UMaine’s Paul Silverman engaged the brain and heart

Paul Silverman, who served as president of the University of Maine (1980-1984) and who died on July 15, was a remarkable human being. Many Mainers, including many at UMaine, did not fully appreciate what we had and lost.

Dr. Silverman was a brilliant scientist. He had engaged in valuable research on malaria, a disease that killed millions of human beings. Since leaving Maine, he helped establish the first human genome center at the University of California at Berkeley, and he was recognized as one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project, one of the most significant scientific and medical breakthroughs of modern times. Paul recognized the incredible potential of mapping our entire genetic code and isolating genes responsible for diseases in alleviating human suffering.

Paul Silverman was also a very talented administrator, who held important positions at six state universities. He was especially successful in organizing advanced scientific research institutes. I recall his excitement when taking me to the world-famous, University of California Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, where Paul was responsible for administering millions of dollars in research grants. With pride, he showed me the wall of portraits of Nobel Prize winners and he described the important scientific work he was able to facilitate. Later Paul administered a similarly impressive research center at UC-Irvine and he expressed pride in the collection of brilliant scientists working with him.

Not only a brilliant scientist, Paul was also a profound humanist and ethicist. He could cite mystics and poets and appreciated that they expressed truths that eluded rational scientific comprehension. He promoted the benefits of biotechnology and served as director of the University of California System Biotechnology Program. But he also recognized that science detached from humanism, culture, and ethics is narrow, inadequate and dangerous in its destructive applications.

Paul Silverman was one of those exceptional human beings who manage to integrate the brain and the heart. He had the highest of academic and intellectual standards and goals. He had tremendous intellectual curiosity, rigor and creativity. At the same time, he was a human being of tremendous sensitivity, compassion and concern for the well-being of others. He deeply cared that we treat each other with dignity and that we make a difference in leaving the world a better place.

When I think of Paul Silverman, the following words come to mind: admirable ideals, intellect, rationality, kindness, compassion, service, gentleness, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability. In many ways, Paul’s remarkable strengths also made him vulnerable. He related to others with sensitivity, integrity and dignity. When confronted with mean-spirited, dishonest and ruthless behavior, Paul often seemed unwilling and unable to lower himself and respond on that degrading level of human interaction.

As we choose a new president of the University of Maine, we may think of the legacy of Paul Silverman. Dr. Silverman had high standards and wanted to move UMaine forward to new levels of excellence. Two decades ago, the constraints of the University of Maine System, the influence of certain politicians and special interests, and the mean-spiritedness and ruthlessness of certain administrators, thwarted Paul in his worthy efforts. Have times changed so that it is now possible to hire a new president of UMaine with worthy goals and with a real chance for success?

Two years ago, Paul and Nancy Silverman finally returned to UMaine for a long overdue ceremony at which Paul’s presidential portrait was dedicated at Fogler Library. Just before they left, I was fortunate in being able to spend an evening with the Silvermans, and I’d like to share three remarkable topics that Paul shared with me.

First, he was deeply touched and so appreciative of the effort by President Peter Hoff and a few others in finally bringing him this much-deserved honor. He had received so many accolades from former institutions. However, because of mean-spiritedness and bigotry, Paul felt that UMaine would always deny all recognition. The unveiling of the portrait and the ceremony brought a wonderful sense of closure.

Second, Paul described how he had developed an understanding of the multidimensionality and complexity of scientific work; how scientists had to become more aware of the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions and consequences of their scientific work. For example, through sensitive, time-consuming, respectful dialogue, Paul and others had to take seriously religious and ethical concerns that a specific biotechnological breakthrough, that could cure a rare disease, was immoral because it violated God’s predetermined plan. They were finally able to convince the religious leaders that finding this cure for alleviating this disease was consistent with appreciating our divinely ordained nature and furthering and perfecting God’s work on earth.

Third, and most surprising for me, Paul described how he had begun the Human Genome Project with a belief in a kind of scientific causal reductionism and complete determinism. What Paul said in the strongest of terms was that the lesson of human genome research is the exact opposite of what some still believe and others fear: It provides a refutation of strict determinism and a justification for human freedom. It turns out that human phenomena are complex, nuanced, creative, contradictory, multidimensional and full of unexpected breakthroughs and developments.

This should teach us humility. This should make us appreciate human dignity and responsibility for using our freedom in ethical and life-enhancing ways. While carrying on our rigorous scientific research and development, isolating causal determinants and establishing connections, we should appreciate how much we do not know, and we should celebrate the appropriate sense of awe and wonder in experiencing reality.

Doug Allen, professor of philosophy at the University of Maine, served as faculty representative to the Board of Trustees during the time that Paul Silverman was UMaine president.