From Privileged Hands:
A Remarkable Scientific Life
(pp. 15-17, 151-155)
by
(
Editor's note: The renowned evolutionary biologist Geerat Vermeij refers to his blindness as "but one of my attributes, along with being stubborn, Dutch, male, scientifically inclined." While most "sightists" might have great difficulty accepting such a viewpoint, Privileged Hands provides ample evidence of its validity, depicting a life of rich scientific accomplishment and personal development that makes no concession to "disability." Vermeij combines a passion for his work with a gift for language - one of the great virtues of this memoir is how powerfully, almost viscerally, it draws the reader into his experience of the natural world, with its wealth of textures, sounds, and smells. Here we present two excellent examples of this phenomenon. In the first, Vermeij describes the delights of forest and meadow, while in the second he shares with us the challenges and risks - and deep satisfaction - of doing scientific field work.
From Chapter 2, "A Glow of Yellow"
Indeed, it is all these sensations that together provide a vivid, if nonvisual, picture of the world around me. The three-dimensional architecture of a forest comes to life with the sound of every step, every breath of wind, every chirp of a cricket from the underbrush or song of a bird from high in the trees. All these sounds bounce off the innumerable obstructions of leaves, branches, and trunks from ground level to high above my head. Raindrops descend slowly and noisily as they collide with leaves. High overhead, the wind hisses through the upper reaches of oaks and beeches or moves through needled pine branches with a low muffled whistle. With so many manifestations of nature making sound and soaking it up, I feel a strong sense of close intimacy with nature, of being surrounded and enveloped by it. That perception is reinforced by the occasional rays of warm sun penetrating the tree crowns and by the rich fragrance of moist soil, lush foliage, and the sweet holly or honeysuckle that advertise for pollinating bees in spring. What the ears and the nose perceive from afar, the hands can sense at close range. There is a pleasing diversity of textures and shapes among leaves - the leathery, saw-toothed leaf of the oak, the woolly three-leaf of a red clover; the curled-up young frond of a fern - and the litter on the forest floor may yield pinecones, acorns and their scaly cups, triangular smooth beechnuts in their thorny husks, or just a piece of brittle bark. I might happen upon a ring of mushrooms, or an inviting carpet of soft moss, or the left-twining stems of honeysuckle. Dead leaves on the ground on a warm day are crisp and curled, and they lack the cool moist feel of living leaves whose main characteristic for the sighted observer is the green color I do not see.
How different is the feel of a lush summer meadow. The breeze blows unimpeded against my face, carrying with it the sweet smell of green grass or dry hay and quietly rustling the low plants as it sweeps by. The continuous babble of a meadowlark overhead disperses far and wide over the land without resistance from trees, or it may echo off a distant row of poplars. The sun warms the skin and brings out the sweet fragrance of a patch of chamomile or flowering white clover. I cannot appreciate the colors, the views of majestic clouds, the pastoral scenery of trees or church steeples in the distance, the cattle and sheep grazing quietly in a nearby meadow; but there is so much here to enjoy, so much to take in, such a richness of sensation, that I can hardly mourn the loss of sight.
From Chapter 10, "Risks, Rays, and Rambutans"
All the world's creatures live and evolve in a context. They are not little worlds unto themselves, isolated from one another and from the forces of wind, water, and earth. Instead, they persist, resist, respond, and perpetuate themselves in an environment rife with challenges and opportunities. Just as historians cannot expect to understand the rise and fall of nations or the court intrigues of seventeenth-century France without probing the economic and political motives of the human participants, so biologists seeking to document and explain patterns of evolution must penetrate and observe the world from the organism's perspective. Much can be learned from books, but the knowledge thus gained is inevitably filtered through someone else's faculties. There simply is no substitute for making one's own observations in the wild.
But is it reasonable to extend this necessity to a blind man? Isn't blindness, a condition nearly synonymous with helplessness, emphatically incompatible with experiencing unsupervised nature? The dangers are all too obvious - venomous snakes, stinging ants, poison ivy, moray eels, crocodiles, biting crabs, stonefish, stingrays, crumbling cliffs, freak waves, slippery rocks, deep crevices, choppy seas, menacing thunderstorms - the list could go on. None of these risks should be underestimated. I have been exposed to every one of them.
When Edith and I searched for shell-crushing crabs in Guam during the summer of 1974, we frequented a tract of boulders on the seaward part of the reef flat in Pago Bay. On one hot afternoon, I tilted a huge slab, steadying it in a vertical position with my leg as I gingerly inspected its lower surface with my left hand. There was the usual rich assortment of sponges, worms, and small snails, but there was also something else. Resting motionless on the rock was a smooth creature that yielded slightly under the gentle pressure from my fingers. It was not long or soft enough to be a sea cucumber, so I had no need to anticipate the expulsion of immensely sticky threads from the animal's insides, no need to free my finger from this underwater glue. No, this creature was broader, flat, unmistakably fishlike; but there were no scales, and it remained still. Stonefish - the thought of that fearsome sit-and-wait predator flashed through my mind as I gulped. Edith, busy with a slab a few paces away, interrupted her search to see what interesting animal I had discovered. With a gasp, she confirmed my suspicion. Quickly but gently, I returned the slab to its original position, leaving the inhabitants of that marine underworld to carry on as before.
We both knew the outcome could have been disastrous. Had I brought my hand down more vigorously on the fish, it would have been provoked to erect its dorsal spine and to inject a potent neurotoxin that at the very least causes excruciating pain.
