We Love Science

Ep 52: How Science and Philosophy Intertwine - The Journey

• Shekerah Primus & Fatu Badiane-Markey • Season 3 • Episode 20

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We continue our conversation with Richard Summers, a theoretical biologist and emeritus professor at the University of Mississippi, to learn more about his career journey. Richard’s first science spark moment hit him very clearly when he was a young high schooler– he experienced first hand a lunar eclipse with his friends and this experience instilled in him a wonder for the natural world and the interconnectivity of all things. As a high school student, however, his mind was not focused yet on a potential career path; he just wanted to be cool. Once Richard entered college, he dedicated his time to find a suitable career path and spent weeks reading countless books in the college library. After reading hundreds of pages, Richard was still undecided. But he came to a wonderful conclusion: “I did realize one thing. I was limited in my understanding of what was in any of those books only by the amount of mathematics I could understand." This drive to fill in the gaps of his knowledge led Richard to pursue a degree in mathematics with a minor in physical chemistry. From his undergraduate coursework, Richard also gained an appreciation for the role of the observer within biology and this inspired him to go to medical school. His first week in medical school, however, came as a shock, when he realized there were no equations in his anatomy textbooks. After Richard graduated medical school, he had a full career as a doctor and academic. Although he has written many peer-reviewed articles throughout that time, it was not until much later in life that he considered writing books to share his ideas with broader audiences. When Richard reflects back on the many influential mentors who impacted his journey, he is grateful for two mentors he had as a post-doc after medical school. His mentors helped him to understand how to think and reason, which are lessons he carries even to this day. Now that he is retired, Richard notes that the best and worst thing about retirement is waking up and having to decide what to do everyday. Currently his family and grandchildren help him to fill the time and truly feel fulfilled in life. Listen to the episode to hear more!
In this episode, Richard will share with us:

  • The defining moments that inspired his scientific pursuits
  • The impact of mentorship in developing a new way of thinking about the world
  • What to look forward to once you reach retirement 

You can find Richard’s latest book here: Science as Natural Philosophy and Finding our Place in the Universe
Reach out to Richard by email: rsummers@umc.edu
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www.linkedin.com/in/shekerah-primus
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com


Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic

This transcript is auto-generated, please excuse any typos or lack of clarity. 

Intro  0:03  
This is the journey. This is the journey. Welcome back to We love science. Podcast, this is the journey. Episode here, our guest star shares more about the discovery of science and how mentors and experiences shaped who they are today. To hear more about the work associated with this journey, please check out the previous episode.

Fatu Badiane Markey  0:29  
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. We love science. Our guest today is Dr Richard Summers, who is a renowned theoretical biologist and author of a fantastic new book that we learned about in the last episode. So if you missed it, go back this episode, you will not be disappointed. So Richard, we're going to jump into the journey segment of our conversation, and this is where we talk about, you know, how it is that you got here, what it is you're planning on going next as well, and just a little bit more about maybe some of the twists and turns you along the road. So let's start at the beginning. Did you have what we call a spark moment? So you know, a science Spark, or medicine Spark, or any kind of science Wow, moments growing up that really inspired you to go down this career journey.

Richard Summers  1:23  
Well, I was always interested in trying to understand my place in the universe, even from a very early age. And I loved science, but mostly was from a philosophical and religious perspective. I was young because I didn't have the tools to really do much science. However, in the summer of 1973 that's the year I graduated from multi school, a group of my friends and I stayed up and watched an awe inspiring lunar eclipse that happened. It deeply impacted how I felt about science. It was an amazing experience that I began to realize that something going out on out in hundreds of millions of miles away, we're just we're just at home at the same time. And my book contains many quotes, but the last quote in that book is from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album that comes song Eclipse and uses the quote that inspired that me, that Eclipse moment in 1973 my personal realization of the CO arising, interdependency of everything. So that was really kind of my aha moment, and

Fatu Badiane Markey  2:37  
part of new science. Love that. Yeah, having those, I think, such personal right moments that really stick with you. I feel like you've seen that right Shakira, as a lot of you know, a trend with a lot of our guests on the show, that's really wonderful. How did your career plans evolve during your journey? So for example, what did you want to be in middle school, in high school, in undergrad, you just mentioned experiencing this eclipse. Was it when you graduated high school? So, yeah, so what happened? What? What kind of were your career plans before, then versus after? Can you take us through that a little bit?

