The Current - Bob McDonald: Science, Survival, and Self-Doubt

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Quirks and Quarks host Bob McDonald says people are often surprised to learn he’s a university dropout — a fact that’s contributed to the impostor syndrome he’s felt for a large part of his life. In his memoir Just Say Yes, Bob McDonald charts his path from an unhappy and sometimes abusive home to Canada's foremost explainer of all things scientific.

When a body is discovered 10 miles out to sea, it sparks a mind-blowing police investigation. There's a man living in this address in the name of a deceased. He's one of the most wanted men in the world. This isn't really happening. Officers are finding large sums of money. It's a tale of murder, skullduggery and international intrigue. So who really is he? I'm Sam Mullins and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncovered, available now.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Wendy, these aftershocks are a natural part of large earthquakes where the earth is settling down into a new position that it shifted to a week ago. And if we look at the map here, I can show you how they're related to the original... The water vapor is usually invisible. For example, right now you're breathing out and there's water vapor coming out of you and you don't see it.

That's because the air in your body is nice and warm, the air inside a room is nice and warm. Well, in the wintertime, if you look at the famous constellation Orion, it's the big square with the three in the middle. There's a star up on its shoulder called Betelgeuse. It's definitely red if you look at it. And then down by his feet. Now, I had no idea there was anything unusual

about octopus mothers. What happens to them after they lay their octobabies? From octobabies to earthquakes to comets, Bob McDonald has talked about it all on the radio and on TV. He is of course the beloved host of Quirks and Quirks here on CBC Radio. Over his long career, he's done more than 7,000 interviews and written seven books. He's been granted more than a dozen honorary doctorates. He's been awarded the Order of Canada and even had an asteroid named after him. But what you may not know is how unlikely that life might have seemed when Bob was a child. He grew up without a lot of money. His home was

far from happy. And as for formal education, Bob didn't make it past second year university. I spoke to Bob this past fall about his life and his memoir, Just Say Yes, a warning he talks about child sexual abuse. Here is my conversation with Bob McDonald. You start the book with this scene that may be surprising for a lot of Quirks listeners. You're on a stage, you're receiving an honorary degree, one of many, and you have what you describe as imposter syndrome. Why?

Well, it was the first time I'd ever choked up in front of an audience. It was my very first honorary doctorate given to me by the University of Guelph. And I just choked because I said to the audience, I said, I'm sorry, I've never seen my name on a university diploma. And there was this silence. Like, how did I get here? And it's, you know, people are always asking me, do you have a PhD? What university did you go to?

And I say, no. And they're very often surprised by that. So I thought I'd write it down and say, here's my story starting from the very beginning and growing up in Aurelia, Ontario, which is my hometown. Yeah, tell us a little bit about what life was like for you as a kid. Well, if you Google me, it'll say I was born in Wingham, Ontario, which is true. It's in the southern western part of Ontario. But as soon as I was born, the family moved. I don't know why they moved when I was born, but anyway, they moved to Aurelia,

so I consider that my hometown. And it's great. It's at the beginning of cottage country, it's on a lake. Our house is only a couple of blocks from the lake. There's a big town park, so that's where I spent my time in the summer, running around like a feral kid in and out of the water, collecting pop bottles.

In the wintertime, skating on the lakes, tobogganing and all that, so it's a great outdoor thing. And my mother was the exact opposite of a helicopter parent. Her mantra was, get out of the house. Don't bother me. Go play. Go play. And in a small town, you can do that. So it was a wonderful outdoor experience. And I really liked it. But the indoor experience was a little different. Yeah, the indoor experience. I mean, you're talking specifically about your parents here. experience was a little different. Yeah, the indoor experience. I mean, you're talking specifically about your parents here.

And you, this is a difficult thing to talk about, so I want you to share as much as you're willing. But you talk about your dad in particular. Can you tell us a little bit about him? Yes, he was an alcoholic, a serious alcoholic. And that kept us poor. I wouldn't say we were in poverty, but we were certainly the poor people on the block. We couldn't do things like go take vacations in Disneyland or something like that.

