Crossing the Line

By Keith McDowell

Confession is good for the soul – or so they say. I suppose it depends on who is doing the confessing, the nature of the sin involved, and whether redemption or forgiveness is required – the Harper Valley PTA excluded.  Remorse and contrition are also part of the show providing that special touch of humanity.

Lance Armstrong confessed. The culture of the cycling society in the 1990s and the naught years made him do it. Supposedly, it was how everyone “gamed the system” and leveled the playing field – the details being irrelevant except to the curious and the obsessed.

And obsessed we are as a society with sinners, saints, and our fallen heros. Nothing plays better on the screen of life than the drama of the confessional act followed by redemptive forgiveness – Oprah being the perfect foil. Scorners bask in the glow of “I told you so!” and righteous indignation while true believers shed a tear and embrace the sinner. It’s the perfect prescription for our next emotional fix.

But behind the role playing of the current set of actors and, yes, behind the crass manipulation of the public to achieve predetermined goals, there are real questions to be asked and answered about what is real and what is merely drama. And most pressing of all is the question of when do human beings “cross the line” and “cheat” on the established rules of a given game, even if those rules are antiquated and easily circumscribed? Is it a sin to do so or have we achieved a greater good by revealing a flawed system? Should we always follow the moral imperative to stay within the intent of the prescribed rules or is there an evolutionary imperative at play driving us to constantly reinvent the game, typically by “cheating” on the given rule set? How about if we only bend the rules?

Lest you think such ruminations are merely philosophical doggerel, consider the question of achieving the competitive edge through innovation and invention. Is that not a form of “cheating” on the established rule set?

I have a test for you. Which of the following innovations and inventions constitute cheating when used: swimsuits covered with nano-scales, golf balls embossed with the perfect dimple, aluminum bats engineered to drive the ball out of the ballpark, exo-body suits designed to expand performance, or the invention of Gatorade? What about “cheating” to build a better racecar or enhance the performance of yachts in the America’s Cup competition? And my favorite activity, animal breeding to achieve the perfect racehorse or the best show dog – no matter the consequences to the breed.

Gaming a rule-based system doesn’t have to be only about sports. Consider all the new instruments created to make money such as Roth IRAs or credit default swaps to protect derivatives. Does the financial collapse in 2009 mean that someone cheated?

And how about human and animal testing for medical research to improve the condition of humankind through new innovations and inventions? When does that research “cross the line” and become cheating? Do we really want our worse science fiction nightmare to occur with the release of nano-agents similar to those in the novel Prey by Michael Crichton?

When does pushing the outer envelope, thinking outside the box, being creative, or walking to the beat of a different drum – to name a few of the standard, but trite expressions – cross the line and become cheating? When does the saint become a sinner – or does such a bright line even exist?

Does it matter more to us when drug use or medical procedures are involved as opposed to new technologies or materials? Or does the venue, such as a sporting event versus the economy or public health, count in defining the bright line?

For me these questions revolve around the issue of what we value and how we operationalize that value system – the notions of absolute right and absolute wrong being too rigid. I favor transparency over secrecy in our actions as the best tool to protect the public good, but even that has its limits. Do we really want to reveal the secret formula for Coca-Cola?

The court of public opinion will ultimately decide the fate of Lance Armstrong and his legacy, but regardless of that outcome, his story reveals yet again the struggle we face as a civilization to improve the human condition. Should we bend the rules in our favor through innovation and invention and when does that activity cross the line and become cheating? It’s your call.

[Attached image copied from website How Close Should You Come to Crossing the Line?]

Invasion of the Data Snatchers

By Keith McDowell

And so it begins! I’m speaking, of course, of season three – that’s Downton Abbey for those of you not keeping score. Thank God, Lady Mary and Matthew are finally married, although his dithering about accepting the Swire family fortune is, well, entertaining. And that’s the point.

Downton Abbey is an enormously successful television series brought to us by Masterpiece Classic as part of the Public Broadcasting Service. The story captures many aspects of life in the gilded age of early Twentieth Century England by reveling in the upstairs and downstairs intrigues of the landed gentry and their servants. The drama unfolds through excellent storytelling and marvelous acting while set in the rooms and on the grounds of the enchanting Highclere Castle. It’s escapist programming at its best. Even an old goat like me has brandished a tear or two at the drama and snickered at the punch lines from the incomparable Maggie Smith.

But Downton Abbey is more than just a well-spent Sunday evening. It’s a story that reminds us of the comedy and crassness, guts and glory, sorrow and shame, and vagary and vulgarity of one’s own family and ancestors. Who can forget the presence at family gatherings of old Uncle Nick who was deaf as a doornail and sat in the corner with his hand cupped around his ear watching the proceedings and pretending to hear everything? Our how about those stories from grandma describing the nameless uncle who, bless his heart, was a lecherous old fool and womanizer and who reputedly sired numerous bastard children? Oh, the scandal of it all!