Sometimes I was not so lucky. In February 1986, I took Bettina and my family down to Panama to study burrowing snails. Immense sand flats on the Pacific side support hundreds of species of snails, clams, sand dollars, crabs, and other marine life. The largest and richest of these flats was Playa Venado, located west of the Panama Canal under the flight path of planes taking off and landing at Howard Air Force Base. One day, Bettina and I walked far out at low tide over the featureless sand until the water was deep enough to lap at our knees. Species that normally live below the low water line could be found here, and the exceptionally low tide made the area accessible by foot. One is sorely tempted to go barefoot on such inviting soft sand, but on this and most other occasions I wore sneakers. The pools through which we waded on the way to the edge of the beach were inhabited by aggressive swimming crabs, and the sand surface was littered with sharp-edged shell fragments. As I groped in the sand for snails to take back to the laboratory at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, a sudden sharp pain in my right foot jolted me out of complacent preoccupation. Had an especially large crab pinched my toe? Upon quick reflection, this possibility seemed unlikely. A crab bites quickly and then lets go, unless it throws off, or autotomizes, its claw when threatened, in which case the claw clamps ever more tightly while the crab safely swims away. The pain persisted. As I reached down to diagnose the problem, I discovered a small stingray, flapping as it sought in vain to free its barbed tail from my foot. Gently, I tugged on the ray, which quietly swam off, leaving part of its tail embedded in my throbbing, profusely bleeding foot. Rays often lie motionless just beneath the sand, and when stepped on or otherwise disturbed will defend themselves by stinging the offender with the agile tail. Shuffling one's feet will usually prevent an encounter by giving the ray early warning, but on this occasion I had failed to take that sensible precaution. Fortunately, the ray's venom loses its effectiveness when heated. A knowledgeable nurse at the hospital promptly bathed my foot in scalding water, and the pain miraculously subsided.
On another occasion I fell victim to a moray eel. In August 1993, Edith, our daughter Hermine, and I paid a brief visit to the Polynesian island of Moorea. The island is situated in a part of the tropical Pacific with which I had no previous firsthand experience. I was eager to visit the wave-exposed reef edge, always a good place to find molluscs, and an especially favorable habitat for Pollia undosa. This species, its shell covered with a thick, fuzzy, organic periostracum, was of special interest to me because of my work on snails such as Pollia whose outer-lip edge is marked with a small protrusion that may stabilize the animal while it clings to rocks. As usual, I snaked my fingers under ledges and into holes, places where snails are apt to shelter. On this occasion, a pair of jaws belonging to an aggressive moray eel was waiting for me. The bite was sudden, brief, and powerful. Although the affected finger required a few stitches and initially felt numb, the attack left no permanent injury. Ironically, the moray shared its lair with a beautiful adult Pollia. The moray of this story is not to poke fingers carelessly into Īle Moorea.
Fortunately, such brushes with natural dangers have been as infrequent and inconsequential for me as they have been for most of my sighted colleagues. Like anyone else who does fieldwork, I take sensible precautions. I am keenly aware of my surroundings at all times, and I never go into the field alone. It is surprisingly easy for me to negotiate even the most jumbled boulder beach or craggy ironshore when I hold a sighted companion's elbow. Once I come to a site I wish to investigate, I work effectively on my own. Often, I am on all fours, or kneeling, acquainting myself with the topography and never moving swiftly unless the way is free and clear. When venturing around cliffs or onto narrow surf-swept ledges, I am always careful to keep a secure hold and to reconnoiter the terrain well enough so that I have a fall-back position in case of a freak wave. I keep a sharp ear out for the sound of the surf and for audible clues of crevasses, deep pools, and other potential hazards. As I work, my companion often strays far away, knowing that guidance is needed only when we wish to move quickly or far.
Geerat Vermeij, a preeminent evolutionary biologist and paleontologist, is a professor at the University of California at Davis. He has been awarded MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Endlinks
Blind Professor Receives Macarthur Award - coverage of Geerat Vermeij's receipt of a 1992 MacArthur Fellowship, including his comments on his career and the scientific life. Endlinks lead to resources on workplaces, advocacy, and products for the blind.
Science Access Project - develops methods for making science, math, and engineering information accessible to people with print disabilities, including low vision, blindness, and dyslexia. Research projects include DotsPlus, a form of Braille that incorporates math and science symbols; TIGER, a tactile graphics embosser; TRIANGLE, a fully accessible computer program for math and science; and the Accessible Graphing Calculator. Publications of the Science Access Project are full-text articles on topics such as DotsPlus, scientific reading and writing by blind people, TRIANGLE, accessing nontextual information on the Web, accessing scientific information in general, and more. The site also provides related links.
Internet Braille Wizard - an online English-to-Braille translator. Provided by Access 20/20, a vendor of Braille products such as business cards, labels, and documents.
Descriptive Video Service (DVS) - provides narrated descriptions of the key visual elements in television and video material (without interfering with audio or dialogue), to make programs accessible to the blind and visually impaired. DVS is broadcast free by many public television networks. A viewer must live within range of a PBS station supporting DVS, and must have a stereo TV or a stereo VCR that includes the second audio program (SAP) feature.
Blind-Related Resources - includes general resources; specific disorders; organizations; and Braille. Part of the Toronto-based Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, which also conducts research and development on universal design and other solutions for persons with disabilities.
EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information - an affiliate of the American Association for Higher Education, EASI's mission is to serve as a resource to the education community by providing information and guidance in the area of access-to-information technologies by individuals with disabilities (including visual impairment). Site areas include Adaptive Resources, Publications, ITD (Information Technology and Disabilities) Journal, Other Sites, and Science and Math.
Organizations for the blind and visually impaired:
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