In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers explore what happens when belief systems collide—and how science and empathy can help bridge the divide.

Part 1: Neuroscientist Lauren Vetere is excited to see if real life will mimic science at an interfaith event.

Lauren Vetere is a neuroscientist, writer, and science communicator based in NYC. She recently received her PhD in Neuroscience from Mount Sinai, where she studied how different parts of the brain communicate to make memories, and how that communication is disrupted in epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease. Outside of the lab, she works to make science accessible through writing, community outreach, and art. Lauren serves as a council member and blog writer for BraiNY, a NYC-based neuroscience outreach group. In 2023, she co-created the winning science-inspired short film for Symbiosis, a competition where scientists and filmmakers are paired to make short films in one week. She then returned as the coordinator for the 2024 Symbiosis competition. In her free time, you can find Lauren writing, baking, or listening to sci-fi and fantasy audiobooks in central park.

Part 2: Growing up as a devout Jew, Fred Gould’s relationship with God is shaken by existential philosophy and science.

Fred Gould graduated from Jamaica HS in NYC and received his BS in biology from Queens College of the City University of New York. He went on to a PhD program in ecology and evolutionary biology at the State University of NY at Stony Brook. He moved to North Carolina for a postdoc and then a job on the faculty of NC State University. Gould is now the executive director of the NC State Genetics and Genomics Academy and is co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center. He conducts research on the application of evolutionary biology and population genetics to enable sustainable use of insect resistant crops and genetically engineered agricultural pests. He also does research aimed at development of strategies for engineering insect vectors of human pathogens to decrease disease. Most of Gould’s current teaching focuses on technical and societal issues related to genomics and genetic engineering. He also teaches lectures within a course on Darwinism and Christianity. Gould is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2011, he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

I've never been a huge fan of conflict. As a kid, I knew that my mom was Jewish and my dad was Catholic. That meant that they disagreed on something, but I wasn't totally clear on what that was. Bacon, mostly.

I remember coming home one day from school in middle school and my mom asked me if I wanted to have a bat mitzvah or a confirmation, the Jewish and Catholic coming‑of‑age rites respectively.

I thought, “Hmm, choose between my parents? No, thank you. And a big party? Well, what if I forget to invite someone and they get mad? Or what if my friends don't all get along? Pass.”

Lauren Vetere shares her story at QED Astoria in Queens, NY in March 2024. Photo by Zhen Qin.

As a kid, this whole thing was a little bit of an identity crisis, but later on, it became a useful perspective to me, this in‑betweenness. I think it made me more thoughtful and curious about the ways that different belief systems intersect and curious about why people believe what they do.

In college, in my sophomore year, I remember sitting on my bed in my first grown‑up apartment and opening an email that said, “Do you like learning about different belief systems? Do you want to bridge gaps between people? Well, then, apply to our new student organization.”

And I thought, “Ooh, is this for me?”

So, I went to this first club meeting and I sat in the back of this old classroom listening to students who identified as Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Muslim, some other things I'd never heard of. And they were all talking about how their different upbringings influenced the way they moved through the world. I was having so much fun getting to know these people and scheming about ways to make our college campus more inclusive.

Now, if this sounds a little too good to be true, I should mention that this is a unique moment in time, the years around 2014, 2015, when, in hindsight, it feels like the biggest debate was about whether a dress was gold or black. This was in Florida, surprisingly, where I grew up and went to college, but before the recent Florida government decision to, essentially, cut funding to all diversity and inclusion initiatives.

But anyway, a few months go by and I'm rushing from my last class of the day to get to this event that I've been helping plan. The goal of this event is to bring students from different religious and non‑religious backgrounds together to learn about each other and build community.

And so I'm sweating as I rush into the cold AC of this rec room that we've reserved and I go to the back of the room to huddle up with my co‑organizers. I've made it in just as we're about to start.