And he was somewhat of a violent drunk, and I never knew when I came home whether it was going to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. And so home for me was not a comfortable place and that this is hard to talk about but I want to to go into this but I was abused by him and I was sexually abused by my dad and it happened again with another person in a public park an older teenage boy grabbed me and abused me as well. So that turned home for me into a place to be from because I was violated in the very place where I'm supposed to be safe, in my home, in my bedroom, in my bed by the very person who's supposed to protect me. And that was something that I had to deal with and I still have to deal with for the

rest of my life. Pete Slauson You describe your dad as a monster in the book. Why did you want to tackle it now? Dr. Richard Sussman Well, the reason I want to come out about this and I've never spoken about this publicly because I have found a way to put it away, to put it in a vault in the back of my mind with a door that's locked and only I can open it and I don't open it. I just put it in a vault in the back of my mind with a door that's locked and only I can open it and I don't open it. I just put it away. And I have a message for anyone who has suffered

from childhood abuse, whether it's sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional, whatever, that it is possible to deal with it. The memories will never go away. They won't. I can still remember all the details about it, every detail. But you can put it away and take charge of your own life. Because if you let it affect you for the rest of your life, you are giving more power to the abuser. Even after they're dead. My dad died at 55. The alcohol finally got him at age 55.

Pete Huston You say in the book, childhood trauma can be overcome. How do you do that? Dr. Michael S. Hickman You move ahead. Today is where we live. I'm not a child anymore. And so you say, okay, something really bad happened, but that was then, this is now. And to me, child abusers should be punished to the absolute limit of the law. But we control our own lives. We make choices about what we're going to do. And I made a bunch of choices in my life that led me to be host to Quarks and Quarks. We got heavy real fast here, Bob.

But I wonder, because people you come across as this really positive, energetic, enthusiastic person, where does that come through, given, I mean, you're talking about poverty, about abuse, where does that energy come from? Well, I think it comes from being outside all the time when I was a kid. Like I say, my mother said, get out! And so, I was always outdoors, playing with other kids, or when I got a bicycle, starting to explore around places I'd never been. So the world to me, even as a kid, was not a scary place.

It was an adventure. What's out here? And I continued that throughout my life. And I write in the book about how, when I was in my late 20s, I went all the way around the earth by myself just to see what it looks like. It was fabulous and I still love traveling that way. And now I get to explore science because science is a kind of travel. We're figuring out the universe, we're figuring out how it works, we're figuring out how the

body works and it's fascinating. There's so much to learn and not enough time to learn it all. So I'm really turned on by that. So I'd rather look on by that. So I'd rather look ahead rather than look back. Pete Slauson And exploring the science is perhaps why it goes back to that being on the stage and the feeling of imposter syndrome. Why didn't you finish the university degree?

Dr. Richard Lowe I was a terrible student. I just wasn't good at it. I'm terrible at math, but I was good at theater. I did some theater. When I was in high school, I got the lead in Oklahoma, the musical, you know, oh, what a beautiful morning. I sang that. And in high, in university, I did Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's. I played Puck, a comic role. And I thought that would be my career, that maybe I should be an actor. But then when I realized that to do it professionally, you have to put yourself out in auditions, and that's when my insecurity would come in. I'm not an actor. But then when I realized that to do it professionally, you have to put yourself out in auditions, and that's when my insecurity would come in.

I'm not good enough. Because it does get to you that you're not good enough. You're not like everybody else. However, I have since found that when you feel you're not good enough, you have that imposter syndrome thing, somebody's going to find out I'm not that well-educated. If you think you're not good enough, you try harder. You try harder to be as good. Whereas if you think you're good, you're going to get arrogant and you won't work as hard. So in some ways, it's actually helped me, although

I'm not recommending it as a way to go. He said you're not good at math. I mean, you talk about chemical formulas kind of becoming a blur in your head. Yes. But you're interviewing, I mean, some of the world's most learned scientists and helping us understand. How do you pull that off? Well, I think the fact that I don't have a formal education puts me on the same side

as the audience. So I'm closer to you than I am to the scientists. I know the science, I can understand it now, I've been at it long enough, but I don't need to do the science. I don't need to do the chemical formulas and the mathematics. They do that. And then I say, so what did you find? What did your mathematics tell you?

And they say, well, we just figured out how a black hole works, or we just figured out how a group of cells decide to become the human body, whatever. But I'm not sure I'd advise my journalism students to drop out if they were gunning to become science journalists? So I mean, how did you get that first big break to get into the world of science? Well, it actually came while I was working at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, and that came, I mean, I was a construction worker. When I dropped out of university, I thought, well, my kind will work construction, and I did.