Yet, people want to know. Despite the salacious details or the utter banality of someone’s existence, people care about the lives and history of their ancestors. Just ask the folks at Ancestry.com, or the librarians who manage genealogy rooms at public libraries, or the clerks at county courthouses, or the archivists at state records repositories. The modern search for ancestral data has exploded in America and taken on a social dimension equal in many ways to that of social media. It’s as though an alien has attached itself to our bodies and turned us into a herd of data snatchers, eager to capture yet one more morsel or tidbit of family history.

And therein lies our story. When and how does the right to privacy trump the right to have access to public records – not to mention all those personal records posted online at Ancestry.com or elsewhere, whether letters, Bible records, or pictures of people? And who should pay for the proper archiving of those records and the means of access to them? Genealogy data snatchers want to know!

If you think the right to privacy isn’t an issue, consider the recent brouhaha over a newspaper publishing the list of local gun owners based on a public government database. Or consider the following point: should a genealogist publish a complete family history including the names of living relatives? How does that impact identity theft?

Whether we like it or not, the Internet has brought civilization to a new era where a great deal of information can be accessed about each of us or our ancestors. From the point of view of a practicing genealogist like me, this is wonderful news. After spending nearly forty years trolling through old documents and graveyards, it’s great to access the same information rapidly with the click of a mouse while sitting in the comfort of my own study unshaven and wearing rumpled clothing.

I don’t have a simple answer to the question of privacy as regards accessing or publishing public data including personal family data made public through Ancestry.com or other websites and publications. So far, I’ve taken the position that if it is public data, it should be accessible using modern technology – one should not have to visit the county courthouse – and publishable under our nation’s copyright laws. I don’t see how it can be otherwise. But then, I’m a genealogy data snatcher!

Unfortunately, there is more to the story than the right to privacy. All across America, old records are being tossed or shredded for lack of storage space or lack of personnel to maintain them. Even worst, historical documents dating back a hundred years or more are rotting in the corners and on the shelves of unsuitable storage facilities at county courthouses. Every genealogist sooner or later walks into such a facility, notes the black mold on their fingers, or remarks on the blackened ledger book pages and the growing pile of crumbling paper accumulating in the nooks and crannies. If someone doesn’t take the time to photograph these documents in high resolution with a digital camera, the information will soon be lost to all future generations.

I challenge the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffet, and all those other rich Americans with money to spend to put that money to a worthy cause and save American historical documents and records. Let’s immediately commit to having high resolution, digital images taken of all old records. Don’t convert microfilm to digital and accept the loss of image quality. Image the original documents. And if possible, fund a project to transcribe those documents into modern searchable files linked to the original images. What a boon that would be for the data snatchers.

And in the spirit of the Findagrave.com website, let’s capture all tombstone inscriptions and cemetery records into one online site. Believe it or not, tombstones are not forever. Thirty years ago, my brother, my father, and I published a pamphlet containing the cemetery records for the Pleasant Union United Church in Randolph County, North Carolina. Today, some of those old tombstones have become so corroded with the passage of thirty years that they are no longer readable. Family history is being lost every day.

But should we, the public, have to pay for online access to digitized public records? Let’s see. I pay a yearly fee for access to records at Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, and NewspaperArchive.com. Mercifully, Findagrave.com is free. While I grumble at the total price tag of several hundred dollars, it’s basically a bargain given the pleasure that it brings. Somebody has to pay to archive and provide access to the data.

The invasion of the data snatchers is here and it’s real. Maybe one day, the stories they uncover and reveal will form the script for the story of your family. Will it be one of gated communities and McMansions? Or will it be one of a struggle to survive in a fast-paced high technology society? In any case, plop down in your favorite easy chair next Sunday evening and enjoy the next installment of Downton Abbey. You won’t regret it.

CPRIT and Commercialization

By Keith McDowell

The creation in 2007 of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas by the voters of Texas was truly a historic event in our nation’s continuing war on cancer. Better known by its acronym of CPRIT, the institute promised to turn Texas into the epicenter of a world-class cancer research program that spanned the spectrum from basic research to clinical trials to clinical practice backed by innovative new commercial products and a thriving bio-medical industry driven by start-up companies. And like my many colleagues in the business of university research and technology commercialization, I was excited at the prospect of becoming a participant in such an important endeavor.

