecture as normal.

However amusing the professor found it to flash a picture of a furry green rabbit in front of a group of sleepy undergraduates, his comments on the matter were less than eye-opening. Other than telling us it was an interesting question to think about, he provided no guidance in the matter whatsoever.

Fear not, dear readers, what follows will not be an angry tirade inveighing against the evils of mass producing green rabbits; it will instead be an angry tirade on the restrictive, stale thinking of a University that spends far too much time categorizing knowledge into fields of expertise at the expense of actually examining important questions.

The professor’s hesitation in actually exploring the question of Alba occurs all too frequently in Harvard classrooms. Intriguing questions pop up all the time in science classes only to be batted down as irrelevant because they deal with the humanities or they are neglected because there isn’t enough time to address every issue. Moral dilemmas, social implications of scientific research and even the aesthetics of green bunnies are all dismissed as beyond the scope of the material of the course. In some respects, the professor who brought up Alba is way ahead of his colleagues, most of whom would never have even raised the question. But even open-minded professors raise these questions for no more than 15 seconds of airtime, such that they are never actively discussed.

Why can’t Harvard professors venture into topics not directly related to their area of expertise? The problem is not isolated to scientists—there are English professors who refuse, or are unable, to delve into questions of morality, philosophy professors unwilling to discuss literature and any number of other examples. Specialization is the current mantra, and as professors define smaller and smaller areas of expertise, our courses get narrower and narrower in scope.

But the failure of professors to venture outside their small sphere of expertise in classes is indicative of a far more wide-ranging mindset that paralyzes the intellectual endeavors on this campus. By and large, scientists hole themselves up in laboratories near Divinity Avenue, rarely see the light of day, and seldom interact with the rest of campus. Humanists pace the halls of the Barker Center wrapped in their black peacoats, entering into dialogue with their colleagues and the people on the walls but rarely with their friends in the Science Center. Each department occupies its own little satrap, an armored enclave within a building where it can build up artificial walls around its students, each maintaining that it has found the best way to search for Truth.

The University has not been totally blind to this increasingly pervasive problem, but its remedies have been superficial at best. Older interdisciplinary programs such as social studies and history and literature allow students to think across departmental lines, but there are no endowed Faculty chairs for either program, discouraging any real collaborative research among Faculty. A newer program, the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative begun by President Neil Rudenstine in 1993, was designed specifically to bridge the gap between disciplines studying questions related to the mind. The program’s website claims that, “we aim to bring the perspectives of the neurosciences into sustained, challenging dialogue with those of the social sciences and humanities. In an academic environment that tends towards increasing specialization, isolation and polarization of knowledge, we are piloting ways of navigating the disciplinary fault lines that interfere especially with communication between the natural sciences and social-humanistic forms of inquiry.”

But despite its best intentions, MBB has fallen short of expectations. In some years, the initiative represents little more than a mish-mash of professors from different departments who come together infrequently to attend seminars they promptly forget. As a former MBB student, I attended the mandatory junior seminar program at the beginning of this year where one professor laughed in my face when I asked whether any collaborative research across department lines was being attempted as a result of the program. This isn’t to say that the program doesn’t have potential; however, its true worth will not be realized until the participating Faculty members take it seriously.

The situation may sound dire, but there are rare examples of professors who break the artificial walls constructed by their departments, and these professors are the truly original minds of the University. Running the risk of appearing overly fawning, one of my current professors, Elaine Scarry, embodies this ideal of reaching across disciplines. Professor Scarry can speak intelligently about Locke’s Second Treatise, and then apply her unique interpretation to Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire. She has written articles about the physics of electromagnetic radar and the crashing of planes. She sits on interdisciplinary initiatives like MBB. Professor Scarry may be an unusually talented individual, but there is no reason why we cannot all try to emulate her to some degree.

Solving the problem of polarized departments would require a close look at the way the University operates, and any long term solution would require us to radically reexamine the basic structure of the University. Somehow, we need to wrestle power away from departments that have become too influential in directing the intellectual endeavors of the community. In the short term, however, it would be nice if professors could make an effort to actively think across disciplines, to serve as role models for the students currently undertaking inter-disciplinary projects. Perhaps next year, my cell biology professor class can spend 10 minutes giving the class his opinion on the ethics of creating genetically altered green art-rabbits.

Robert J. Fenster ’02 is a biology concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.