And I have great respect for people who work outdoors, especially in the wintertime. But it was my girlfriend at the time, when I was in my early 20s, and she told me that the Science Center was hiring people to do the demonstrations, you know, stand people's hair up with static electricity and all that, because she worked there as a summer student. So I went in and I just talked the guy's ear off. I just went in and said, I really love to work here. This is great. I love science and entertaining, and he just hired me on the spot. And so that was what I was doing. And then in 1976, there was a robot that landed on Mars called Viking, and I was following that very closely. And CBC News called up and they said, Can somebody come on tonight and tell us about this thing that landed on Mars? And I said, Sure, I'll do that. And

I'd never been on television. So I came on and I brought a global Mars, I brought some of the photos, I said, hey, here's what happened. This is, look, isn't this neat? Here's what it looks like to stand on Mars, blah, blah, blah. And then after the interview was over, when we were doing, getting off the set, taking the microphone off, the director came down from the control room, stood right in front of me with her hands on her hips, and she pointed at me. She said, you're really good on camera. If you want to come back and do stuff for us, we'll have you. And then one thing leads to another, one thing leads to another. Television, kids show back and do stuff for us, we'll have you. And then one thing leads to another, one thing leads to another.

Television, kids show, and radio, and then quirks and quarrels. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA, and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know,

and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. One thing leads to another. You knew we were going to dig through some of the old tape here. So you're famous for your hands-on explanations of scientific ideas that you did a lot when you hosted a kids' show, Wonderstruck, in the 80s and 90s. Older listeners will remember that. One time you actually went skydiving, then used a simple piece of cardboard on a rock to explain how quickly things travel through the air.

Now, about 300 years ago, there was a guy named Galileo and he said that all objects should fall at the same speed. But if you try it and you take two very different objects like a piece of cardboard which is very light and a rock which is very heavy and you drop them both at the same time you will find that the rock gets to the ground first every time. So does that mean Mr. Galileo is wrong? Well, not exactly. I was always looking for everyday objects to explain science because that's a trick when you're working with kids. You start with something familiar. And on Wonderstruck, at

the end of every program we had kitchen demos that was shot in my kitchen because we didn't have a studio. And I would just do stuff you could find around the house and do simple demonstrations. And I was very popular among teachers, and so I'd do a lot of teacher conferences and school visits and all of that. And there was a magic moment one time when I was in a school, a grade school, and they had all the kids in the cafeteria because it was the biggest room they had. And I wanted to do a demonstration I called the invisible fire extinguisher. And usually I use baking soda and vinegar to make carbon dioxide.

But there was a vending machine right beside me where I was standing. So I went over and I put some coins in the machine and I got a can of ginger ale. And I have this big glass bowl and I poured the ginger ale into the bowl from a height so that you get all kinds of bubbles. And then I asked the kids, you know what's inside the bubbles? And we work with them. It's carbon dioxide. I said, there's two things about carbon dioxide. One, it doesn't burn and two, it's heavier than air. So I said, so this bowl now has carbon dioxide in it. You can't see it. Let's do a test. I lit a candle, hold it beside the bowl and just tip the bowl a little bit. The carbon dioxide spills out. You don't see

it, but the candle goes out magically. I said, there's my invisible fire extinguisher. The kids go, whoa! And I did it using a can of ginger ale. And then I got a couple of cans of soup. I had two cans of soup, they're the same size, the same weight, unopened, and I put them on the table side by side. I said, we're going to have a race. We're going to roll them down the table. Which one do you think will win? One was chicken noodle soup, the other one was mushroom soup.

I just lift the end of the table up to tip it, and they start rolling, and the chicken soup just runs away. Why do you think the chicken soup always wins? This kid puts up his hand, he says, because chicken have feet. Great answer, great answer. But it's because the chicken soup's runny, the mushroom soup's gooey like snot,

and so it doesn't turn as well. So now you're into fluid dynamics, pipelines, all kinds of stuff. So that's my philosophy. When you just laugh there, I'm picturing Bob McDonald with a big smile on his face. And you talk about being new to TV and learning TV, philosophy. When you just laugh there, I'm picturing Bob McDonald with a big smile on his face. And you talk about being new to TV and learning TV, but being really conscious of your smile.