But then, as it always does, reality intruded. As the planning began and the practical details of CPRIT emerged and sorted themselves out during 2009 and 2010, concerns mounted as to what CPRIT was actually all about. Two areas in particular drew the most attention from members of the university community: the CPRIT commercialization plan and the performance of the CPRIT management. Sadly, as most often happens in such cases, these concerns were never sufficiently aired and were buried under the desire to “don’t make waves” and to “drink from the Kool-Aid” as it was being offered up. The second slogan in particular is a favorite among Texas powerbrokers who want to influence how people think and behave.

To understand the first concern and many of the present troubles at CPRIT – including the resignation of its top management and many of its external proposal reviewers, it is essential to place that concern about technology commercialization into the broader context of Texas politics including the history of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). Let’s face it! Texas powerbrokers want a piece of the action. They want a return on their investment in Texas politicians. And that means a direct pipeline to state funding for their personal projects and, in some cases, a direct pipeline to controlling how university research is commercialized. What drives these people is the desire to push aside a fair and transparent process and to build in backdoors for them to skim funds into their own pockets, one way or another.  Does anyone remember Introgen Therapeutics or Convergen? It’s call cronyism.

But it’s more than simple greed, the desire to make a fast buck, or the entrepreneurial spirit – which in and of itself is generally good for business and global competition. In Texas, that spirit of capitalism is overlaid by a widely-held belief that Texas universities are not very good at technology commercialization and by a fundamental distrust fanned by the Texas Public Policy Foundation of Texas public universities, their faculties, and their administrators. It’s the Texas two-step where one puts forward a bogeyman in order to accomplish the real goal of setting up a system ripe for the picking.

Let’s be clear about this! The UT System routinely scores in the top ten and often the top five every year against other university powerhouses in all the principal metrics used to measure technology commercialization. I know. I produced such reports. Furthermore, Texas universities have been and continue to be world leaders in every phase of the research discovery to commercial product enterprise.

And that brings us to the second concern: the performance of CPRIT management under the umbrella of “politics as usual” in Texas. Some have postulated that the current troubles at CPRIT grew out of the rapid buildup and roll out of the program as well as a vague definition of commercialization and its role at CPRIT. While both are true, they don’t tell the real or the whole story. Here are some of the facts as I know them.

·      Technology commercialization experts from Texas universities met with CPRIT management and board members explaining to them how the Bayh-Dole Act and the large, complex, commercialization system actually worked. Documents were provided. They didn’t listen. Instead they devised different definitions and rules of engagement that forced universities to create a separate processing track for CPRIT grants, thereby needlessly increasing the workload at universities.

·      On numerous occasions, CPRIT management was encouraged to meet with the California stem cell initiative – a similar, large-scale, state-funded grants program known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) – and profit from their ramp-up mistakes. CPRIT management appeared not to listen.

·      CPRIT demanded a cradle-to-grave IT accounting system that would track progress from grant through discovery to patent to licensing deal to commercial product or start-up company. That’s a worthy data management system that all would like to have available, but such an IT system doesn’t exist. CPRIT didn’t listen when informed of that fact.

·      CPRIT demanded in its grant contracts that “discoveries” be immediately filed at CPRIT along with a market plan. So when does a “discovery” become a discovery, not to mention the rights of the inventor or the rights provided by Bayh-Dole when research is co-funded by the federal government as it often is? And does one really know from the outset how a discovery will ultimately become commercialized? It’s a game that changes with the time of day. CPRIT didn’t listen to this death by a thousand reporting slices.

·      And here is my favorite CPRIT demand: they required CPRIT approval for all terms and conditions of a license agreement made by a grantee institution, including changes made during the process of deal making. They guaranteed a five-day turnaround every time a change was made. Talk about killing a deal! And yes, they didn’t listen!

So let me be clear once again. There were and continue to be plenty of quality research administrators and technology commercialization experts in Texas who could have helped CPRIT get up and running in the beginning and who could help out today. But someone has to listen!

To be fair to the management at CPRIT, they had a tough job, especially as regards commercialization. As I was told several times behind closed doors and to paraphrase: “We have to satisfy the commercialization leadership on the CPRIT board.” That same leadership in Texas often pushes for “one-stop shopping” from a single, central, state agency that would manage all licensing of research discoveries from Texas public universities. They have also pushed for rapid deal-making by using a “one-size-fits-all” licensing contract. I promise you that both of these strategies are a prescription for sure disaster. Deal-making is a contact sport between people who want different things and there is no such instrument as a single deal structure that will satisfy both the biotechnology and IT sectors. Only a fool who knows nothing about technology commercialization would push for such measures as the sole means for operating the Texas technology commercialization enterprise.

