CHAPTER 1

A New Era

To peep at such a world—to see the stirOf the great Babel ...

WILLIAM COWPER, "The Task"

When I first met Ben, I thought he must be in customer service, so friendlyand practiced was his smile. In fact, he is a biochemist from Uganda.Very dark-skinned and always neatly dressed with a touch of elegance,he speaks fluent and natural English that bubbles with an East Africanaccent. His eyes have a sharp intelligence that can penetrate solid objects.We were forced colleagues, our boys playing on the same sports team,and so I decided to ask how he became a chemist. Every researcher hasa story; his was something more.

"I am lucky to be a scientist," Ben began, "but my luck was no accident."Born in 1958, four years before Uganda's independence from Britain,Ben spent his early years near Mubende, a town northwest of Kampala,where Bantu is spoken. He attended a local district school like most otherchildren and was taught English. His father had worked in the colonialbureaucracy and often spoke the language at home with his son. "He hadhigh hopes for me," Ben said, without further explanation. "He savedenough to send me to a private academy, where a British man taught."This man, an expatriate engineer of Indian descent, quickly recognizedin Ben an aptitude for math. With the father's permission, he gave theboy private lessons and much encouragement. "He was a mentor," Bennoted, "and a lifeline."

In 1972, the new dictator, Idi Amin, ordered all Asians to leave thecountry within ninety days. The teacher was forced to flee and never returned.In the face of mounting chaos and murders caused by the regime,Ben's father sent his son to an uncle in Tanzania and then, with help fromother family members, to San Francisco, where a relative owned a smallrestaurant. Ben was granted refugee status and attended school whileworking part time in the restaurant; since his English was both excellentand polite, he helped conduct business with suppliers. With his earnings,he eventually enrolled in a community college. Ben's parents toldhim he must remain in the United States, so he eventually transferred tothe University of Oregon, where a scholarship helped him earn a BS inmathematics and an MS in biochemistry. Chemistry drew him, he said,because of its powers of transformation. "I know this is the ancient view,of the alchemists. But it is true; in chemistry I found a kind of hope."He studied the biochemistry of plants for his PhD, then took a job witha firm in Chicago.

Since 1990, Ben has specialized in food-related research. When I askedwhy, he replied, "Because this is what the world needs most." He has hadprofessional assignments in Brazil, India, Japan, Norway, and elsewhere,and has presented papers at many scientific meetings. He enjoys thesemeetings a great deal and attends several every year, as he almost alwayscomes away with new research ideas and collaborations. Yet he said hehad been thinking about returning to Uganda to teach. When I expressedsurprise at this desire to end a successful career, he looked at me withoutsmiling. "I feel science must be shared," he said. "It is not mine to keep.I can speak to my countrymen in a language that will not take sides withany group."

Science, Globally Speaking

In a globalizing world, language is power. The more human beings andinstitutions with which we can communicate, the more access to the offeringsand agents of the larger world we gain. This may seem merely amatter of numbers, but far more is involved. Language has a role in theoldest dream for a better world: the dream of a universal language thatallows people everywhere to commune and work together. It is the visionof a unified humanity, harmony on a planetary scale. In the West, we knowthis dream through the image of its loss: the biblical story of the Tower ofBabel, a great structure erected to reach the heavens, designed no doubtby engineers and scientists of the time, but left incomplete when a jealousGod shattered the once-universal language into thousands of tongues thatcould not understand one another.

What if, after a significant pause, a new chapter and verse might beadded to the tale? What if, in our own time, a worthy alternative to Babelhas emerged, lacking in arrogance, extending not merely to the empyrealrealm but deep into the atom and as far as the distant galaxies? Such questionshave already been answered. For the first time in history, science—humanity'sgreat tower of knowledge—has a global tongue. In truth, itis a global language for numerous domains, with science being one caseamong many. It is a special case, to be sure, but one whose meaning can'tbe probed without an understanding of this larger reality.

Today, close to 2 billion people in over 120 nations speak English atsome level of proficiency. This extraordinary number includes a broadspectrum of ability, without any doubt. Yet it testifies to the global drawthis language now commands. For the natural sciences, medicine, andlarge areas of engineering, English utterly dominates in internationalcommunication. This does not mean that it rules in every circumstance, inevery country. Its dominance has definite limits, being confined mainly tosituations with an international or, especially, a global dimension. Yet thisis crucial, as we will see, since science has itself entered a new, globalizingera. English, in short, is the global tongue for this era of globalization.

By the late 2000s, nearly all forms of written output, whether in printor online, whether in person or in video, whether in professional or informalsettings, had already come to depend on this one tongue whenthe intended audience is the larger world community of researchers inany field. Scientists everywhere now recognize this. They would find itnecessary to also stress that the global role of this language isn't at allconfined to publication. English has become the speech of internationalscientific conferences, symposia, conventions, colloquia, visiting lectures,workshops, interviews, and more—the oral dimension to global science.When Ben goes to Brazil or Japan to give a three-week minicourse onprotein synthesis in dwarf wheat, or when he is hired as a consultant bya German agricultural firm to examine its operations in Southeast...