I briefly think that maybe someone should say something, set some ground rules before we start, but no one does. I'm not technically in charge and I don't want to offend anyone by implying that we're not all here to have a good time, so I let it go.

I really want this to go well and I believe that it will. Part of that is because I know that my parents agreed on most things, despite their different outlooks on the world, and also because of my new passion at the time, which was neuroscience and psychology.

A few weeks before this, I had made a PowerPoint for fun about some cool new survey data I'd seen. Basically, people were asked to rate how they felt about different religious groups on a numerical scale and they tended to rate a group more positively if they knew someone who was part of that group. Makes sense.

This also aligned with a study I'd read about in one of my neuroscience classes. So even a rat, these researchers found, is more likely to help another rat get out of a trap if that rat is of the same strain as a rat they've met before. Strains in rats are kind of like dog breeds. They look and act a little bit different, but they're all the same species.

So all this is to say, we don't know if animals experience empathy or how they experience it, but even a rat will help out another rat given the right set of experiences and circumstances.

So I think, “Well, we're going to bring students together from different backgrounds and walks of life who otherwise never would have met on this 60,000‑person college campus. Obviously, a great idea. World peace, here we come.”

So, the event is ready to go. We have these tables set up in a big circle in this rec room. At each table, there are students from a different student organization representing a different belief system. We have a bunch of students in attendance and some local religious community leaders have shown up too, and the idea is that people will be able to go around and have brief conversations with each table. Sort of like speed dating, but with a little bit of learning.

So we start off by having each group just give a brief introduction, who they are, what they're representing. A few tables in, we get to the far end of the room and a girl from the next group steps forward. She's not someone that I know, just another college‑age girl with curly brown hair, kind of looked a little like me in hindsight. And she's got kind of a serious expression on her face.

Then she gets up onto a chair, which is weird but okay, and then she opens her mouth. My brain short circuits a little bit after that, because she's raising her voice, she's taking kind of an aggressive tone and telling the room what they must do. She's implying that her way of seeing the world is the right way and the best way, and you can feel the tension in the room.

I'm turning to my co‑organizers and they're looking at me wide‑eyed, as I'm sure I am looking wide‑eyed at them. None of us know what to do. The room is so silent, apart from this one girl talking.

And all I can think, as my heart is racing, is, “How do we get her to stop? Was this whole event a terrible idea? What are we going to do?” I'm completely at a loss.

So I think, “Okay, well, she's about to stop talking soon. She must be almost done.” But as I think that, she just keeps talking.

A few minutes into this, one of the few real adults in the room comes up to our little huddle and whispers, "Hey, would you like me to say a few words before we move on?" And I don't really know this guy either. He's in his 30s or 40s, looks like. He's got dad vibes and kind eyes, though.

I briefly am aware that he's probably one of the local community leaders with one of the tables. I don't know if this is a good idea. At this point, letting another stranger take the floor seems like it could be a little risky, but at the same time, it can't get much worse, right?

I don't know exactly what this guy is planning to say, and I don't know if it'll be enough, but he has come up and offered to help. And in that offer, I think I recognize something familiar. Maybe that's a curiosity, a desire for connection, maybe a belief that we're not all so different.

So, inside, I'm thinking, “Oh, my God, we're so not equipped for this. Please help us.” But outwardly, I say, “Yes, thank you so much. That would be great.”

Finally, this girl steps down from the chair and this brave man steps out into the center of this silent and bewildered room, and says in a very non‑accusatory way, "Hi, everyone, so glad that you're here. I just wanted to remind everyone that we're here not to convince other people of our perspective, but to learn about perspectives that might be different from our own."

And to my surprise, no one walked out. I got to go around the room, continue the event as planned, get to talk to all these cool people, and ask them my favorite question to ask at these kind of events, which was, “What misconceptions do you feel like people have about you based on the group that you're from?” People always had some really good answers ready to go.

Back then, my strategy for peacekeeping was to avoid conflict altogether, but in this case, potentially, the only way to avoid those mortifying few minutes would have been to not hold the event at all. I would have missed out on so many connections that way, so many opportunities for empathy.