CPRIT is too important to the future of Texas to be dismantled or reborn by the Legislature as yet another variant of its former self or the TETF. In that regard, I have a number of recommendations to make.

1.     The Texas Legislature should make sure that a cross-section of research administrators and technology commercialization experts from Texas universities are heard from and listened to.

2.     The Texas Legislature should call upon the management of CIRM and officials at the National Cancer Institute for their expertise and a formal review of CPRIT.

3.     Everyone must recognize that the expertise and criteria needed to review research grants versus commercialization grants are different, although the review process in both cases must be transparent. That factor must be built into any CPRIT processes and not be understood as part and parcel of the old saw about “researchers versus entrepreneurs.”

4.     CPRIT and the Texas Legislature must come to terms with what they mean by “commercialization” at CPRIT. 

5.     I strongly recommend that CPRIT funds not be used to invest in start-up companies, but if such is the case, then a rigorous program for conflict of interest must be in place to separate cronyism from legitimate investment in a company. Quite frankly, that will be hard to do given the “atmospherics” related to commercialization by powerbrokers in Texas. Furthermore, we already have the TETF to invest in start-ups!

6.     I strongly recommend that CPRIT create a “proof of concept” program similar to the former Texas Ignition Fund (TIF) at UT System as its principal commercialization vehicle. With an investment of $2 million in 45 grants, TIF helped to create 33 startup companies as of 2010. CPRIT should follow the NSF model and use such funding as a supplemental grant to fund the transformation of a research discovery into a viable “commercial concept.” Such funding is almost never available but is a proven method for greatly accelerating and enhancing technology commercialization.

7.     CPRIT should get out of the business of being an Office of Technology Commercialization and leave it to its grantee institutions to perform that function. Given the ridiculously low overhead funding (cost recovery) associated with CPRIT grants, I would encourage the Texas Legislature and CPRIT to include overhead funding in its grants specifically targeted for commercialization activities at its grantee institutions. It’s much better to build up infrastructure for the long term at grantee institutions than to run a poor substitute at CPRIT.

8.     CPRIT contracts and contract language should conform to both common and best practices as used in federal grant administration including application of the Bayh-Dole Act and appropriate flow-down language.

9.     With respect to CPRIT funding of incubators or business accelerators, I have mixed feelings. I probably would not fund such activities generically since they amount to economic development as opposed to commercialization, but would use again some form of supplemental funding tied to a specific research grant or else I would increase the overhead dollars to grantee institutions with an explicit provision that the funds be used for such commercialization purposes. In any case, if such funding becomes the norm, then CPRIT and the Texas Legislature should lay out a clear rationale for funding incubators and a pathway for all worthy incubator applicants to apply for such funding.  

The CPRIT story is not over but I’ve had my say, even though it pains me to dredge up what should be forgotten history. Hopefully others will speak out against the silliness that often pervades the technology commercialization discussion in Texas. Certainly, Laylan Copelin and other reporters at the Austin American-Statesman and competing newspapers will continue to follow the leads and inform us as to the future of CPRIT. I believe that that story will ultimately be a bright one filled with major developments in the war on cancer. 

Naughty, but Nice!

By Keith McDowell

Some of us are easily amused. Take, for example, the identification of the Grand Old Party with the color red, as in “Red State.” Hasn’t anyone bothered to inform conservatives – the right wing in particular –  that the color “red” was historically associated in the Twentieth Century  with communism – as in “Red China,” the longstanding demagogic name for Maoist China? How quickly we forget.  But I’ll let you in on a secret, if you promise not to tell. This branding of the GOP is actually a left-wing plot foisted on us by the liberal media brandishing a secret sense of humor. Aw shucks! If only that were really true.

But be that as it may with respect to one’s “redness,” the year 2012 witnessed the trumping of a dialogue on innovation per se by the presidential campaign and the continuing effect of a dysfunctional Congress on the U.S. economy. It was a year full of political theatre peppered by amusing and sometimes tragic sidebars. And not to be outdone by others, I close out this year of personal opining with my own “naughty, but nice” list of quotes and comments about those events that changed how we think about ourselves as individuals and as a nation. My list of awards runs the gamut from A to Z.

Awkward Advice Award: “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.” Mitt Romney, 27 April

Busy Bee Award: “I have a job to do. … If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don’t know me.” Gov. Christie, 30 October.

Cheap Deal Award: “Buy one, get any two free.” Joseph A. Bank commercial.

Déjà vu Award: “You hit a reset button for the fall campaign; everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.” Eric Fehrnstrom, 21 March.

Entitlement Envy Award: “You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.” Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, 19 November.

