#76: Three Things that got me thinking
🌑Armstrong's own words + 🌸 looking inward + ✋🏽integrity oath
Bonjour,
Below are the Three Things that got me thinking about intrinsic motivation recently. They’re all about integrity:
historic wordings
looking inward
honest scientific research
Last week, I wrote about lowering our own standards to help maintain friendships. This was a response to WWA reader (and fellow Substacker) Vikki, and also definitely a piece I needed to write for myself:
Shall we?
1. Off-the-cuff
You obviously know Neil Armstrong’s 1969 Moon landing declaration (“That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.”) I’d simply assumed that was a spontaneous, inspired choice of words—indeed Armstrong said he “thought about if after landing”1. But I’ve learnt from Shaun Usher’s consistently wonderful Letters of Note that, in the months before lift-off, some NASA folks wanted to pre-approve an apt, memorable sentence for the occasion.
Julian Scheer, NASA’s Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs at the time, rubbished the idea; the unscripted approach eventually prevailed. He wrote in March 1969:
the truest emotion at the historic moment is what the explorer feels within himself not for the astronauts to be coached before they leave or to carry a prepared text in their hip pocket.
Quoting the records of Columbus, James Cook, and others, Scheer added:
The words of these great explorers tell us something of the men who explore and it is my hope that Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin will tell us what they see and think and nothing that we feel they should say.
2. Simple, not easy
Martha Beck trained in sociology at Harvard before building a life coaching business, endorsed by the likes of Oprah Winfrey. Her books and teachings mix down-to-earth common sense and spirituality—some of it will annoy woo-shunners for sure, but Beck strikes me as sensible and compassionate.
In May, she discussed her latest book The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self (which I haven’t read) on the podcast Quitted.
Here’s the bit that stood out for me:
We are raised to look outward outward outward outward. We look at: “How am I doing as opposed to other people on Instagram? How am I doing as opposed to my friends? As opposed to what my advisers or my bosses [want]…”
In contrast, she says, recalling the time she spent in China at 20 years old:
Instead of looking around for objective measures, Asian philosophy looks inward and says: What is my subjective experience? […] I’m gonna start with that awareness and then track what feels truest to me from the inside. You don’t have to go to Asia or learn Chinese to do that. All you have to do is be in a room full of people who are pressuring you to be something you don’t want to be. […] Look inside yourself to see what works for you and then go there, do that. It’s really really simple. And yet, people pay me so much money over the years to tell them: “so if it feels really good, maybe do more of that and you’ll get confidence in yourself. If it feels horrible, maybe do less of that and you’ll get confidence in yourself.”
3. Taking an oath
Before starting this newsletter, I spent most of my working time writing science and policy articles for outlets including Science magazine. I recently wrote a piece for them, about a new law in France that requires researchers (in any discipline) to take a formal integrity oath on the day that they successfully defend their PhD.
Most of the scientists I spoke with said the oath alone would not prevent scientific fraud or misconduct, but that a solemn pledge to do honest science was a good idea anyway. (One told me the oath would be downright useless, though.)
What pushes a scientist to massage data, plagiarise a colleague’s work, or elbow their way on the list of authors for a piece of research on which they haven’t really worked? In the vast majority of cases, this isn’t about an innate villainous streak, but about external incentives that push for quantity over quality. Those who churn out copious amounts of research papers in the most prestigious journals usually have better chances of getting recruited, promoted, invited at conferences in cool locales, and of securing funding to explore their research ideas. And some academics might, gradually, learn that a slightly dodgy practice is okay because “everybody’s doing it”.
Taking an oath won’t change those metrics, but might be a small part of a slow cultural change for the whole profession.
Plus, aren’t rites of passage important? Taking 1 minute 24 for a solemn declaration, just before pouring champagne for the colleagues and friends who have seen you toiling on your manuscript, could give PhD defences a welcome dignified tone.
Usher links to alternative historic first words by The Onion.