What Harvard Doesn't Know

For over 350 years, Harvard has stood for the advancement of knowledge, and it sometimes can seem as though everyone at Harvard knows everything. As the scholastic year begins and students decide what and how they want to learn, FM remembers that points of ignorance or bafflement can be as interesting and instructive as knowledge itself. From the clerks at 7-Eleven to fellow students to the University’s leading professors to its most glittering alums—this is...What Harvard Doesn't Know.

Sarah E.H. Allen, six-and-three-quarters year-old. She is the daughter of Barbara Hunt, Harvard’s director of taxation.
There are so many things, I don’t know where to start. Planets, the atmosphere. Rocks, I guess.

Jeff P. Amlin ’06, Weld Hall
I don’t know how the Harvard Management Corporation uses their money.

Zeyla Anderson, eight-year-old. She was spotted playing outside her house next to the Leverett towers.
How leaves work.

Domna Antonia, Annenberg card-swiper
I don’t know what the future is going to bring to me. It is hard to predict.

K. Anthony Appiah, Rockefeller university professor of philosophy at Princeton. He is the former Carswell professor of Afro-American studies and philosophy at Harvard.
I guess I wish I knew more about contemporary genetics. I’d like to have some grasp of string theory, which I don’t think I do. Also, I would love to know more languages. I know one dead language and one living language, but I don’t understand Spanish, Chinese, Urdu. There is supposed to be some wonderful poetry in Urdu, and you can’t really tell in translation. So many things I would love to know.
I always think about biology and physics, and how it is an intrinsically valuable thing to understand how the universe works. I think my life would be better if I understood this. Also, languages open up literature and people to you in a way you can’t really access through translation. There is lots of amazing Latin American literature that I’d love to be able to read.
However, there are some things I’m happy I don’t know much about. For example, I know very little about contemporary television. I have a DVD player, and I watch movies all the time, but I don’t usually watch broadcast television or cable. I used to enjoy it, but it took up too much time, I decided to give it up—along with booze and cigarettes. I used to smoke, but I gave up television after I gave up smoking. I gave up television 10-15 years ago.

Habte Ayalew, 7-Eleven cashier and stocker
I don’t know what’s in store for tomorrow or why the weather is what it is.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman ’65 (D-N.M.)
The catalogue of what I don’t know is too vast to describe. Isaac Newton put it better than I can: “I don’t know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me.”

Derek C. Bok, 300th Anniversary university professor. He was president of Harvard University from 1971–1991.
I don’t know how to deal with Saddam Hussein.

Benjamin C. Bradlee ’43-’44, legendary executive editor of the Washington Post from 1968-1991. He is one of four people alive who know the identity of Watergate informant Deep Throat, and authored the bestselling memoir A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.
It’s the key question. The answer is no one ever knows what they don’t know. I know that I don’t know a lot. I don’t know about Saddam Hussein. I don’t know what the hell he’s got back there. I don’t know about al-Qaeda. Good question. No answer.

Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), who represents Massachusetts’ Eighth District, Harvard’s congressional district
I don’t know why I let the Red Sox break my heart every September.

Cheng-San Chen, owner and operator of Louie’s Superette
I don’t know what life is all about. That is all I ask myself. What is life? Why do people come into the world? I have many customers; they tell me that they are religion majors. They tell me about all the different religions. To me, there is one God and that God is nature. I don’t understand, if we have the same God, why that God sends two different messages to two different groups—for example, the Muslims and the Jewish people.

Rohit Chopra ’04, Adams House. Last year he was chair of the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council.
I don’t know why we can’t have microwaves if tutors can. I don’t know why the Core still exists. I don’t really know why the library had to make motion detection lights in the stacks.

Michael R. Colton ’97, creator of FM’s Gossip Guy, co-founder and co-editor of the website modernhumorist.com and co-author of the book One Nation, Extra Cheese
What I don’t know is how to connect my Palm V to the USB serial adapter to work with Mac OS 10.2.1. If anyone can figure it out, let me know. Also, I don’t know geography. Whether I’m reading the paper or doing the crossword puzzle, I have no knowledge of where rivers are located.