Why? Well, I've always had trouble with my teeth. I have a whole chapter on crooked teeth. My teeth are not straight. I don't like close-ups because they really show. And that's because I didn't have dental care as a kid both my parents had all their teeth ripped out, which is what was common in their generation and So I had to go through in my 20s I didn't see a dentist until I was in my mid 20s and they were so rotten out

I had to have a whole bunch of them removed But the ones that were left had them all filled I went through a year of going to the dentist all the time We got to be good friends and at the end he said, okay, your teeth are now healthy, but they're not straight. He said, if you want to straighten them out, it'll take a while because you're an adult. But he said, you don't need to. It's purely for cosmetic reasons. And so you've got to think about that. He said, people have accepted you up until this point with the way you look. And I said, okay. I was just getting into television. I thought, ah, I'll leave it. This is the way I am.

People know me. As soon as I open my mouth, they know who I am. So I've struggled with that. I know I don't have a perfect smile, but well, in a way, it's an identity. That story says so much about you, Bob. I mean, you call yourself a half-educated, low-income kid. But then all of a sudden, like you are the host of Quirks and Quarks. You know, 30 years ago you became the host.

You say that's the best name of any radio show in the business. But what was it like 30 years ago being that kid? What was different about doing that job compared to the Science Centre, compared to all the journalism that you'd done before that? It was a really hard transition. It was a steep, steep learning curve because up until that point, I was doing my own stuff and we were encouraged to be silly and fun and I do my own research. Quirks is different because it follows the news of the week.

What was published? What are the journals? What are the universities putting out? And you don't know what's coming. And I was suddenly doing adult science and talking to, you know, top people in the world. Somebody just won the Nobel Prize. They're talking to me in subjects that I was not that well versed in. In fact, the first year, the British were suffering from mad cow disease. So I had to learn how to say bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It took me a day just to learn how to say let alone what it means, you know, what it does to the brain and all of this stuff. So it was pretty hard and I was really struggling with it at the beginning, but then I

realized that the producers are the ones who do the heavy lifting. They find the scientists, they talk to them ahead of time, they do pre-interviews to get the story right, they give me the background information, and we work together on the script and on the questions before the interview happens. By the time I get to the interview, I know the answers to all the questions I'm asking. So then, what I do is I just listen and I'll ask the question and see if they're going to give me that answer. And if they don't, then I say, okay, let me see if I got this right.

And then I kind of turn turned around to bring it back. Let me see if I got this right. Quirks listeners will remember hearing that fairly regularly on the show. You found out that scientists are aware of that signature phrase. What did you find out? Yeah, I was at an event at one of our universities and a scientist who'd been on the show a couple of times, he said, you know, in our lab, we try to get through an interview with you without you saying, let me see if I got this right, because if you say that, we failed. I said, I didn't know I set a bar. But what I'm trying to do is I'm a translator. I'm trying to translate between scientific jargon, which is its own language, and the public. But it's always learning, and it's great.

That's what I love about Quirks and Quarks. It's always new. I can barely even tell you what's on next week's show. Your love of space really shines through in the book and I want you to tell us the story. In 1981 you were a freelancer, you drove down to Florida to witness a bit of space history, and there was a piece of CBC stationery that came in handy? Yes. 1981 was the second flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, but it was the first flight of the Canadian Canadarm. And I drove down with my brother in his van, and in order to get into NASA, before leaving, I grabbed a piece of CBC stationery and I wrote a letter to NASA

introducing myself and then just scribbled some name on the bottom. And we showed up at the gate and I said, Hi, we're Canadians, we're down here to cover the mission. And because it was the second flight, there was hardly anyone there. They were open arms. They said, Oh, yeah, here you can have press passes and we'll give you a vehicle pass for the vehicle. So we could drive anywhere in the whole Kennedy Space Center. It was great. And it was a morning flight. We got there the day before, so we just slept in the van.

The next morning, just rolled back the door, sat there, and there goes the space shuttle. Wow. That's what's called the good old days. Yes. You've been on Quirks and Quarks for 30 years now covering science. I mean, so much has changed in the science world. And I wonder about what you've seen as the change in science and the way that we perceive it. Well, the science itself has come a long, long way. I mean, I'm stunned that the entire space program has happened within my lifetime. When I was a kid in Irelia in 1957, Sputnik, the first satellite, went up. And I remember the headline in the Irelia Packet in Times and it showed the Earth with a big circle around it and

little balls that Russians put up on the first artificial moon. And then I've watched all of it. I've watched all the moon landings. I've watched all the robotic missions to all of the planets in our solar system, the Hubble telescope, the Webb telescope, and it's just been amazing what we have found out about the universe itself and how we've learned to fly in space, to leave the earth and all those early missions and going to the moon for the first time and now we're living in space. There are people living in space right now. What I'm discouraged about today is the way science is perceived because scientists used to be like magicians. And when I worked at the Science Center, there I was up on a stage wearing a white lab coat, standing people's hair on end.