And so now, maybe I try to channel that guy when I know I might need to navigate a potentially difficult conversation, but it also helps me to remind myself that some conversations are worth having and some stories are worth telling, even if they might be a little uncomfortable.

Thank you.

Part 2

When I was young, I wasn't a good student, but I had a powerful, personal God. I remember in 4th and 5th grade, walking away from school, looking down at the cracks in the New York City sidewalk while praying to God to please erase the pencil marks I had put on my exam and move them to the correct place. My God really did that kind of thing.

When I was growing up, I heard lots of stories about how my parents' families had fled to the United States from the pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. If you've ever seen the movie Fiddler on the Roof, anybody? Yeah. You can picture that scene.

Fred Gould shares his story at North Carolina State University in April 2024. Photo by Corey Bellamy.

Around the kitchen table, my parents would tell tall tales, I think, about their time growing up on the Lower East Side of New York City among the other immigrant children. I pictured them as characters in the then very popular show The Little Rascals.

But it wasn't all great. My grandfather, who couldn't speak English, lost his leg working in a garment factory, and the family was evicted and thrown out on the street at least once.

My mom and dad worked their way into the middle class, and my father changed his name from Gold to Gould— that's why you're hearing me Gould, Fred Gould— to avoid anti‑Semitism against his business.

They put me in a very religious school for elementary and middle school where I prayed three times a day. In my prayer group, when one of the rabbis would roll up his sleeve to put on his leather prayer straps, I'd secretly stare sometimes at the tattoo on his arm. It was kind of blurry, but I could make out some of the numbers that had been inked into his skin in the Nazi concentration camps. I was always amazed that this person's journey through the horrors of the Holocaust, he came out of that devoted to his God, to his personal God.

As I moved on, I wanted to say that he and others taught me the mantra that we were the chosen people and that, if God willed it, there was a reason, even if it was horrible, even if we didn't understand it. I understood that mantra.

And as I moved on into middle school, I became more and more of a Jewish fundamentalist. I would wear my religious garments outwardly, even though I sometimes worried that I'd get beat up going to school.

This was an important time in my life. My rabbis realized that I was so sincerely devout, and they sort of tried to prevail on me to continue my religious education and become a rabbi like themselves.

My father, at first, really rewarded my devoutness, but then worried that I was becoming too religious. He actually basically jerked me out of the religious school and had me go to a public high school.

I protested this, but I know that, deep inside, I was somewhat relieved, because I didn't think I'd be smart enough to become a rabbi.

So, through public high school, I prayed three times a day. That continued as I started my first year in a commuter college that was about two miles from my home.

As a first‑generation college student, I really wanted to please my parents and their ideas for my future, and so I became a pre‑med student. But even pre‑med students have to take English literature courses, and so I did.

Just by chance, the instructor that I got for this English class specialized in existential literature. I met Kafka and Camus and Sartre, and it shook me. That godless world was incredible to me. But I also was introduced to Martin Buber. He was a Jewish religious existentialist and that really appealed to me, until I read his works and realized that his God was radically different from my own. His was a God that I couldn't please by memorizing and reciting prayers.

These authors really called on you to either make peace with an absurd, meaningless world, pretty tough, or to embrace a God that you had to create yourself.

I remember sitting in my bedroom in my parents' house trying to reconcile for myself this crazy new world. How could it be that there is no heaven and no world to come? Do we all just die like worms? This was really shocking to me.

I finally decided to talk to my father about this, but it went nowhere. In the end, he told me that I needed to go and see the rabbi of our synagogue.

So, I walked to the synagogue and into my rabbi's study with this hope. I had it in my head that he would say something like, "Fred, the God that you grew up with was a God for children. Now, you're ready for a deeper religion," but that didn't happen. He talked around what I was telling him and gave me what felt like hollow advice.

