With pride we welcome is our Baccalaureate speaker this morning Dr. Mario J. Molina.
Mario J. Molina is a recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Awarded for pioneering work in Atmospheric chemistry, specifically predicting the depletion
of the ozone layer as a direct consequence of the emission of Chlorofluorocarbons.
His teams further research and publications on the subject led to the United Nations Montreal
protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, hailed by the UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon as one of the most successful environmental treaties in history.
Dr. Molina is currently a professor at the University of California, San Diego, with
a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography.
One of the leading research institutions on climate change.
He also presides over the Mario Molina Center for Strategic Studies in Energy and the Environment
in Mexico City.
Much of his work is dedicated to science policy issues related to climate change and promotes
global actions in favor of sustainable development inclusive of vigorous economic growth.
Previously Dr. Molina served as institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and held teaching and research positions at Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México, University of California, Irvine, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California
Institute of Technology.
In addition to the Nobel prize he has received numerous other prestigious awards including
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the UN Champions of the Earth award.
He served on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under Barack Obama.
Born in Mexico City, Dr. Molina earned a Bachelor of Science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México.
Then studied abroad earning a post graduate degree from the University of Freiburg, Germany,
and a PHD in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
Today he decides mainly in Mexico City with his wife Guadalupe Alvarez.
Will you extend a warm Marsh Chapel greeting to this year’s Baccalaureate.
[applause]
Thank you, very, very much.
It’s a privilege and an honor for me to celebrate with you, and to congratulate all
of you for the degree you have earned at Boston University.
Let me start with some words of advice for all of you, who are receiving a degree today:
the advice is to find out what sorts of activities, what sort of work do you enjoy most; it is
a matter of trial and error.
The idea is that you can choose to continue pursuing those types of activities you like
most, perhaps in your graduate studies, or perhaps in your future work.
The point is, if you enjoy what you are doing, then it is likely that you will become very
good at it.
And my advice is, if you enjoy what you are doing, do it with passion, and you will like
it even more.
Perhaps you enjoy science, say doing experiments, or perhaps you enjoy working with computers,
for example, doing theoretical calculations, or perhaps you enjoy working as an economist,
or as a social sciences expert, or even as a politician.
In my case, since I was a kid I enjoyed science; I enjoyed doing experiments, and fortunately
I was able to continue doing something in research during my graduate studies and subsequently
as a faculty member in collaboration with my own research group.
Now, often the experiments required a lot of patience and perseverance, but the rewards were enormous:
finding out that I was able to contribute to the advancement of fundamental science,
finding out how nature works, and then applying this knowledge for the benefit of society,
that became extremely satisfactory.
Extremely rewarding
Now, I realize, of course, that not all of you have decided to become scientists.
Nevertheless, I believe that science has now become part of universal culture.
What I mean is not that everybody should be familiar with all sorts of science laws, but
rather, that everybody should be aware of the enormous importance of science in modern
society, particularly in these times when the importance of science is being questioned
by various government groups.
Let me explain.
Human civilization has progressed enormously particularly in recent times, and it is mainly
as a consequence of advances in science and its applications.
Life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 50 years; airplane travelling across
the globe is currently not only feasible, but extremely safe; structures such as high-rise
buildings no longer fall down merely as a consequence of large earthquakes; modern science
has made it possible for a large fraction of the population to communicate with digital,
hand-held phones; and so on.
It’s amazing that the computer power available in the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which landed
on the moon in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the computer power in that spacecraft
was not as large as a computer power available in any other vehicle.
This age of deep transformation and revolutionary scientific discoveries was developed mostly
over the past century, with extraordinary results over the last few decades: the quality
of life has improved substantially for a large section of society, although it is important
to recognize that a significant portion of the global population remains in poverty.
Now, science advances through basic research activities that rely on evidence-based observations
and inquiry.
Scientific knowledge is created by reproducing experimental results and by testing hypotheses,
which lead to a deeper understanding of how the world works.
There are findings that we refer to as fundamental science, such as the Laws of Newton, the existence
of electromagnetic waves, the existence of molecules, and the theory of relativity; it
took some time after the discovery of these components of science to become well established,
but they are now unquestionable.
At the beginning of the 20th century many scientists didn’t question whether the molecules
were real or not, nowadays nobody would, think of that.
Now an important aspect of the advancement of science is based, though, on skepticism:
new theories must be tested, experimental results duplicated, etc., before they are
accepted as part of modern science.
There’s one complication which is connected with the development of science which is the existence
of the so-called “complex systems," which leads to uncertainties.
One example is the human body: it's a complex system,
there are many spectacular scientific advances in biology
and medicine related to human health, but there remain uncertainties associated with
the results.
An example is the effect of medications used to cure diseases; they might work for a majority,
but there is no absolute certainty that they will function effectively for all humans,
because of the differences among them resulting from the complexity of the human body.
Now, for these reasons, it is important to acknowledge that there are uncertainties associated
with predictions involving complex systems; however, this fact by no means implies that
society should ignore the projections of well-established science unless there is absolute certainty
in such projections.
This is a common misunderstanding, some people think that science knows what ensuing it should
make absolutely certain projections.