Freshman Football Award: And the winner of the Heisman Trophy is: “Johnny Football” Manziel, quarterback of the Texas A&M Aggies. My sons, both Aggies, forced me to include this one. Gig ‘em Aggies.

Golden Fleece Award:  John Boehner and the House GOP on their budget plan that takes from the 99% and gives to the 1%.

Hapless House Award: “I’m just tired of talking about it. I’d rather talk about golf.” Rep. Mack Mulvaney, South Carolina Republican, 19 December.

Instant Inspiration Award: “It’s halftime in America.” Chrysler Super Bowl commercial.

Jumping Jehoshaphat Award: “I hope he fails.” Rush Limbaugh on President Obama, January 2009.

King Karl Award: “I think this is premature.” Karl Rove’s comment on Fox News calling Ohio for Obama on Election Night.

Lots of Love Award: Mitt Romney’s claims of reviewing “binders full of women” as a governor seeking to diversify his Massachusetts administration.

Mixed Message Award: “Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of – against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment: Was it – was before – he was before the social programs from the standpoint of – he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against first …” Rick Perry, the gift that keeps on giving.

Not Again Award: “Simply scaling back the cliff and extending the political brinksmanship over the debt ceiling would doom the economy to at best slow growth and possibly another recession if policymakers take it down to the wire as they did in summer 2011.” Mark Zandi, Moody Analytics.

Oblivious Oops Award: “I would do it again.” Rick Perry commenting on failed presidential campaign, 18 December.

Piddling Prediction Award: “If the world doesn’t end on December 21^st, 2012, I have a feeling there will be a lot of babies born on September 20^th, 2013.” Anonymous

Quotable Quote Award: “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money, or is that somehow a little bit of a flawed system? … I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods, and leaving behind a factory that should be there.” Newt Gingrich, 9 January.

Richie Rich Award: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims.  … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Mitt Romney.

Serial Sequel Award: “I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.” David Petraeus.

Trust Me Award: “I’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability.” Jill Kelley, 11 November.

Under Review Award: Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filibustering a vote that he had called for himself. Instant replay officials confirm the call on the field.

Vox Vehicular Award: Lindsay Lohan proves again that driving while sexting is dangerous to one’s image.

Window Washing Award: Tablets shouldn’t bear the Windows name according to Jeffrey Clarke of Dell Computers who suggested that extending the Windows name to tablets was a bridge too far. Did Microsoft purposely confuse consumers into believing that Surface was a PC? Text “A” for yes and” B” for no to Microsoft.

X-Factor Award: “The president’s campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift. He made a big effort on small things.” Mitt Romney, 14 November.

Y Chromosome Award: “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” Senator Lindsay Graham, August.

Zany Zinger Award: “Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this country. You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question.” John McAfee on security.

[The image of Santa was copied from the Laytonsville District Volunteer Fire Department.]

Secastration

By Keith McDowell

I confess! I’m guilty! Of what, I’m not exactly sure, but plenty of other people are in the same boat with me. And it’s the same old and now tiring story of a Congress that doesn’t know how to get anything done.  But it comes with a new twist: it’s a story from the 1980s and it presages the completely dysfunctional Congress we now have.

The story begins with the Congressional budgeting process. Doesn’t that language have a familiar “once upon a time” ring to it? In the 1980s, Congress actually managed to pass a yearly budget, but there was a problem. It was rarely done in a timely manner and typically involved so-called “continuing resolutions” that invoked the previous year’s budget in order to get past the beginning of the Federal fiscal year on the first of October.  Important program elements were often not “technically” funded until the early spring of the next calendar year. But therein arose the problem. Program officers at Federal agencies expected work to begin on the first of October for the program elements that they assumed would be funded for that fiscal year, even though the funding wasn’t “technically” appropriated by Congress as of the first of October.

What would you have done if you were a manager like me in the 1980s at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), especially if you knew that “technically” it was “illegal” for you to expend funds from one program account on another program? Of course, program schedules had to be maintained since research cannot be done on the quick time, agency program managers had to be satisfied with progress, and salaries had to be paid. It would have made no sense whatsoever to put employees to work only on the funded programs “technically” rolled over from the previous fiscal year.

I can tell you what all the managers did at LANL and across the spectrum of national laboratories. We ignored the “technicalities” and simply moved forward with our programmatic efforts while hoping to balance the books in the end and avoid a bed and jail cell at the Leavenworth prison. Whatever one’s scruples might be about the ethically and morally right choice when faced with such a situation, it was really the only choice available to management. Fortunately, national laboratories did not keep time cards like most of the defense industry contractors, so I suppose that we were “technically” legal in what we did. But it was a helluva way to run things.

