Goodbye to a Conscience
Remembering Physicist Henry W. Kendall

Special to ABCNEWS.com
Science can be both a curse and a blessing.
    The automobile gave us convenience, and air pollution. The atomic bomb ended World War II, but spawned the arms race. Medicines can mend lives, but a few have wrought unintended, devastating consequences
 
 

Henry W. Kendall co-founded the Union of Concerned Scientists, which strives to improve humanity's stewardship of Earth.

How much responsibility should scientists hold for the downside of their achievements? 
     A lot, according to Henry W. Kendall, who died last week at the age of 72 while on an underwater filming expedition in Florida. His death — from internal bleeding, according to a preliminary report from the county coroner — ended a life dedicated to getting scientists involved in the world beyond their labs. 

Responsible for Public Awareness
Many of his peers thought that scientists should stick with science and let others debate the consequences of their discoveries. Yet like the nuclear physicists who abhorred the legacy of the atomic bomb they created, Kendall believed scientists cannot afford to ignore the fallout from their efforts. 
     A professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he repeatedly laid his reputation on the line to speak out on the risks entailed in scientific progress. 
    It’s been more than 20 years since our paths first crossed while I was covering the nuclear power industry for the Los Angeles Times. In those days of high expectations for nuclear power, the atom was to bring us electricity so cheap we could throw away our meters and so clean that our skies would sparkle again. 
     That rosy picture began to fracture with growing concerns about whether the deadly radiation created in nuclear reactors could be kept isolated from the world. No one knew what to do with concentrated radioactive waste that remains hot enough to eat through several feet of concrete unless continuously cooled.

Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa., was shut down after an accident on March 23, 1979, released radiation into the atmosphere. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis)

Doubting Meant Lack of Faith
Not many experts wanted to talk about those problems. To question nuclear power showed a lack of faith in science, or so they thought, and many did not want to venture from the tightly structured world of the laboratory to the turbid world of politics and public opinion. 
    “No reputable scientist questions nuclear power,” one scientist told me. “Because the minute he does, he’s no longer a reputable scientist.” To even question nuclear power was considered unscientific. 
     If that bothered Kendall, he never showed it. He believed there were serious problems with reactor safety, and he repeatedly discussed those concerns with me over the course of several years. 
    Nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) proved him right. 
    In 1969, before those incidents moved the nuclear debate onto the front pages, Kendall co-founded the Union of Concerned Scientists. The organization, designed to give scientists a platform to voice their concerns, became a major player in public debates over arms control, nuclear power safety, Star Wars and global warming. 
     Today, it’s one of the nation’s most influential organizations on scientific matters — part of Kendall’s legacy. 
     He never mentioned it, but I’m sure that in the early days he caught a lot of flak from fellow scientists who believed he was undermining the public’s confidence in science. 
    In 1990, he won the Nobel Prize for physics, which he shared with Jerome Friedman of MIT and Richard Taylor of Stanford University. They provided the first experimental evidence for subnuclear particles called quarks. 
    The award delighted Kendall, though not just because it marked him as one of the top scientists of the 20th century. It meant his warnings would have to be taken more seriously. 

School Boredom to Science Activism
Like many superachievers, Kendall’s early years were less than spectacular. As a young boy growing up in Boston, he suffered from a reading disability. 
    “My academic work was poor for I was more interested in nonacademic matters and was bored with schoolwork,” he said in a brief autobiography issued after he won the Nobel Prize. He took up scuba diving and mountain climbing and he became a world-class photographer. 
    He earned his doctorate at MIT and still found time for several expeditions to the Andes, the Himalayas and the Arctic. 
    The world of physics was changing. The huge machines required to probe ever deeper into the atom demanded teams of scientists that could number in the hundreds. The opportunities for individuality were diminishing. Kendall turned his energy to prodding scientists to become more involved in the social and environmental ramifications of their work. 
    That concern was uppermost in his mind when he went to Oslo to accept his Nobel Prize. As he said in his formal statement: 
     “It is hard to conclude that scientists are in the main responsible for the damage and risks that are now so apparent in such areas as environmental matters and nuclear armaments. These have been largely the consequence of governmental and industrial imperatives, both here and abroad. 
     “Yet it seems clear that without scientists’ participation in the public debates, the chances of great injury to all humanity is much enhanced. In my view, the scientific community has not participated in this effort at a level commensurate with the need, nor the special responsibilities that scientists ineluctably have in this area.”
    He lived by that creed up to the very end. Despite all the doors his Nobel could have opened, Kendall continued teaching freshman physics at MIT. Those young minds, he believed, needed to understand that sometimes the toughest problems are outside the laboratory. 
    He was, after all, a man who loved to climb mountains. 

Lee Dye’s column appears Wednesdays on ABCNEWS.com. A former science writer for the Los Angeles Times, he now lives in Juneau, Alaska.

“It seems clear that without scientists’ participation in the public debates, the chances of great injury to all humanity is much enhanced.”
Henry W. Kendall