Chris D. Cowan ’05, Leverett House
Why girls go to the bathroom in packs. Why women shave off their eyebrows then draw another one in the same place. Why the man on the corner asked me for spare change, and when I said I didn’t have any, he said to call him on his cell when I did. Why fat people order five buckets of chicken and a Diet Coke. Why skydivers bother wearing helmets. Why all the people that sing in the subway have a CD.

Lincoln Craven-Brightman, four-and-a-half year-old. Lincoln’s dad, Howard Brightman, is a student at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Planets. I also want to know about motorcycles and how to make cardboard airplanes.

Greg R. Daniels ’85, co-creator (with Mike Judge) and executive producer of "King of the Hill." A multiple Emmy winner, Daniels has written for "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons," for which he won an Emmy for the episode “Lisa’s Wedding.”
This is a really pithy answer: If carbohydrates are good or bad. I’m completely lost on that one. I don’t know what to put in my mouth anymore.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Frankfurter professor of law, and author, most recently, of Why Terrorism Works
I don’t know anything about sailing, crewing, or how to use a computer.

James M. Fallows ’70, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. A former Crimson president, he is the author, most recently, of Free Flight. His previous books include Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy and National Defense.
Things I wish someone knew: how time travel would really work, if you could do it. (Suppose you go back and break up the first date between your grandmother and your grandfather. Then...)
Things someone knows or may know, and I wish I did too: What animals think. How you can forget where you parked the car but remember the words to every song you’ve ever heard. What it’s like to walk on the moon.

Rep. Barney Frank ’61 (D-Mass.)
Another language—unfortunately, the U.S. is the only country where the typical college graduate is wholly monolingual.

Al Franken ’73, the 2002 Class Day speaker. He is the author, most recently, of Oh! The Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness. A five-time Emmy winner and one-time Grammy winner, Franken’s previous best-sellers include Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot.
Almost everything. You name it, I don’t know it. Biology, physics, comic books, cars. Trees, bridges—how they work. No engineering at all. Refrigerators. Chemistry. I think you just look at the course catalogue and eliminate everything—I know a little bit about government and politics, comedy. I know a little, little bit about film and something about the Minnesota Vikings, which I don’t think is in the course catalogue. I know a little bit about food.

Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Plummer professor of Christian morals and minister at the Memorial Church. He is author of several books, including the best-seller The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart.
What heaven will really be like, and will I like it, assuming arrival.

Jorie Graham, Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory
Today, my answer would be: I don’t know why on earth we are going to war in Iraq. I don’t know where the Democratic Party is. As for your deeper question, the things I don’t know are so manifold they keep my life magical.

Marc D. Hauser, professor of psychology
I don’t know why my brain knows. We don’t know why and how our brain knows and why certain topics are so difficult to educate people on, like the nature of morality.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), considered a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2004
I don’t know why, in the richest nation on the face of the earth, we don’t challenge the notion of 42 million Americans without health care and engage in the real work of providing health insurance for every American.

Janet L. Kim ’04, Kirkland House
I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I don’t know if I want to go abroad for the semester. I feel like I’m at the wrong place sometimes because I’m interested in more artsy stuff. I’m trying to figure out whether or not to go to Paris for the semester.

Jeremy R. Knowles, Houghton professor of chemistry. He is the former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
So many topics stump me, I don’t know where to start. Perhaps I should only remember what Dr. Johnson said: “We should worry less about how little people think of us, if only we knew how little time they spent doing it.”

Enoch K. Kyerematen, Winthrop House security guard
Why religious people hate people.

Frank X. Leonard ’01, a recruiter for Insight Venture Partners

My inability to draw or paint concerns me, as I am often misunderstood in both the written and visual media.
Particularly, I feel that I may have a better chance on dates if I learned to work with oils on canvas. Verbal debacles could be avoided and she, at the very least, would leave with a souvenir of the evening.

Lucy F. Lindsey ’06, Matthews Hall
Anything specific about how my body or mind works.

