Tell Me A Story
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Robert Krulwich's commencement speech at California Institute of Technology gets at the heart of what we do here at Radiolab.
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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Hi, I'm Robert Crowe, which Jad's not exactly sure where Jad is. I know he's at a meeting that I should be at, too, so not being exactly America's number one meeting person. I got out of it so that I could be here with you, for which I thank you very, very much. This podcast, today's podcast, is one of our in-between season occasions, where we share with you our regular listeners an idea, a compelling conversation, a thought. In this case, what you're about to hear is a big thought for me anyway. I put it together for the graduating class at Cal Tech. I was invited to be the commencement speaker there this past June, and I wanted to make a case for talking about science to folks who may not be all that well-versed, or even all that interested in science-y things, because talking about this stuff, I argued, has very powerful consequences. So, it's good to see you. Thank you, Ken Kressa, and thank you Jean Chamo, and thank you Judy Campbell, and thank you Congressman Schiff, and thank you Mayor Bagart, Bogart, and especially thank you to all 205 members of the Cal Tech class of 2008, plus the extra 14 who are getting pretty close and allowed to sit here. Congratulations to all of you. It's a great, great honor to be here. Normally, if you're a science reporter at NPR at ABC, a trip to Cal Tech means that you call ahead, and you ask for a few precious moments with a world-class intellectual, whatever, and you're ushered in, and you furiously take notes all the time thinking, "Do I have any idea what this man is saying, this woman? I'm sure you know the feeling," and when I got my invitation asking me to give you guys a lecture, I thought, "Come on, what can I tell you," but I thought of something. And it's something that's going to happen to you, you sitting here with the black hats, in the next hour or two. There you'll be in your cap and gown, surrounded by your family, and by friends, and by friends of friends, and somebody, you know, maybe an uncle or a buddy, somebody, who's going to turn to you and say, "So, like, what were you doing at Cal Tech? I mean, what were you working on?" Not that they really want to know, you know, but after all, you've been here for four years, so, you know, or even, you know, a different number, if you're a grad student, you must have been doing something here, so it's only polite to ask, and I know that a lot of you have scientifically literate dads and moms and some brothers and some sisters, not all of them, of course, but some, and let's assume that one of these people, let's say to make it a relative, let's say that he will make it a he, he's not a scientist, he's not an engineer, and the last time he had a thought, a complex thought about biology or math was back in 11th grade when he got a C minus in both subjects and vowed never, ever to think about biology or math ever again. But because this is your day and because this person loves you, or because you can't really
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Robert Krulwich's commencement speech at California Institute of Technology gets at the heart of what we do here at Radiolab.