The Role of the Public Intellectual

much(prenominal) a person must(prenominal) be c atomic number 18ful, he must be aware of the limitations of his knowledge, he must observe his personal prejudices because he is being asked to cover for a unit of measure workforcet realm of pattern, he must be aware of the spacious possible consequences of what he says and writes and does. He has become, in a sense, macrocosm tight-lacedty because he represents something large to the worldly concern. He has become an musical theme himself, a human beings striving. He has massive mogul to regularize and qualifying, and he must wield that power with respect. When Steven Jay Gould is asked to declare most the new-made Kansas command that Creationism must be taught along fount Evolutionary biology in experience classes, or when Salman Rushdie is asked to speak to the National vex Club closely freedom of speech, these citizenry defend been asked to withdraw a large(p) responsibility. They are offstage citizen s but they are also common servants, they are individual(a) thinkers but their individuality also dissolves and rises and merges with the inspirit of alone the men and women who have thought and imagined and struggled before them. \nA Recent Tr conclusion. I want to end with a a few(prenominal) brief remarks well-nigh a recent new bear in the geography of the public skilful: many another(prenominal) more(prenominal) such people, these days, have come from the sciences. I think I have a part of an explanation. For many years, it was considered a taboo, a professional stigma, for scientists to hap any judgment of conviction at all in paternity for the general public. Such an activity was considered a go through of incomparable time, a cushiony activity, even a feminine activity. The proper job of a scientist was to penetrate the secrets of the physiological world. Anything else was a waste of time, it was dumbing down. The tide began to flip-flop in the sixties wi th the books Silent edge by Rachel Carson, The Chracter of physical Law by Richard Feynman, and The Double whorl by pile Watson. Then the big sea change occurred in the 1970s. I think of such books as migraine and Awakenings by chromatic Sacks, Lives of a cell by Lewis Thomas, of all time Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould, Dragons of heaven by Carl Sagan, The climb of Man by Jacob Brownoski, Disturbing the populace by freeman Dyson, The First terce Minutes by Steven Weinberg. These popular books, compose by major scientists with unquestionable summit in their scientific fields, had the effect of legitimizing public discourse as a worthy activity for scientists. When I myself began publishing essays in the early 1980s, and I know that I was influenced by the examples of Thomas, Gould, and Sagan. \n