Fast forward to the present day and guess what? Nothing has changed.  In fact, it’s even worst. Now we are faced with “sequestration” as part of the fiscal cliff debate. What the heck is that, you ask? Here’s how the dictionary defines the verb “sequester.” It is an action to “remove, set apart, segregate, take possession of, confiscate, or cause to withdraw into seclusion.” Hmm, does seclusion mean that defense dollars will be taken “off budget” and hidden by smoke and mirrors from the public? Inquiring minds want to know.

Seriously folks, what “sequestration” actually means to the man on the street including those poor managers at the national laboratories is that members of Congress want to take back that which they’ve already “technically” granted or built into the current and future fiscal budgets. Yikes, I’m glad I’m now retired and no longer eligible for a bed at Leavenworth.

But “sequestration” doesn’t just affect national laboratories or defense contractors. It affects the entire innovation ecosystem of America including a severe hit on basic research at our universities, the wellspring from which innovations emerge. Think of it in terms of the following metaphor. Basic discoveries are like sperm. They float around in search of an egg to fertilize. Only a few achieve successful conception of the embryo of an idea that grows into an innovation that is born as a commercial product in the marketplace. If one neuters the process, you get nothing in return. With sequestration, we turn America into a eunuch state unable to display leadership in the global Innovation Race. It’s a form of “self castration” or better said, “secastration” – to invent a new and more appropriate word to describe what’s going on.

Secastration, like all forms of self-indulgence, is almost certain to make one blind to its outcomes. And how about all those mythical warts that one gets from such activities?

But let’s turn to the hard numbers behind the rhetoric. The 2011 Budget Control Act is the vehicle through which sequestration will occur without a resolution of the fiscal cliff. According to an email that I received from the American Physical Society, “the Department of Energy Office of Science would lose $400 million; NSF $586 million; NASA Science $417 million; and NIH, $2.52 billion. It would mean staff furloughs, a significant reduction in operating time for user facilities, and a reduction in new NSF grants by as much as one-third.” I can tell you that researchers will spend an inordinate amount of time writing grants in the hope of keeping their operations alive. Some argue that progress in innovation will be set back by over a decade.

And what’s even more troubling is that “sequestration” will occur on top of the positive impact of stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 – funding that was temporary and is scheduled to disappear. Although data related to ARRA funding is hard to extract at this early stage – there is always a several year delay in processing such data, we know that universities spent $54.9 billion on R&D in 2009 and $65.1 billion in 2011, up 6.3% from 2010. These significant increases reflect the slug of one-time ARRA stimulus funding that is currently being spent. What will happen when that goes away over the next year or two when added to sequestration?

Steve Fuller in an important report entitled The Economic Impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on DOD & non-DOD Agencies projects that sequestration will result in the direct loss of 31,000 jobs out of the 1,082,370 STEM workforce in America. Based on the ARRA impact and my own understanding of the situation, I suspect the real number will be larger.

It’s “secastration,” plain and simple. It’s cutting off and emasculating America’s ability to innovate by reducing funding in our R&D sector. It’s “balancing the budget” of a much poorer America in the future. And it’s self-inflicted. I choose procreation over castration. How about you?

Note: The image of the castration tool was copied from valleyvet.com and is a product of Syrvet Inc.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

By Keith McDowell

“What it was, was an earthquake,” to paraphrase a famous 1950s comedy routine about football by the incomparable Andy Griffith. But there was nothing comedic about “the big one” that occurred on 6 April 2009 in L’Aquila, Italy that killed over 300 people. Sadly, the aftershocks of such a major earthquake are never pretty, whether it’s the massive destruction wrought on the infrastructure – the Fukushima nuclear power plant debacle from the 2011 Tohoku quake in Japan being the most notable, the death of innocent people, or the privations of the survivors. But who would have thought that scientists would be in danger from the aftershocks of an earthquake? Yet, such was the case in Italy.

On 22 October 2012 in an Italian courtroom, seven scientists and experts were convicted of manslaughter for providing “inexact, incomplete, and contradictory information” prior to the L’Aquila earthquake. The stunning decision was described by Dan Murphy in The Christian Science Monitor as “a triumph of scientific illiteracy.” Indeed! If not for the truly tragic dimensions of the L’Aquila earthquake, the soap opera in that Italian courtroom would be comparable to the 1633 Catholic inquisition in Rome against Galileo Galilei.

Have we as a world society learned nothing from the advance of knowledge through rational and scientific reasoning? Is civilization doomed to make decisions based on religious dogma, mythology, personal whims, demagoguery, and counterfactual ideas? I suppose one should take solace in the fact that such nonsensical behavior is not limited to America as proven in that Italian courtroom.