It was amazing. And people go, oh, wow, look at that. Or I'd freeze flowers in liquid nitrogen in one second. You'd freeze a flower. And I was like, wow, that's magic. Whereas now people are doubting science. They're doubting the science of climate. They're doubting the science of climate. They're doubting the science of energy and saying no. And science journalism, science communication is not just done through the regular media. When I started out, the only way you could get on television was through a network. And everything was done through producers and editors. It was vetted. It was fact checked to make sure that it's accurate. Well, now

anybody with a cell phone and a YouTube channel can put out whatever they want. And it's hard to tell the difference between the science and the pseudoscience or the conspiracy theories because they're very good at it. In some cases, better than we are. And so it's confusing the public. And that disturbs me because we're living in a time now where we need science We we need a basic understanding of science among the public if we're gonna deal with things like climate change or Food and water and population and energy and all these things because they have science behind them As as as the host of a national science show have you ever been targeted with hostility? yes, we had we had to shut down the comments on my blog because there were a couple of people that were climate deniers and anytime I mentioned

climate, they would just attack me. They wouldn't present counter information that I was wrong, but they would, you know, this guy's an actor, they did some history on me, who's going to believe an actor, he doesn't know what he's talking about and all this. And I'm very careful about what I talk about to make sure that what I'm saying is correct. And so it's a different world now. And there's a challenge among young people in the public to find out who's saying that. If somebody's saying something outrageous, who are they? Is it an institution that they founded and they made themselves the director and the doctor? Or is it University of Toronto? You know,

there's a big difference. So we really have to be careful where the science information is coming from now. That's the challenge. At the end of the book, Bob, you're right. The idea of sitting still to wait out the remaining years of my life frightens me more than any other risk I've ever faced. What's next for Bob McDonald? Well, I'll keep doing quirks until they tell me not to. This is not a swan song. I'm not retiring or anything.

And I'm going to continue to travel the world as much as I can by boat, by motorcycle, by whatever. And I have a secret little dream actually, Duncan. I would still, I've always wanted to go to space. And there's a slim, slim chance maybe I could get up on one of those tourist flights, you know, Virgin Galactic, so I would like to get up on one of those tourist flights and have Chris Hadfield at the controls. That would be cool. Cool. Before we go, I want to ask about the title because you wrap up so succinctly and beautifully

this wonderful philosophy. The title is Just Say Yes. Tell us about your three-point philosophy on life. Yes, I have learned that when opportunities come along, and we all have opportunities come along, you have somebody says, hey, so-and-so is looking for a person, you'd be good at that. And we immediately say, oh, I don't know how to do that, I don't have the experience, I can't do that. What we're really doing is expressing our fear. I have found in my life that when an opportunity comes along, say yes. And even if you're not qualified to do it, just say yes. Then the next thing that will happen is you get scared. You go, what have I done? I don't know how to do this. Step two, focus on the very first thing you need to do. What's the first thing I need to do? And usually

that's asked someone, how do I do this? But what's the first thing? Then once you do that, you will see the next step and then do that. And just one step at a time, go through. And the third point is finish it. Finish what you start. Don't worry about being the best. There's always gonna be someone better than you.

But if you don't finish it, then it's not worth anything. So just get it done, get it done. And that's worked for me throughout all of my career. And I will still do that throughout all of my career. And I will still do that when new things come along. So that works. That works. Take a chance.

What's the worst that can happen? They say no. But just say yes. Focus on the first step. Step your way through it and finish what you start. That's been the success of my life. Quirks and quirks, listeners, are going to be very happy to hear you say that they're going to have to pry the mic out of your hand. It has been a real pleasure. The book is

just wonderful. Thanks for sharing it with us, Bob. Bob McDonald Pleasure talking to you, Duncan. Pete Slauson Bob McDonald is the host of Quirks and Quirks, heard every Saturday here on CBC Radio. His memoir is titled Just Say Yes. Matt Galloway You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.