Early in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s science fiction blockbuster “Project Hail Mary,” middle school teacher Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, is tasked by an international coalition to uncover the biology of a strange microbe known as an “astrophage” that has been absorbing energy from an ever-dimming Sun.
Grace is a molecular biologist by training, but his controversial ideas and overconfident attitude have kept him out of academia. The viewer will see through flashbacks that as he’s matured, he’s developed a vital skill for solving the astrophage crisis: intellectual humility.
I’m an anthropologist who studies astronauts and space professionals to understand what space symbolizes to the people who experience it firsthand. Grace’s character in “Project Hail Mary” developed several of the traits that I’ve observed in the astronauts I’ve interviewed. These characteristics prove essential to success in high-stakes, uncertain situations. Warning: some plot points will be revealed ahead.
Grace has been chosen as one of the first to study astrophage because of his Ph.D. dissertation on whether life can exist without water, a hot take in the world of science that, along with his rude response to peer reviewers, has gotten him banned from polite science conferences. The solar microbes eating the Sun seem to live without water, so Grace is the acknowledged expert.
Unfortunately, Grace can’t see into the mysterious, opaque little organisms until a dead one becomes translucent. Finally, Grace can see inside the microbe to study it, and he believes his hypothesis about life not needing water will be proven. However, chemical analysis reveals astrophage is made up of mostly water.
In a moment that undercuts both his expertise and his expectations, Grace is wrong. Crushed, he throws a tantrum, observed by a bemused assembly of international leaders.
What actually matters isn’t that Grace is wrong but what he does next. Only after Grace overcomes his frustration and need to be right is he able to move forward, returning to the problem with curiosity rather than defensiveness and the resolve to learn enough about astrophage to make saving the world a possibility.
Admitting what you don’t know
Perhaps the real hero of the story is not Ryland Grace himself but his intellectual humility. Intellectual humility, the admission of your own limited knowledge and a willingness to learn from others, sometimes seems to be undervalued, particularly by those in leadership positions.
People who are intellectually humble will say things like, “Tell me more,” or “I wish I had thought of that.” They don’t feel threatened when admitting vulnerability.
Some people, however, do feel threatened by the thought of admitting incomplete knowledge or appearing to have limitations. Instead of confessing what they don’t know, they may claim a kind of certainty that goes beyond their true expertise, shutting down further questioning. Intellectual humility, in contrast, encourages someone to remain engaged by highlighting how much they still have to learn.
Being contradicted by the facts can produce diverse reactions. For someone without intellectual humility, not knowing can feel like failure. It can lead to defensiveness, denial or a refusal to engage. With humility, however, not knowing is more interesting than scary. The defensiveness is gone, replaced by curiosity.
When Grace realizes his expectations about astrophage aren’t supported by scientific evidence, he goes from feeling sure to feeling unsure. Reality itself hasn’t changed, but Grace’s sense of reality shifts in an important way. He realizes that there is a great deal he still needs to learn about these microbes, without assumptions blocking new knowledge. His intellectual humility gives him a path forward, a way to reset and take in new information without shutting down.
Intellectual humility as a method
Ryland Grace is willing to learn, and this serves him well throughout the movie. His intellectual humility operates as a method, guiding how he approaches problems step by step.
For instance, once he realizes, to his dismay, that astrophage is made of water, Grace acknowledges this new truth. He doesn’t like it, but he accepts it. Moving forward, he avoids making assumptions about astrophage. Instead, he tests hypotheses using simple tools that have been cobbled together from items available in a big-box store.
His partner in this experiment is Carl, played by Lionel Boyce, who is there as a sort of half-“babysitter,” half-security guard, keeping an eye on Grace but also being irresistibly pulled into his scientific orbit.
Amazon MGM Studios
Grace’s intellectual humility transforms Carl from a minder into a partner. Even though Carl isn’t a scientist himself, when Grace has to figure out how to make the lab’s astrophage experiment replicate the conditions causing the crisis in our solar system, it is Carl who suggests a solution.
Instead of being bothered that a nonscientist knew better than he did, Grace acknowledges the solution’s value, thanks Carl and uses Carl’s idea to reach a crucial discovery, proving himself to be open to ideas and feedback from others.
When Grace’s experiments struggle, he moves forward without defensiveness and instead displays increasing curiosity. His method of intellectual humility is to admit ignorance, test variables and revise working hypotheses based on new data, staying open to suggestions from others the whole time. To borrow a phrase from a different space story, “this is the way.”
Science fiction to real space exploration
Although “Project Hail Mary” is fictional, the attitude displayed by Ryland Grace is something I have seen in ethnographic interviews with astronauts and other space professionals, including engineers, astronomers and flight surgeons. Ethnography is a method of research, usually done in the long term, that combines interviews and participant observation.
When confronted with the reality of the universe – an enormous starry void we humans are only beginning to understand – scientists and space explorers are often stunned and humbled by the extent of their own ignorance. Although there are, without a doubt, less-than-humble people building rockets or going into space, intellectual humility is often a guiding force among many successful space researchers.
NASA/STScI
In my book, “The Ultraview Effect,” I trace the way a sense of cosmic awe can provoke feelings of humility and openness, which serve as catalysts for curiosity. This pattern, which I began to notice after an astronaut told me how seeing billions of stars with his own eyes made him realize how little he actually knew, is very similar to what Grace experiences in the movie.
Being open to awe and willing to be humbled by it isn’t weakness but strength. And in his embrace of intellectual humility, Grace lives up to his name.