So, what are the facts when it comes to earthquake prediction? It’s simple. No one can predict the precise time and location of an earthquake! Yes, we’ve learned a great deal about what causes earthquakes and their behavior. We know how to build structures that can withstand an earthquake, but prediction? Emphatically, no!

In fact, there are many scientists who believe that we will never be able to “predict” the occurrence of an earthquake. And it all begins with the difference between “predicting” and “forecasting.” Do you remember those old jokes about your weatherman? “If there is a 50-50 chance that a forecast will go wrong, 9 times out of 10 it will.”

The story of modeling the weather goes back to the 1960s when Dr. Edward Lorentz introduced “chaos theory” to the world in 1963 and later “the butterfly effect” in 1969. Sensitivity to initial conditions, as “the butterfly effect” is known to scientists, states that a butterfly deciding to flap its wings in China could subsequently lead to a tornado in Kansas. In other words, incredibly small changes at the beginning of a process can lead to radically different end results. Thus, as a practical matter, one cannot precisely predict the time and location of a weather event. The same is true for earthquakes.

But whether it’s the severity of weather events or the magnitude of earthquakes, scientists have developed and are continuing to improve mathematical models that describe the distribution of such events and thereby our ability to “forecast.” What does forecast mean? It means that if we take a long enough span of time that includes a significant sample size of “events,” then we know that those events will fall on the established probability distribution. Thus, we can “forecast” that there is a 10% probability (or whatever the actual percentage is) that an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 will occur in Los Angeles in this century, but cannot “predict” exactly when and where it will occur.

Folks, that’s the truth of the matter. And convicting scientists for their inability to “predict” an earthquake or meteorological event is dumb and dumber – or better said: scientific illiteracy.

But the story doesn’t end with natural events driven by Mother Nature. How about the economy and financial systems? Yep, scientists, mathematicians, and economists have been at work in that sphere as well. Believe it or not, there is a field of study known as “econophysics” or the “physics of finance.” The University of Houston Department of Physics even has a subdivision devoted to such work. Quoting from their webpage, econophysics is “the study of dynamical behavior of financial and economic markets” using the “vast amount of market data” that “has become available allowing empirical studies of market behavior to be performed.”

And exactly what have econophysicists learned? Probably the most important fact is that we now have a very clear picture of the probability distribution for excursions or fluctuations in markets. Technically, it’s known as a “fat tail” distribution where the probability for a large fluctuation decays as the fourth power of the size of the fluctuation. In simple terms, large fluctuations are much more probable than one might have thought. Does anyone remember 2009?

Evidence suggests that one can improve incrementally the market performance of a portfolio by making use of our enhanced understanding of markets as a nonlinear dynamical system. Talk about the possibility for innovation and entrepreneurship! Perhaps you should call your broker or financial planner and see if they are up-to-speed on “fat tail” distributions and econophysics. It’s for certain that Congress is not.

And that brings us to the “fiscal cliff” debate and the truly ridiculous behavior of many in Congress to ignore some basic elements of truth from economic data analysis – especially those who hold to the tea party platform. Like many people, I obtained a copy of Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945, the report from the Congressional Research Service by Thomas L. Hungerford dated 14 September 2012. Here is what Hungerford said in his concluding remarks:

The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

Obama is right; the GOP is wrong! Taxing the top 2% will help reduce the deficit but not hurt the recovery. Do we as a nation really want to follow in the footsteps of those jurists in Italy who practiced scientific illiteracy – or in our case, economic illiteracy? As Paul Krugman pointed out in an opinion piece in support of Obama’s position, it’s simple economic math. The cuts in spending laid out by the GOP such as raising the Medicare age don’t add up. And as to closing tax loopholes, do we really want to eliminate mortgage and charitable deductions, two of the largest components of our tax deduction system? For those who sincerely want to understand fully the dimensions of the economic mess we are in and what to do about it, read the book Beyond Outrage by Robert Reich.

And don’t forget, the “fiscal cliff” is not just about raising again the tax rate for those making more than $250,000. It’s about budget sequestration and the evisceration of scientific research in America. It’s about killing the goose that lays the golden egg of innovation, our passport to global competition and economic prosperity.

As a nation, we must govern ourselves in a balanced manner consistent with our Constitution using sensible rules of engagement and a decision process based on verifiable and known information. We cannot tolerate any other approach.

It’s time to shake, rattle, and roll the members of Congress and tell them to get on with the business of governing America. 