But that’s not the case.
What should be done in such cases is to base societal actions on the risk involved, which
depends on the science and also on its uncertainties, as well as on the resources available to society
to implement such actions, and on social and political issues.
It is crucial to highlight this last point.
Science itself does not tell society what to do, or how to progress; it can, however,
predict with some confidence the consequences of different societal actions.
Science is neither good or bad; its impacts depend on the nature of the policies implemented
by society, which in turn depend on economic and social considerations, on the availability
of resources, etc., but most importantly, the policies also depend on ethical considerations,
including societal values.
Fortunately, the international scientific community shares important values such as
aiming for the improvement of the quality of life for the entire population of our planet.
In fact, for civilization to progress it is crucial for societal policies to be based
on accepted ethical values, as well as to be consistent with accepted science, rather
than to be based on irrational believes that disagree with science itself and that sometimes
favor only a selected portion of the population.
Now let me illustrate these ideas with a couple of additional examples.
In the human health realm, it is the use of vaccines: despite some errors committed in
the early days of their use by society, vaccines have saved millions of lives, and thus today
it is unethical to prevent vaccination just because of irrational believes developed by
certain groups.
Another example has to do with tumors: often a physician cannot tell for sure if a certain
tumor is cancerous, but even if the probability that it is so is not very large, the most
sensible recommendation is to test the tumor to remove it with surgery, or to destroy it
with radiation.
Let me know say a few words about climate change.
There is an unusual consensus among climate scientists, not only that climate is changing,
but that there is more than a 95% probability that most of the recent change has been caused
by human activities, mainly the use of fossil fuels.
There is no other reasonable explanation for these changes we are observing.
Glaciers retreat over the plant, arctic sea ice is shrinking, growing seasons are shifting,
sea levels are rising, and the oceans are becoming more acidity.
Now there are already some very worrisome changes that are already taking place, mainly
the so-called “extreme events” such as intense heatwaves, floods, droughts, and
forest fires.
Such events might have occurred naturally but there’s the high probability that their
intensity as increased as a consequence of climate change and that they will continue
to increase if society continues to use fossil fuels without limitations.
Now, the earth’s climate is a complex system, and because of that we talk about probabilities,
and thus, projections of changes that might take place in the future for a given emissions
scenario are to some extent uncertain.
Nevertheless, with the help of science, we can estimate, for example, the probability
that the average temperature of the planet will increase to a certain extent in a certain
time period.
And a very worrisome projection is that there is a roughly a one in five probability that
a business as usual scenario, that is, if society ignores climate change, then the average
surface temperature of the planet might increase five or more degrees Celsius towards the end
of the Century, with potentially catastrophic consequences for civilization – parts of
the planet would become uninhabitable, the capacity for global food production would
be enormously affected, massive migrations would occur, and so on.
Let me just give you an example: One in five, what does it mean?
Imagine you are in an airplane, the pilot comes on and tells you, “we have a technical
problem, it’s going to take several hours to fix it but I know some of you are in a
rush so we’re going to take any help.
Don’t worry there is only a 10% probability that we won’t make it.”
I wonder if you would want to stay in that plane.
[Laughter]
But, thanks to modern technology, it turns out that a business as usual scenario can
be prevented at practically no cost and without reducing the number of jobs available to society,
that’s a misunderstanding, it would cost a lot for society to change the way of it’s
use of fossil fuels.
That’s no longer the case.
It is very practical to do now.
So there is really no excuse whatsoever to accept the enormous risk to future generations
associated with a business as usual scenario, something that is only supported by irrational
believes.
In summary, scientific research improves our understanding of natural processes, which
leads to remarkable benefits for society.
On the other hand, ethical considerations are crucial: science has to work together
with government and business for the continued improvement of the quality of life of the
human population, now and in the future.
But let me finish by giving you my perspective about some other very important changes that
have occurred recently, connected with your future work, changes also caused by advances
in scientific knowledge.
Now it is a fact that much of the routine work people were accustomed to carry out in
the past, is now carried out automatically, for example, by robots.
This change is also a consequence of developments in science and technology, but in this case,
it has to do a lot with enormous advancements in solid state physics, as well as advances
in artificial intelligence and machine learning, that is, advances in digital globalization.
The other side of the coin is that these developments have led to a significant loss of old-fashion
jobs, particularly in the developed countries.
And here is the bottom line:
the notion that what you learned in college is sufficient for your future work was an
acceptable point of view in the past, but it is no longer valid.
The big change, as you are all probably aware of, is that you have to continue learning
throughout your career.
This means that perhaps the most important skill you should have acquired in college
is how to learn, how to become motivated to keep learning, that is,
how to become a lifelong learner.
And to finish, let me just repeat the advice I gave at the beginning.
Hopefully you can continue pursuing the types of activities that you enjoy most,
perhaps in your graduate studies or perhaps in your future work.
The point is if you enjoy what you are doing then it’s likely that you will become very good at it.
And my advice is, if you enjoy what you're doing, do it with passion.
And you will likely become even better at it.
And once again, congratulations for receiving your degree.
I wish all of you the best of luck in your future career.
Thank you.
[Applause]