It is apparent that it would be difficult to find a group with tighter linkage or affinity than this. Obviously, there is a natural attraction, relationship and connection. The only apparent separation is based on age and generation. To take the example even further, just suppose that the group has the same occupation. They could be three generations of police officers, nurses, lawyers, doctors or whatever you choose. If that were the case you could easily believe that these people are almost homogeneous in terms of their identity...nature and nurture.

Is there no diversity here? Of course there is and each of us can immediately determine the degree of that diversity by placing ourselves in the center and thinking of our mother or father, brother or sister, and son or daughter. Sure, there are physical similarities. You might even be aware of mannerisms that you have in common that are so strikingly similar that they can be humorous or possibly unsettling. But you know that there is great uniqueness in the personality, passions and temperament among these individuals. When you discuss an issue, not only will the viewpoints differ but there will also be a spectrum of interest in the subject matter. Some of you may be passionate about the topic, while others may be completely disinterested. However you analyze yourself and your grouping of relatives, I am confident that you will see four distinct individuals, not a homogeneous group. This is the form of diversity that we will focus on: individuality. This is diversity...small "d".

Although each of us has a different aptitude for science there is one aspect of physics that all of us can understand, principally because we can see it. Watching light pass through a prism, we marvel at the beautiful rainbow of colors that are created. As a matter of fact it produces every color even though only white light came in on the other side. However, they are not distinct colors but a spectrum of colors, or more accurately a spectrum of wavelengths. Although it is very easy to group them by color category, it is also very easy to separate them by their specific place within the spectrum.

Diversity is much like the spectrum of colors from a prism. We can group people and colors by category, but we can also view them with uniqueness and individuality. When observing the color group that is defined as "red", all that we will see is the spectrum of "red". The same comment can be applied to all color groups. When you travel from one end of the spectrum to the other, you will pass from one group to another. Where one color group ends, another begins. It is very beautiful but it becomes boring. Our natural curiosity inspires us to mix some colors. That is when things get pretty interesting. Mixing colors produces other colors but it is difficult to know beforehand what that color will be.

If we change from a spectrum of color to a spectrum of humanity, we can easily see that we will always have a diversity of distinct individuals. As with color, we can group people by some category of commonality but they are, by definition, distinct and unique. As we experienced with the mixing of the colors, the mixing of individuals gets very interesting and unpredictable. If you will allow me one more color analogy, a major distinction must be made between color and humans. A color, no matter how finely it is defined, cannot change. It must always be what its properties define it to be. Humans, however, are defined by the individual's nature and nurture, meaning the uniqueness of the individuals is boundless.