TwinkieGate

By Keith McDowell

Tell me it isn’t so! How can Washington let this happen? I demand a new Congressional select committee to investigate TwinkieGate – the conspiracy to deprive all right thinking Americans of their soul food. Imagine, if you can, a world in which the “Archie Bunker’s” among us no longer pop the “golden sponge cake with cream filling” into their mouths. It’s a stunning prospect that’s driving a Pavlovian run on sugary junk food and emptying the shelves at the 7-eleven.

And not surprisingly, true conspiracy theorists are whispering that TwinkieGate is actually a communist plot hatched by liberals and unions to sober up the GOP right wing by removing their principal sustenance from the marketplace. How else can one explain the “Twinkie Defense” of the Georgia legislators who believe that the Obama Administration is exerting mind control over them?

Sadly, “I’m a recovering junk food addict!” is a statement for our times as many of us continue the battle of the bulge on our waistlines. But here’s the good news! Innovation runs rampant as new diets, therapies, and scientifically engineered exercise equipment command our attention through clever and enhanced commercials and infomercials. I particularly like the regimes where you continue to eat, lose weight, and develop the body of Adonis, all for only a few dollars for menus and food. Sign me up! The exercise equipment sounds more like “no pain, no gain.” I probably wouldn’t stick with that, but, wow, the innovation and creativity involved with each new generation of equipment. Who says America can’t compete! But can we really lose weight by walking on the Bowflex TreadClimber three times a week for only thirty minutes a session?

I grew up in the post World War II era of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Junk food was mostly used to satisfy my sweet tooth – my favorite being Krispy Kreme donuts – and liquid refreshments mostly quenched my thirst.  But how can I ever forget those “Brownie” bottled drinks that I used as a small child to wash down the licorice that blackened my teeth? Or how about the traditional RC Cola and Moon pie? And for the true male redneck experience, how about Planters salted peanuts dumped into the top of a Coca-Cola bottle? Oh, and don’t forget the Cheerwine experience for those special moments. If only my dentist knew why I have a mouth full of crowns!

Today, junk food loads the calorie count for those who pay attention and carbonated drinks are the bane of the waistline and healthy teeth. Extreme sports are the order of the day, mountain hiking being my own particular brand. Candy has morphed into energy bars that are tough and chewy when cold and are an acquired taste (politically correct for they taste really bad). Liquid refreshments are now energy drinks that restore electrolytes and give one the power to continue past the bounds of common sense, ergo extreme sports. One of the latest crazes is power drinks that are “lite” or low on calories – Guru Lite being an example. While an oxymoron, it certainly rates as an innovation and it sells.

Whether diet drinks, microwave meals, or poptarts, innovations in the food industry truly play a major role in the American economy. But do we pay a price for that success? Is the 5-hour ENERGY drink a killer as some allege, especially for young children? And how about the tragic acceleration of obesity in America? Did you know that obesity in the populace has grown from 13% in 1962 to 35.7% in 2010? Let’s all give a loud Ho Hos shout out for those Ding Dongs who believe that the consumption of 500 million Twinkies per year is the principal cause of obesity and the alarming projection of an impending diabetes epidemic. Junk food doesn’t make people obese. Poor eating habits and life style are the real culprits.

And that brings us back to Hostess Brands, the manufacturer of Twinkies. Exactly why is it that 15,000 workers received pink slips at Thanksgiving and 3,500 more will be laid off in the coming months? George Will in an opinion piece claims that it’s all about market forces having their way and the Twinkiestalgia of baby boomers. You might be surprised but I agree with Will … but not for the details that he posits.

Market forces include the necessity to pay the going rate for salaries of the workers. And guess what, unions must have the right to negotiate for those rates, even if there were 372 distinct collective bargaining agreements at Hostess Brands. No one ever said it had to be easy.

I agree with George that the Teamsters position of using different trucks to haul different products seems silly on the surface. But how about the $1.3 billion in debts that corporate management ran up or the raises of 35% to 80% they paid themselves last year while driving the company into financial ruin? Should they receive a huge benefits package upon bankruptcy of the company or is this all just extractionist capitalism as discussed on the Ed Schultz Show of 20 November 2012?

And how about innovation as a factor in the Hostess Brands’ story? Did the corporate management sit on their thumbs, ignore the changing marketplace, and fail to innovate with new products and business models? If SodaStream can come up with a way for people to make their favorite carbonated drink right on their kitchen counter, Hostess Brands could have innovated.

Ultimately, the debacle at Hostess Brands will become grist for a business school case study and fodder for theorists debunking supply-side economics or right-wing pundits who don’t like the working middle class. For certain, junk food and obesity are not going away any time soon. For me, I got the broken sprocket on my Schwinn AirDyne exercise bike replaced today. I love that bike. There’s no better way to watch the noise on the television than riding on that bike.

Oh, and would you please pass the donuts!