E. O. Wilson, Harrison Ford Ask You to Give a Damn About Biodiversity

Dave Mosher Wired Science 18 Oct 10;

With 40 years of work in the biological sciences, two Pulitzer prizes and the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in ecology to his name, E. O. Wilson is perhaps the world’s most honored naturalist. But he’s not above asking for help from celebrities in his quest to bring balance to the planet and restore its biodiversity.

Harrison Ford, the prolific actor and film producer who has actively served on the board of directors at Conservation International for nearly 20 years, recently answered Wilson’s call to fund $10,000 awards each year to writers who produce seminal works about science for the public. They are aiming to reward works comparable to Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring and James D. Watson’s The Double Helix.

Following their announcement of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing on Oct. 15, 2010, the dynamic conservation duo spoke to Wired.com in Palo Alto, California, about their mission “to get people to give a damn” about biodiversity.

Wired.com: Why a science-writing award?

Harrison Ford: Because of the belief that an uneducated public is a dangerous public.

E. O. Wilson: That’s a critical idea.

Ford: This proceeds from my longtime involvement with issues of the environment and conservation, and also the quality of the public dialog which we now enjoy, or don’t enjoy. I have the belief that something should be done about that.

I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that the facts of science are often unpalatably presented to the general public and, because of my acquaintanceship with Dr. Wilson and having read a few of his books, I have seen what quality communication can do to make science important on a humanistic level.

Wilson: The continuity here is storytelling. Scientists are storytellers. They just don’t know how to tell a story [laughter].

The way they make discoveries and the way they piece them together, particularly when they add the evolutionary part — how it came to be, the impact of the phenomenon on the body or on the ecosystems — is fundamentally historic. The challenge very few scientists choose to undertake is how the story touches not just on the public’s desire to have a story told to them. It also touches on the archetypes.

Hollywood, for example, has mastered them. These are the mythic archetypes. I don’t how Harrison feels about this, he might even disagree, but you know, the scenes that electrify us in a really good movie include ones like the clash between good and evil. The champion who appears and, against all odds, repels the invader. The discovery of new worlds. And the death and rebirth of worlds.

These are grand themes that, in small detail or in grand epics, are what draw our attention. And scientists can tell those kinds of stories if they know how and they try. And this is one of those challenges I think we as scientists need to beat.


Wired.com: So you see this as the best way to incentivize good science writing?

Wilson: Yep.

Ford: What we’re about is storytelling and the alliance of storytelling and emotion. And that’s the humanism that I’m referring to. The real language of film — and the evocative language of any discipline — has an emotional component. And I think that’s part of what Ed is referring to as “grand themes.”

But it takes a degree of perception that’s not always available to be a scientist and write emotionally and evocatively about science. That’s the idea of the prize. We’re not talking about textbooks so much as we are popular writing that will reach the general public. The public that should be responsible for how the world is working or not working.

Wired.com: I know you’ve named an ant species after Ford, Dr. Wilson. What’s the history there?

Wilson: I was once on the board of directors of Conservation International, a major global conservation organization, and Harrison is a really major player. He has been for many years. I was there just five or so years and, well, that’s how we met.

And of course I’ve seen almost every film Harrison Ford ever made. But beyond that, and it was certainly the confluence of both being in the conservation business.

Ford: That’s his long way of saying he met me in the street, and I was his for the price of a drink [laughter].

Wired.com: I take it that’s a figurative statement?

Ford: More or less. Take it any way you wish.

No, really, one of the things I’ve always struggled with is the quality of language and our communications. I find very often that [conservationists] speak in a kind of jargon, and we don’t communicate as well as we should.

The quality of Ed’s work was an important relationship for me. I wondered why we couldn’t aspire to a higher standard of communication, and one of the things I’ve always pushed very hard for at [Conservation International] is to develop clarity and the emotional language, which conveys what we’re trying to do.

Wilson: Well, Harrison has to deal with a lot of science on the board which, to be effective, has to be science-driven. Oh, I don’t know: “What species are important, how they could be saved, how an ecosystem functions …”

All of these things are the bread and butter of conservation.

Wired.com: Mr. Ford, as an actor and film producer I imagine you are very busy. But you also have the conservation work. How does that work?

Wilson: Maybe by avoiding too many interviews [laughter]?

Ford: Both areas are very demanding. I wish I were better at keeping up, but I tend to cram when I need to. If I’m working on a movie, it tends to absorb me 100 percent. I need help to just get my laundry done.

When I’m doing conservation work, when I’m meeting with the board, I try to bring that same effort. But I often find myself struggling to keep up with the information.

Wired.com: Do you ever find people are surprised by your involvement with conservation science?

Ford: I’ve never found myself aware of anyone’s idea of what I should or shouldn’t be doing. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me. If they are surprised, it’s not uncommon for people from other disciplines to have more than one professional interest.

Wired.com: How do the words science and conservation fit together in your mind?

Wilson: Science is the foundation of the conservation movement, and we’ve seen that develop to major proportions since its origins in the 1980s. There’s now a whole cadre of scientists who have training in various subjects: wildlife physiology and population biology, ecosystems studies and biodiversity studies, and so on.


They all move to address particular problems that are conservation-related. That is, the choosing of which ecosystems to focus energy and resources on, around the world.

This is the so-called hot-spot technique or methodology, which helps judge which species are in the greatest danger and which ones need remedial action right away to keep them off the brink of extinction. All of this makes up a very large landscape of problems, each one of which has relevant scientific methods and information that feed into it. So, science and conservation are very intimate.

Ford: I’d like to add that decision makers depend on the presentation of evidence that you bring to them, to persuade them to take action. And that evidence is all scientific in nature. The quality of your science determines your capacity to effect change. So without that scientific underpinning there is no valid conservation.

Wired.com: On that note: Which world problem worries you the most?

Wilson: Harrison and I know how we’d like to see the world change, but to make a change in the right direction, the problem — and it’s a big problem — is this: Setting aside much larger reserves than we have now, and setting them up so they’re sustainable with the people in and around them taken care of properly, in terms of economic aid and assistance, and helping them develop sustainable agriculture.

Ford: The struggle is the preservation of biodiversity. That is, intact biological organizations that continue to generate and sustain complicated interrelationships between species. That’s the very fabric of life on Earth. That needs to be sustained, encouraged in every possible way.

It’s threatened by climate change. It’s threatened by unsustainable development. It’s threatened by greed and destruction. It’s threatened by ignorance. All of our efforts are to try, at base, to preserve this reservoir for the future. The ability of nature to sustain itself. The ability of nature to serve humanity through our capacity to further understand the interconnections and how things work in nature.

The mission is to get people to give a damn. At the highest level, to get our political leadership to make the effort that’s required to safeguard nature. The United States government needs to sign a convention on biodiversity. We need to better compel our public leadership and tell them that we will not stand for them failing to address the issues and continually put it off, and put it off, and put it off.

It’s a critical necessity that they create meaningful climate legislation, that they engage with the international community and mitigate at least some of the threats to the environment. The U.S. needs to step into a leadership position as we should, befitting our power and our capacity and our scientific understanding, and get these things done.

Wired.com: What can the average person do to help?

Ford: Well I come from Chicago, so vote early and vote often.

Wilson: Let’s hear it from our political leaders. Where do they stand on these issues? We haven’t had a serious environmental debate, and scarcely … a mention of conservation of biodiversity around the world, ever. But the presidents, they just never get there. That’s what Harrison means when he says they keep putting it off. And we can’t afford to keep putting it off.