Abstract
Some weeks before the scheduled meeting, a notice came for jury duty during the same time window as the committee meeting. Instead of being in Houston, Texas, my home government wanted me to be in Bristol, Connecticut. Easy, I thought, I'll call up the court clerk and get a postponement of jury duty. Not as easy as I thought. The clerk informed me that only the presiding judge could grant waivers, and this required a personal appearance when the panels were being selected. Thus on the appointed day I appeared in Bristol with some two hundred other citizens being given the privilege of serving on the jury.
The clerk appeared and announced that anyone wanting to be excused should go upstairs to a designated courtroom to meet with the judge. About a third of us marched upstairs. The judge announced that he would interview us individually.
We were interviewed in the order of town of residence in alphabetical order.
Alas, I lived in Woodbridge. Starting with Ansonia, I listened to many tales of woe, ranging from care of a sick parent to all manner of real and constructed problems. The judge listened to each one judiciously and mostly but not always granted the excuse. I was impressed by the seriousness of the judicial system. Several hours later my turn came.
I walked up to the panelist's chair and began my story. Interplanetary vehicles were, with the exception of lunar units, not very well known in those days. So I had to start from the beginning of discussing the Viking Lander Mission and why the United States government had any interest in the chemistry and possible biology of Mars. The judge seemed skeptical, torn between my academic credentials and the strange story I was telling. And even if my story was to be believed, why did that require my presence in Houston on the days that he wanted me in Bristol?
Finally, the judge looked at me and in a very stern demeanor said “All right. I'll excuse you this time, but I never want to hear that story in my court again.”
Well, I went to Houston and made my point that given our knowledge of terrestrial biology one should look for the universal core of intermediary metabolism or traces thereof. It is still the advice I would give, but maybe stronger and with better knowledge of the universal core. Curiously, I have never again been called to jury duty and the opportunity to contribute to that branch of government, which is every citizen's duty. I did, however, once again appear before a judge, and it did have something to do with my first appearance. The second appearance was five years after the first and this time in Little Rock, Arkansas. For this appearance I was a professional witness in a federal court hearing the case of McLean versus the Arkansas Board of Education, dealing with the state mandating teaching creation science along with evolution science in all state schools, kindergarten through graduate. The judge was William Overton.
My expertise in this case dealt with showing that from the science of biophysics life did not violate the second law of thermodynamics. It was a lot more pleasant than my appearance in Bristol, Connecticut, and Judge Overton was a very apt student. The hearing finally ended in the court ruling that the state statute violated the Constitutional separation of church and state. The ruling finally reached the United States Supreme Court via a Louisiana case, and seven of the nine justices agreed with Judge Overton.
As I watched the pictures from Curiosity, I thought about what I would tell a judge today if I had to be excused from something or other for some participation, however minor, in a Mars landing. I would remind the court of the importance to humanity of our ongoing inquiry of what we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. That is my duty as an astrobiologist. I hope the judge wouldn't mind hearing that excuse in his court again.