Closing talk by David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle

By Jessica Marshall

Early in his career, David Perlman was listening to a pediatrician at a press conference describe the pancreas, the gall bladder, and the secretion of bilirubin. Afterward, Perlman approached her, perplexed. "I thought it was unethical to talk about patients," Perlman said. "Who is Billy Rubin?"

It's hard to imagine the illustrious David Perlman in such a situation, but he confessed to this misunderstanding and shared other tales of his career during his keynote address. He also emphasized the responsibility of science writers to tackle contentious subjects like evolution, and urged reporters to get out in the field, where discoveries are made.

Perlman, a senior science reporter and editor who has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for 53 years, told the audience he always planned to be a reporter -- he started a newspaper in junior high, printing on a mimeograph machine. But, as his Billy Rubin story suggests, he did not embrace science immediately.

Perlman earned C's in the science survey course he took at Columbia University, where he said he was "really majoring in the Columbia Spectator," the college newspaper. Science still had not grabbed Perlman when Sputnik launched in 1957; Perlman recalled asking another reporter, "Charlie, why doesn't that thing fall down?"

Laid up after a skiing accident the same year, Perlman read "The Nature of the Universe," by Fred Hoyle. The book lit the science spark in him. "If that's what astronomers do, I'm going to find out about them," he decided, and Perlman's science writing career was launched.

Perlman described the sources he uses, including journals, meetings, and public information officers. "Don't diminish the importance of the public information people," he said. He also praised Google for its ability to pull up sources -- including scientists who otherwise stay out of the limelight -- and verify information. "It's the first thing I learned to use when I had to turn my typewriter in," Perlman said.

Perlman believes that science writers should take seriously their role in covering contentious issues such as evolution. "We all have a real moral responsibility to prevent, if we can, false education, or falsity in the name of education," Perlman said, "not just to bug the creationists, but to try to lend some support to schoolteachers in classrooms who will clip an article and post it on their classroom wall. I look for stories that have something to do with evolution. And I don't mind admitting that it's a personal cause of mine."

There are great stories to be reported by getting out into the field where science is going on, Perlman said. "I find my greatest source of satisfaction is actually being where the science action is, particularly where a discovery is being made," he said. "Far too many depend on the journals, depend on the meetings, and while they're useful and they should not be overlooked. The opportunity to go out into the field is really one you should not miss."

Indeed, Perlman's enthusiasm for science and discovery matches that of the researchers he covers. "The idea of continental drift and plate tectonics to me is one of the most romantic and lovely concepts," he said. As for astronomy, he said, "What a romantic idea: how stars get born in a pregnant nebula."

He also reminisced about two voyages to the Galapagos. On his first voyage, in 1964, Perlman spent two months with a crew retracing Darwin's steps. The Chronicle spent $10 a day on his room and board. Perlman filed 30 stories in two months.

In 1974 he was the only reporter on the boat when researchers discovered living organisms around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. He wrote the story from the ship and sent it by radio to the Chronicle. "I was so lucky," Perlman said. "I was there on a discovery that was really epochal."

Newspapers today are reluctant to fund travel to meetings, let alone two-month voyages at sea, Perlman acknowledged. He credited editors at the Chronicle who support his efforts to include science stories in the newspaper. Nevertheless, he described the short life of the full-color ad-free science page at the Chronicle. After three weeks, ads crept in, and color printing is now sporadic. Meanwhile, the wine section thrives.

Charles Petit of U.S. News & World Report, a colleague of Perlman's at the Chronicle for many years, introduced Perlman as "a major body in the science writing solar system" and "one of the busiest mentors in the business." Perlman has won many awards for his work and has two science writing prizes named after him: one from the San Francisco Medical Society, the other from the American Geophysical Union.

Perlman closed his talk by saying, "All of these things are what makes -- for me -- being a science reporter more fun than anything else I can think of. You can take politics or polling and have to write a story until midnight on the latest debate between Kerry and Bush, but I'd much rather be out in the field somewhere hunting fossils.

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