John A. Lithgow ’67, actor. A two-time Oscar nominee, Lithgow has won four Emmys, three for his starring role in the recent series “Third Rock From the Sun.” His recent films include Orange County (2002) and Shrek (2001).
Well, I’m an actor and actors tend to learn a little bit about a lot of things but not a lot about anything. In an oddball career, I have played a butcher, a rugby player, a nuclear physicist, a boxer, and loads of other parts. So I can tell you a little bit about making sausages, playing rugby, building an A-bomb, and knocking someone out cold. But I can’t actually do any of those things.
What don’t I know? Just about everything.
What do I know? How to pretend I know a lot.

Ruby MacDonald, Harvard Square information booth employee
I don’t know what is happening in the Middle East. All the news that I’m getting, I believe about half of it. I should say, I don’t know what is really happening in the Middle East.

Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, Kenan professor of government
There’s a lot of things I don’t know, but I do wish I knew how to dance better.

Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73, director of undergraduate admissions
The list of things I don’t know is long, and unprintable, and would embarrass me. But I’ll respond by telling you that I don’t understand why prospective college students don’t trust their own instincts—especially those of their own hearts—in choosing a college. Intellectual analysis doesn’t answer the important life questions.

Seth A. Mnookin ’94, a senior writer at Newsweek. He covers media, politics and national affairs
I don’t know how to write first drafts that work. I don’t know how to hide my nervousness when I’m interviewing someone important. I don’t know how to pronounce a lot of words that I insist on using in conversation (until yesterday, I thought portentous was pronounced pôr-ten’shus, not pôr-ten’tus). And I don’t know how to match my shirts with my ties.

Carl E. Morris ’03, Dunster House. He led the Harvard football team to a perfect 9-0 season last year and is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year.
Why people think grade inflation is such a bad thing.

Tim Murphy, Harvard football coach
I wish I knew more about the people across the river.

Roger B. Porter, IBM professor of business and government and Master of Dunster House. He served for more than a decade in senior economic policy positions in the White House, most recently as assistant to the President for economic and domestic policy from 1989–93.
What I don’t know is a vast expanse, but I guess I would say in particular, the French language. I don’t speak it, and it’s such a beautiful language. But perhaps I should say Japanese as well, because I have a lot of Japanese friends and when I travel in Japan I always have to run around with a translator. I’m not a great linguist, you see.

Jedediah S. Purdy ’97, author of the best-seller For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today and an upcoming book on globalization.
I wish I understood film. I didn’t learn anything about movies in college except a few trips to the Brattle. This whole vocabulary of sounds and images—all I can do with it is feel my way around it blindly. It’s really important for understanding what goes on not only in entertainment but also for film as a modern literature. I really regret that I didn’t learn a non-Western language. I don’t really understand any of the conversations about antioxidants, the new nutritional theories that everyone is talking about. How the human body actually works. I know there are carbohydrates, fats and proteins, but I don’t really know how they work.

Robert E. Rubin ’60, member of the Harvard Corporation and director, chair of the executive committee and member of the office of the chairman of Citigroup Inc. He was Secretary of the Treasury from 1995–1999.
This may not fit into the framework of your question, but I would say that I don’t think anybody knows anything for certain. Once you recognize the principle of uncertainty, you’ve passed the threshold through which decisions can be made. So if by “What don’t you know?” you mean, “What don’t you have certainty about?” I would say that the principle of uncertainty applies to all things. And that’s the view of modern science, as you probably know.

Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard University. He was Secretary of the Treasury from 1999–2001.
I don’t know vastly more than I do know. I’d like to know more about the scholarly work that goes on within the University. Scholarship in the humanities, I feel I understand less well than scholarship in the social sciences.

