Life is change, so it is said. Change is certainly a big part of life. Over a period of seven to ten years, every cell in our bodies is changed. So the “me” of today, is probably completely biologically different to the “me” of ten years ago, never mind the “me” that was born 59 years ago. If I thought about this for long enough, I might find it quite disturbing! But this kind of change is just a given, so of course I don’t normally think about it at all. Other change is expected, like progressing through life, from school to University, to a job (or jobs) to retirement. Ah yes, retirement. Which brings me to the subject of this post.
I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy a long(ish) career in science. I started as a student in 1979, arriving in October that year at the University of Glasgow, to begin a degree in biological sciences. In those day you were given “faculty” entry which meant that over the four years of an honours degree you gradually specialised. So your final degree subject might not be clear until well through the four years. I arrived with no grand plan, and gradually wandered my way to a degree in Physiology. It was a very different time. There were nine students in final honours Physiology class of 1982/83, and we had some excellent teachers at the top of their game, including a Regius Professor no less.
I still had no grand plan when considering what to do next. But I enjoyed being around the University, and had plenty of biological curiosity. Doing a PhD seemed to be an easier option than actually looking for a job, and there were a number of studentships on offer around the Faculty. I eventually plumped for one that held out the promise of spending some time at a marine biological lab in France. It was France that was the main attraction though, not the lab. So I embarked on my PhD which involved investigating the nervous system and behaviour of the Norway lobster, better known as scampi (as in scampi and chips). Somewhere in cyberspace you can probably find a copy of my thesis which duly appeared just over three years later: Statocyst, input, multimodal interactions, and their effects on motor outputs in the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus (L.). It was never likely to be a blockbuster. Along the way I had the privilege of attending the 1986 Gifford Lectures given by Donald McKay. I had encountered his apologetics and heard him speak previously. But as the resident Zoology Department “religious nut”, I was invited to go to lunch with him, along with one of the Zoology staff. I think this was because it was thought I would be able to engage in “God talk” with him. I can’t remember what we actually discussed. But I do remember clearly the grace with which he would deal with some of the questions after his lectures, even the bizarre ones from a particular befurred and hatted lady from Hyndland who was at every one of the lectures in the series.
There was still no grand plan when I managed to land my first post-doc job in the University of Hull, nor when I moved back to Scotland when the lab I had joined moved. We formed part of the fledgling Laboratory for Neuroscience in the University of Edinburgh. By then my interests had moved from lobsters to vertebrates, although still to do with the balance system. Edinburgh is a beautiful city (I write this through gritted fingers as a Glaswegian), and its University was and is a stimulating intellectual environment. I had dining rights in the Pharmacology staff common room where almost everything and anything might be debated. A highlight of these discussions was almost any interjection by Bernard Ginsborg, former head of Department, and polymath. Bernard started out in Physics, swapped to Physiology and then made seminal contributions in Pharmacology. He had a breadth of knowledge and interests that these days is all too rare. If he had any influence on me it was to encourage resistance to the tiresome hyper specialisation that is a feature of modern academic life. This might enable faster and further ascent up the academic greasy pole, but it makes for really boring conversation. The other thing that was noteworthy, is that you never had the feeling that you were being talked down to by Bernard. And it must have been a bit of a temptation with some of us relative youngsters. It was also at Edinburgh, that I was able to attend another series of Gifford Lectures, Mary Midgley’s 1990 series, later published as “Science and Salvation”.
It was in this stimulating environment that I was encouraged to apply for, and managed to obtain, a Wellcome Trust Vision Research Fellowship. This allowed me to develop my own little niche (while trying to avoid tiresome specialisation!). My project involved investigating the interactions between visual signals from the retina and feedback proprioceptive signals from the muscles which move the eyes (a development of the work we had been doing on the vestibular system). This was at the time, and remains, pretty obscure stuff. And the details needn’t detain us (in any case they can be found in the papers we published). But it was at this time I really began to focus on eye movements, an interest that I developed and transferred from various animal species to humans. By this stage it was becoming clear that I had to shift from doing animal experiments. Measuring eye movement turned out to be quite a good way of probing what was going on inside heads without opening them up and sticking an electrode in. This precipitated a move from Edinburgh to the Optometry department in Glasgow Caledonian University. GCU is one of Scotland’s “new” universities (some of my Edinburgh colleagues were quite sniffy about it), but its Optometrists knew lots about human eyes, and they had their own clinic which provided the interface with people that I needed.
By now I was interested almost exclusively in human eye movement, doing behavioural experiments in which we made careful measurements of the timing of eye movements. This included work on both healthy people and patients. There was even a series of experiments we did on patients with Schizophrenia. This involved moving the lab to a psychiatric facility which had been newly opened in the east end of the city of Glasgow, near Glasgow Celtic’s famous Parkhead football ground. Whisper it ever so gently, but this is probably an excellent location for such a facility. In the event I was only at GCU for two years or so. A job advert appeared which specifically mentioned the study of eye movements as being something the Division of Orthoptics in the University of Liverpool was interested in. Not knowing what Orthoptics even was (I confess to my shame) I didn’t understand why they were interested in eye movements. Although the post was advertised at Senior Lectureship level, I decided to apply. To my surprise I was invited for interview, and to my greater surprise I was offered the job. And so for the last twenty-two years, Liverpool is where I have ploughed my furrow.
For a number of reasons, my time in the University of Liverpool has now drawn to a close. There have been some scientific highlights. Again, the details needn’t detain us; they’re documented in the papers we’ve published over the years (many of which can be accessed here). I’m taking early retirement because the time has come to do something else. That something else (and this might come as a surprise) is theology, in which I will be undertaking a Masters. Given the old trope about the necessary incompatibility between science and faith, it’s worth saying why. Throughout my scientific career, I have practiced science as a Christian. I have neither ceased being a Christian at my lab door, nor have ceased being a thinking person at the church door. I am using Christian in its Biblical sense of course – I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And of the worst sort too! I am firmly convinced of necessity, reality and transforming power of His death on a cross approximately two thousand years ago, and of the historical reality and evidential value of his bodily resurrection. I know about these things because I also believe that the Bible, including the relevant New Testament documents, provide not just a reliable record of certain key events, but are God’s Word – that is, God is their source and preserver, so that today the Bible remains authoritative in everything therein taught. I think this is ample reason why the Bible’s contents and their implications are worthy of rigorous academic study. The type of study that I’m now itching to embark on.
Now it is clearly logically possible that I either was always potty, insanely gullible or both, or that I have recently developed such traits. But I don’t think so. It must be also logically possible that I am correct in my conclusions, perspective and beliefs. But the Bible I read, doesn’t just make claims on me. It makes them on us all. If it’s true, then it’s not just “true for me” – it’s true for us all.
In any case, here comes an interesting retirement. I’m sure I’ll post more about it here.
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