Richard Summers  3:17  
Yeah, in elementary school and middle school, I wanted to be a medical missionary, actually, like Albert Schweitzer. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and we actually had some medical missionaries, you know, come to our house and had and I heard their stories, and I thought that would be a great to do. And Albert Schweitzer was kind of bad since I kind of adopted that however i

i And so I went into the school library of the college I was attending and said, I'm not leaving here until I decide what I want to do. I look through all these different kinds of books and business and science and everything, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Well, at the end of the day, I still was excited, but I did realize one thing, I found that I was limited in my understanding of what was in those books only by the amount of mathematics I could understand currently. So I decided to major in mathematics and minor in physical chemistry, and then choose a specific direction, as in graduate school. Wow, have that foundation of mathematics, and then I feel like I could go from there into anything from there. My studies in thermodynamics in college, I took a special course in that and first introduced me to the importance of an observer, because the quality of energy is really dependent upon the observer is whether or not it's work or not work and, and which is kind of a central tenet of thermodynamics to me, understanding the observer really meant understanding biology. And but at that point in time, I had to take very little in the way of biology. I was a mathematics major, so rather than going to graduate school in biology and get pigeonholed into specific area, biology and a PhD, I decided to go to medical school, had a broad education in biology and learn biology from kind of a diverse perspective. Yes, also provided a decent living, and I thought that the downside of that, I'll tell you, is, I spent my first week in medical school looking in the looking for the equation book. I'm like, What world have I gotten myself into? Pictures?

Right? The equation, a bunch of arteries and veins. There's no equations. Now, when I took later physiology, they did have some equations. And began, okay, now, it was tough. At first, I was like, it was a different world for me. I've taken some very advanced mathematics courses, and this was nothing like any of that.

Fatu Badiane Markey  6:53  
Yeah, that's really cool. Richard, I also like how you had such a almost systematic approach, but I feel like that also helped to give you, like, a really well rounded perspective, kind of bring everything in together and tie it all up. Yeah,

Shekerah Primus  7:10  
thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's like, wise decisions, and you're not supposed to be wise yet. Like, how did you a young age, right?

Richard Summers  7:21  
Done all that in high school, so

Fatu Badiane Markey  7:27  
love it. So when and why did you decide to start writing books about scientific phenomena? So you know, you explained this really nice story that you had about experiencing an eclipse, but when did you kind of decide to start reading about all this?

Richard Summers  7:44  
Well, I've always been interested for decades and trying to write a general, comprehensive overview of what I thought about science, but I had a lot of research, and I was researching those ideas and reading broadly along the way, I knew I wanted to eventually share that what I had uncovered in my personal research, as you said previously, I'd written over 300 scientific publications for peer reviewed journals, so I knew how to write. Not until my 50s I started putting pen to paper to write a book that was quite different, and that's when I wrote my first book.

Fatu Badiane Markey  8:31  
And what about your last book about science is natural philosophy. Why did you decide to write that one?

Richard Summers  8:37  
So my first book entitled experiences the bio continuum was was very well received more than I accepted. It was highly technical, very in one blog post, I saw a review that the book was favorably compared to some other well known texts of systems biology. But the review noted that was much meatier, whatever that means. It was very complex, complicated. And I was told by other people, you're the only one that understands what you're

Shekerah Primus  9:14  
writing here. Interesting. And that work,

Richard Summers  9:17  
I pushed a very detailed and logical progress, progression of thought based upon established scientific principles to build a novel conceptualization of the foundations of living systems. And essentially, I was trying to answer the question first posed by the famous lecture a Nobel physicist Erwin Schrodinger in the 1940s where his life, and he was looking at that from a physics perspective, what I found in my pursuit the answer was, at his core, the foundation of life is not a thing, but rather a process, an experiential process, actually leading to meaningful and actionable items of knowledge acquisition for the objective of perpetuating life's existence. That's the theme of that book. The experiential process of translating information to actual meaning is the singular unifying process for all biological functions that's necessary for survival of the living system. Furthermore, it can be described as an information processing mechanism. You can say that the experiential process is sufficient, necessary condition that finds a system that's living interestingly, I think this biologic capacity for experience could also be the missing link that completes this between the observer and the observed, and an understanding of the experiential process could lead to resolution of the deepest mysteries of science. It's like drawing the MC Escher graphs, where they start off and end up at the same place. Observers common participation in the cycle could be connected and show the connections between quantum theory and general relativity. I thought this was kind of a starting place for another book that maybe have more of a philosophical and layperson approach. To quote Stephen Hawking, it was trying to know the mind of God. So for me, this certainly seemed to have a broad scientific and philosophical implications. And this one was tight entitled. As you said, science is natural philosophy and finding our place in the universe. Yeah, great.

Shekerah Primus  11:39  
So the observer, the observed, and it's all important.

Fatu Badiane Markey  11:47  
So did you have any influential mentorships during your career journey as well?

Richard Summers  11:52  
Oh, definitely. I've had mentors. Dr cabney, the chair of my mathematics department in college, was inspirational, but my greatest mentor. Two of them actually were the world renowned physiologist, Arthur C Guyton and Thomas G Coleman, working them as a postdoc after medical school. Dr Guyton wrote the most widely used textbook of medical physiology in the world, in China, India, Europe, South America, all over many places I've been, they say, Oh yeah, we know we used our guidance textbook in our in our medical school. Okay, cool. They taught me more, though, than just the scientific material. They taught me how to think about problems. And I would advise anyone looking for a good mentor to find someone that can they think and reason. That's the most important thing, because our knowledge changes all the time, that ability to have rational thought and reason is something that will stay with you for a lifetime.