He pulled a few books off his bookshelf. I remember I took them home hoping there would be something in them, but there was nothing. At that point, there was no way for me to go back. That was the day that my powerful personal God disappeared.

I never told my father about my disappointment in the rabbi. I continued, actually, to pray once a day so my father wouldn't worry about me. I also went to the synagogue on Saturdays with my family, where I would actually think about Buber and Buber's God.

Unfortunately, the God of Martin Buber didn't work for me, so I was left with the Atheists and the Agnostics.

This was the era of the Vietnam War and I slowly morphed into an anti‑war hippie. Yeah, I went to all the nonviolent protests, trying not to get arrested because that would mean no medical school for me. So I lived in these two worlds and the university, all of these students smoking dope and facing off against the cops, and then going home and praying and going to the synagogue.

In the end, I did apply to medical school and I got in, but decided not to go. My father, and many of you who are parents would have, he thought I was crazy not to take on the financial stability from an immigrant family and all of the honor of being a doctor. Boy, he really let me know this. Yeah, you can imagine.

Then I started driving a cab in New York City and saved up money and went to Europe and roamed around. I had some happy times and I learned a lot, but in my gut I sometimes really felt like I should have listened to my dad and taken on the security blanket of med school.

So, there I was, no God, no med school. I was pretty much adrift. I found myself singing this song about a journey by the band America. It's called A Horse With No Name. I'm not going to sing it.

“I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, because it's good to be out of the rain. In the desert, you can't remember your name, because there ain't no one for to give you no fame.”

That pretty much summed up where I was. I was in a new, free and vulnerable world. So when I came back to the United States, I wound up driving a cab again and doing odd jobs that weren't very fulfilling.

A friend told me one day that I could go to graduate school to study nature and they would pay me. It'll take me another 10 minutes to explain to you what the difference was between hearing those words, they would pay me to learn about nature, and my becoming an evolutionary biologist and a professor, as you heard, at NC State.

But, suffice it to say that my journey had taken me from this prepared and cloistered religious world to this desert with no name and I made a compromise, because academia was my compromise where you do get a name and you do get a chance at fame. So it's somewhere in between those things and that has worked for me.

Everybody has their own journey. That one is where I wound up.

And so, at NC State, I encounter religious students who take evolutionary biology as if it's expected as going to football games. Then, on breaks and in the summers, they go back to their religious communities. They live in two worlds like I did.

I feel real empathy for them and their journeys and their struggles, so I've always hoped that I could do something to be helpful. So when Mary Kath Cunningham, who's sitting here, invited me to teach lectures in evolutionary biology to her course Darwinism and Christianity, I jumped at the opportunity. And I've been doing it for many years.

The premise of this course is that you can have Darwinism and religion. It's a great course and I wish I had it when I was going to school. But one thing it can’t give you is it can’t give you a God who will change the grade on your exams or, more seriously, heal your dying mother.

So, I don't know if there really is a way to give true solace to students who find themselves in the place that I was when I was a first‑year student in college, but I realize maybe that's the whole idea of college. The real college is to be faced with new ideas and viewpoints and new information that really challenge your core. And then you have to go on your own personal journey that may lead you to some new change or may lead you back to the old perspective. It's your journey,

I think about the tattoo on the arm of my rabbi. He had gone on his journey through the horrors of the Holocaust and come out worshiping his own personal God. So I would respect a student who took evolutionary biology and then thoughtfully decided to push away the idea of natural selection in favor of a personal God. What's really important is the depth of the journey, not really just the outcome.

So, I want to say that teaching evolutionary biology, and some of you do that, is different from teaching math or chemistry. Sure, we have the facts, but 25% to 50% of Americans don't believe in the idea of evolution, and those percentages are higher for the families of first‑generation college students and the families of underrepresented minority students.

So, when I look out on the faces of the students in my classes, I realize that it's not my place, not my task to guide them on their journey. But it's what my job is, is to let them know that I respect their sincere struggles wherever it'll take them.

Thank you.