James Toback ’66, the writer and director, most recently, of Harvard Man, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. His other films include Black and White (1999) and Two Girls and a Guy (1997). He received an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Bugsy (1991).
I can answer this without hesitation: engineering and computer science. My knowledge in both these fields stopped around the middle of the 12th century. I think I feel this way because I never developed my instincts in these subjects like I did in about every other subject of importance. The more time has gone on, the more overwhelming and depressing the task of learning these things has seemed. These days, I’ve just decided to move on to the next platform of existence by accepting my pure ignorance. It is almost a perverse badge of honor to feel less knowledgeable about computers than a precocious three-year-old.
As a director, this hasn’t affected my professional life too much at all, because I always have been able to hire assistants to help me gain access to things I don’t understand. It can be a little embarrassing to admit the colossal lack of functional intelligence that I have in computers, but I usually just suck it up and ask for help. When I was in college, I used to convince professors to let me write out all of my papers by hand, because I couldn’t type. I would tell them it would allow them to see the material in a new way, to expand their connection to the prose. When I had professors who wouldn’t go for it, I would get my girlfriends to do it for free, or I’d pay non-girlfriends to do it at whatever the going rate was. I was even accused once by one girl of extending our relationship so I could take advantage of her wonderful typing skills.

Murray Trumbull, the “Chessmaster.” He can often be found in front of Au Bon Pain.
I know very little. You just try to know whatever you do know well. A lot of what we think we know we don’t know anyway.

Scott F. Turow (Harvard Law School ’78), a lawyer and novelist. His next book, Reversible Errors, comes out in October. His previous best-sellers include Presumed Innocent and One L, a memoir of his first year at Harvard Law School.
Every language except English. Physics, including the basic stuff, despite a miracle C in college. Who will fall in love with who. And if the Cubs will ever again play in the World Series.

Helen H. Vendler, Porter university professor
Whatever any one of us knows is so small in view of everything that is to be known in the cosmos. What you do know is a tiny drop of knowledge. One is always confronted by the ocean of things you don’t know vis à vis the things you do know

Ken A. Weinstein ’03, Pforzheimer House
I don’t know how to ride a bike.

Elizabeth L. Wurtzel ’89, the author, most recently, of More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. Her previous books include Prozac Nation and Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women.
I shall give this further thought, as the list is long. (Having only recently learned the difference between “further” and “farther,” it was exciting to make use of the former.) Below are a few things that are sort of metaphysical, although I think what you want are facts. But here goes: Why we need peppermint and spearmint and wintermint and whatever else, as they all taste pretty much the same.
If God really exists.
If psychics really work.
Why James Joyce was ever published.
If several countries are in Asia or Europe or Africa. It’s vague. Like Egypt and Morocco. Associated with both the Middle East and with North Africa, so which one? Also, Turkey is Europe, but feels like it might be Asia. I know all I need to do is look at a map, but there’s an area that’s kind of jumbled. Besides, I should know this off-hand. I mean, I shouldn’t have to look at a map.
Why Afghanistan is seven-and-a-half hours time difference from us. What is with that half hour? Yet another weird thing about that country.
What makes white sapphires different from diamonds, since they look just like diamonds. I know it’s their chemical formula, but still, I think they should be something different from sapphires or diamonds, maybe.
What century almost anything literary happened in. Are the Brontës 19th or 18th? Cervantes 16th or 17th? And stuff like Saint Augustine or Virgil or Homer—forget it. And I concentrated in literature.
Why David Caruso left “NYPD Blue” and Julianna Margulies left “ER” and James Gandolfini wants to leave “The Sopranos” and all these people leave these shows that are clearly as good as it gets. Also, what happens to all those people that really make a splash and just don’t happen, like Rebecca deMornay and Treat Williams and Sherilynn Fenn and Mira Sorvino and Alicia Silverstone—all the next big things who choose bad roles and it all falls apart. Why does that happen? What does Gwyneth Paltrow know that they don’t? I mean, she’s very talented, but also she picks good parts. All these other people had talent too. Where did they go wrong?
I’ll think of some others. There are many. I mean, I don’t know most things. I know very little. The main thing I learned at Harvard is how to seem like I know a lot no matter what, but I don’t at all. It’s sad.

Reported by William Lee Adams, Mollie H. Chen, Rachel E. Dry, David H. Gellis, Amelia E. Lester, Elizabeth F. Maher, Angie C. Marek, Amit R. Paley, Ben D. Mathis-Lilley, Matt L. Siegel, Ben C. Wasserstein and Kenyon S.M. Weaver.