Fatu Badiane Markey  12:56  
I like that. I like that. So considering your journey. What advice would you give your younger self, knowing what you do now? Well,

Richard Summers  13:05  
I certainly stupid mistakes,

but I don't really think there's a lot I would have done differently. I thought sometimes, oh, thinking back on my failings, I should have done this or that. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have ended up here or done this and eventually turned out to be the right direction for me. I know saying follow your passion sounds cliche, but I think it's really important in the long run for people to do that. They want to go. It's kind of the fourth scar for a lot of people. Yeah,

Fatu Badiane Markey  13:49  
I like that. I like that you've had a long, successful career already. I feel like you're just getting started, though, Richard,

Shekerah Primus  13:58  
only two books come on.

Fatu Badiane Markey  14:02  
So what's next for you? Well,

Richard Summers  14:04  
a focus on grandchildren, certainly, but I do want to share what I've learned and what that starts by getting people interested in reading what's in these books. I did not write them for the money with fame or the profit or anything like that. I just want to continue to bring these ideas forward that I think are important. Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist who wrote the book The Hero's Journey, said, I know people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they're looking for the experience of being alive. That's what I want to do. I want to have that experience of being alive.

Fatu Badiane Markey  14:47  
And snaps, oh my gosh. I felt I really like that. I really like that. Shakira, do you any additional questions?

Shekerah Primus  14:58  
Yeah, I have one question that's really just out of curiosity. So you're a professor emeritus, so you don't you don't teach anymore. Is that correct? That's correct. So just out of curiosity, I feel like, when I asked this question, you know, I get different answers based on the person you're retired. Can you tell us? What do you love about being retired and what do you not like so close to retire,

Richard Summers  15:34  
well, I like waking up every day saying I can decide what I want to do.

That's also like, because then I do have to decide what I'm going

or I had a, you know, I was laid out for. You're going to do this, you're going to go here, you're going to do that. You're right. So you have to to keep yourself going in a way that you know will be something productive that will keep you happy and satisfied. And I think that's important.

Shekerah Primus  16:13  
Yeah, I love that answer. It's like you have the freedom to decide what you want to do with your life, but then, oh gosh, I have to decide, what all this pressure? There's so many options. Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing that Sure. All right, so to wrap up our conversation, we're going to jump into the final segment, which we like to call life, life.

Fatu Badiane Markey  16:47  
Oh my gosh. Okay, let me get closer to my mic. I was like, we're getting better at it.

Shekerah Primus  17:00  
This segment, as you call it, life flights, is really just about what brings you joy outside of your work, so things like hobbies and passion projects, family and friends, you mentioned your grandchildren, how you like to relax and just anything that brings light and enjoyment to your life. Well,

Richard Summers  17:22  
as I said before, my main passion currently is with my wonderful grandchildren there. It's kind of a shock to me in life that I that they are so meaningful to me. Yeah, mathematics and a lifelong hobby and passion for me and led over into my work. I still like to read some concepts in that, but I'm more and more realizing how help the grandchildren, particularly my family's very important to me, and I've accomplished. I would not have accomplished anything without my wonderful wife and my children to ground me. They they are not impressed with me, which is good. Yeah, good. You need that. Yes, I have close friends from childhood and some that have developed a medical school and my practice career, but just again, I think the importance of family is thing to come home to, yeah,

Shekerah Primus  18:30  
how many grandchildren do you have in how old are they?

Richard Summers  18:37  
Gosh, I had to count. But I three live in town with me, and so I get often very nice. I love them

Shekerah Primus  18:50  
very well. Richard, thank you so so very much for coming on the show today and sharing all your wonderful knowledge with us and telling us about your book and all of the research and everything that you have learned, I know we don't know even a 10th of what you have learned and and what's in your book. So we got to go pick up your book to to read all about it. We look forward to following up with you in the future to hear about the next phase in your journey, that next book that you're working on? Very, yeah, very curious. We'd love to hear more about that, and we'll be sure to add into the show notes where listeners can pick up your book and how they can reach out to you if they have your question or suggestion for a book they'd like you to write, or something like that. Right? Keep you busy, very,

Fatu Badiane Markey  19:42  
very busy, but yeah, thank you so so much for talking with us today. It was a pleasure.

Richard Summers  19:49  
Thank you appreciate it.

Fatu Badiane Markey  19:51  
And on that note, we'd like to thank our listeners for supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like and share, and you can reach out to us by email. Love Science podcast@gmail.com time bye. Everyone in high school at this point.

Unknown Speaker  20:08  
Okay?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai