The Endless Frontier: How Politics and Policy Shape Modern Science

WEBVTT
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lost in the fog of a cosmic storm floating on
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whimsical wavelengths is the norm dancing through
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the stars chasing spectrums of light Riding the
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waves that are just out of sight. It's Whimsical
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Wavelengths, and I'm your host, Dr. Jeffrey Zurich,
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volcanologist and geophysicist. And it's also
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been two weeks. That's why I'm back in your ears,
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with a treat. Today, we're going to look at the
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whole thing. What thing? The modern scientific
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apparatus itself. The institutions, the funding,
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and the historical policy shifts that built the
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world we live in. On this show, I've taken some
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historical romps through the planets, Nikola
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Tesla, the rise and fall of leaded gasoline,
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thanks to the grit of Dr. Claire Patterson. Usually,
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it's just me and my deep dives into the literature
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and history, but today, I have guests. People
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who have spent a lot more time than I thinking
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about the sociology of research. We're going
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to map out how we built a golden age of science
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and why I think that system is currently being
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selectively demolished. To set the scene, the
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year is 1941 and the U .S. enters World War II.
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Almost immediately, the government realizes that
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winning isn't just about manpower. It's about
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a race to solve impossible problems. We're talking
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code -breaking to neutralize U -boats, the birth
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of rocketry, and of course, the Manhattan Project.
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This was the moment science shifted from the
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pursuit of the gentleman inventor to a pillar
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of national security. The Manhattan Project brought
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together thousands of young scientists, from
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chemistry to physics and everywhere else, all
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working on the same goal from different angles.
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They were building coltrons for uranium enrichment
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and using cyclotrons to break through the limits
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of engineering. This big science model gave way
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to the space race, the internet, and of course
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the modern university. But before I get too ahead
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of myself and attempt, it's time to bring in
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the real reason you tuned in. Today I have two
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guests, Dr. Ina Ganguli and Dr. Chris Fisher.
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Dr. Ina Ganguli is a professor in the Department
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of Economics at the University of Massachusetts
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Amherst and studies labor economics and the economics
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of science and innovation. Dr. Chris Fisher is
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the founder and principal at Multivalent Communications.
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Chris is also a chemical biologist, scientific
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communicator, and science advocate operating
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at the intersection of science and society. Thank
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you both for coming on to the show. I have Dr.
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Ina Ganguly and Dr. Chris Fisher. Yeah, thanks
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for having me. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, I'm just so
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glad you guys are here. I mean, I reached out
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via LinkedIn to Chris and kind of over... So
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this has kind of come and become cobbled together.
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But before we jump in with just two feet, I have
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a question for each of you to just learn a little
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bit more about you before we get to the main
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background topic. Chris, you went from a PhD
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to founding Multivalent Communications. What?
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Was that transition? I ask because in some disciplines,
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these conversations just don't happen. It's like,
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we don't talk about the fact that you might not
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make it as a researcher or something that there
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isn't like this other world beyond the academic
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tower. Yeah. So let's, what about that transition
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from the lab to industry? Yeah, no, I, first
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I'll just say, I appreciate you commenting on
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that fact that, you know, I think. I think graduate
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programs are getting better about this. But for
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a long time, the focus was everyone here is trying
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to become a postdoc and then become a professor.
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And the reality is that less than 10 % of them
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will. So we have to make sure that we're preparing
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scientists to enter other roles, whether it's
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industry roles, whether it's communications,
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business development, governmental roles. So
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anyways, it's good to make sure that we appropriately
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discuss that. Yeah, so in terms of my journey,
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I'd like to think that I've always been multivalent.
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Really, since the beginning, I've had a strong
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interest in both science and in communication.
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I was that really chatty kid that always wanted
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to talk about everything, whether it was bugs
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in the grass or if it was a comic book. I was
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really interested in trying to share my thoughts
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with others. So I did years of performing arts.
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I did a minor in English. And I also have a genuine
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love of fiction, although you can't see it behind
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me. I've got a ton of fiction in addition to
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the science. I've got a bunch of comics as well.
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So I see those sort of two worlds as being a
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major part of who I am. But as I started my PhD,
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I didn't necessarily know how I could connect
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the two and make it into a career path that would
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be uniquely unique to me. But during my PhD,
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where I was studying how pathogens, they often
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make use of multivalent, here we go, underlined,
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interactions to find their hosts, I realized
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that there was an aspect science and research
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that I really gravitated towards, which is reading
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and synthesizing scientific information, making
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sense of what was being put in front of me, and
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then finding new ways to communicate that with
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others so that I could do maybe a new assay,
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maybe a new line of research. And then I found
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myself looking forward to like my weekly cafe
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time. And that was really where I did a lot of
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that reading, writing, and design work. And once
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I made that realization that like, oh, wow, like
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I'm doing the bench work so that I can go back
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to reading and writing, I went out of my way
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to try to find opportunities where I could really
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build that muscle. And for me, it started with
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science advocacy, in part because this was a
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great place to make use of scientific understanding,
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as well as the ability to communicate with others
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and use those skills together to form persuasive
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arguments that supported something that I really
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care about, which is the scientific enterprise.
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So after completing my PhD, I went full bore
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into that. I started doing freelance science
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writing for local startups in the San Diego area
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and then spun that work and my advocacy work
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into a job at a life science communication and
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marketing agency. And after years of both working
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in agency life and in in -house roles developing
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scientific strategies and content, I decided
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I'm going to go out on my own. I'll start my
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own scientific and medical communications agency.
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And, yeah, I haven't looked back since I started
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Multivalent Communications now, let's see, almost
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two and a half years ago. And just as a little
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bit of context, I spend my time helping companies,
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organizations, teams, and individuals articulate
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their science and thereby provide oxygen for
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really, really important work. My focus is really
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on mediating information exchange across important
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boundaries at the intersection of science and
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society, from diagnostic companies, devices,
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pharma, to biotech, reagent instruments, and
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chemicals companies. So that's me. Wow. I mean,
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I guess that comes back to something that somebody
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else told me. PhD is just a piece of paper. It's
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like a driver's license. It's up to you what
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to do with it. And so you've built a very interesting
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career from something that some people might
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say is like stuck in the lab, but you're kind
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of broadening it out in a multivalent way to
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the rest of us. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know.
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I think as part of that realization, it occurred
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to me that Sure, the data collection, the bench
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work is the bedrock of science and how we ultimately
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push new innovations forward. But it doesn't
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really work on its own. Right. The classic idiom
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of if a tree falls in the woods and no one's
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around to hear it, does it make a sound? I think
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holds true there. And I felt like this was an
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opportunity for me to use my skills that I had
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been developing all the while to have a little
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bit more impact in science. I think I was a decent
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bench scientist, but I think I'm a much better
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communicator. And that's why you're here on the
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podcast. I am. You know, you've spent a significant
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amount of time as a Fulbright scholar. policy
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specialist in places like Ukraine, Russia, Tajikistan.
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Is there like any unexpected piece of evidence
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or history that just completely changed the way
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you view how science or labor functions compared
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to the West? And then relatedly, have you ever
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wanted a time machine to just go back and like
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poke at it a little bit more? Yeah, this is a
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great question. And I have to say, it was really
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interesting to hear about Chris's journey. So
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I'm a labor economist, and I actually study scientists.
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And so, you know, really interested in careers
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and choices that people make and how that contributes
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to scientific progress. And so, yeah, as you
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mentioned, Jeff, I spent time in some interesting
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places. And my dissertation was actually about
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science after the end of the Soviet Union. And
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I use a lot of data in my work, so publication
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data. And I was looking at the impact of growth.
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France during this economic crisis. But one thing
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that was really cool that economists usually
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don't do enough of, I think, is going into the
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field and interviewing scientists. And so I was
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interviewing scientists in actually five different
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former Soviet republics. And so it was really
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interesting because I got to talk with people
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who were working during the Soviet Union. And
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yeah, and I, you know, I do wish, you know, I
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wish I had a time machine, but actually spending
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time in these countries, I actually got a sense
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of how things worked. And so, you know, clearly,
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you know, as you said, there are a lot of differences
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in how science functioned, I think, in the Soviet
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Union and then, you know, the post -Soviet countries,
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post -Soviet period. But, you know, some of the
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big differences, like, yeah, you know, it was
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more of an institute -based research system,
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less kind of, you know, scientist -oriented,
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less autonomy, research was separated from teaching.
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But I actually think what I learned from that
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experience was how similar, actually, scientists
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are in many ways, in many places. And so it,
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you know, got me thinking about, you know, proper
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Merton was a famous sociologist and he talked
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about kind of these Mertonian norms of science.
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So there are things that are kind of universal
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about truth seeking and also scientific collaboration.
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And so one thing that kind of sticks with me
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that happened is I was in Tajikistan. And I was
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in Dushanbe and had an interview with an astronomer,
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kind of an older Tajik astronomer who was working
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during the Soviet period. And it turns out, I
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guess, Tajikistan, I'm not an astronomer, of
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course, but it turns out Tajikistan has good
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conditions for viewing, you know, for astronomers.
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And so I think a lot of people from around the
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Soviet Union used to come to Tajikistan. And
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coincidentally, just prior to that, I had talked
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to a Ukrainian astronomer in Kharkiv, which is
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in eastern Ukraine. And somehow when I was talking
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to this Tajik astronomer, it came up that I had
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met with him. And he said, oh, wow, you met him?
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We used to work together a lot, like such good
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memories. And you just saw his like his face,
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you know, like lit up. And I think this idea
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that, you know, they had collaborated and this
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kind of, you know, idea of doing the science
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was something that, you know, you see here when
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people are kind of talking about the work they
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do and their collaborators. Something that I
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took away from that, too, is that, you know,
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we'll get into this, is that, you know, science
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and scientific communities are also very fragile.
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And so, you know, it took decades, right, for
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the Soviet Union to build the institutions around
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science, create those collaborations, you know,
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the science they were doing. But then, you know,
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relatively quickly, it was all destroyed. And
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so those two hadn't seen each other in something
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like 30 years, they said at the time. And so,
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you know, I think this idea that you know, there
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is this fragility. So, yeah, I think, you know,
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if I had a time machine, I would love to go even
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further back. But yeah, unfortunately, so far,
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we don't have one. Yeah, I think it's always
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important to have people that can turn the lens
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back on us as scientists, because, I mean, I
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think it's obvious. I tried to do that a little
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bit with the podcast. But do you ever find any
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pushback from the scientific community as part
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of this, just out of curiosity? Pushback? I mean,
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I think the thing is, you know, people, also
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like to be studied, right? And so, and I think,
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you know, it's fascinating, you know, we learn
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so much, you know, again, most of the work that
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economists who work in this area of economics
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and science innovation, we work a lot with data,
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but really kind of talking to people and understanding
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what are, you know, what are you experiencing?
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That's what really drives, you know, our hypotheses
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and, you know, kind of how we can understand
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the data. But I think, you know, the methods
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that we use are different. And, you know, each
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field has its own methods, right, and approaches.
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And so I'd say the pushback sometimes is, When
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we go to data, we might try to say something
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general or patterns that we observe in the data.
00:12:22.059 --> 00:12:24.059
But a lot of times people get pulled back to
00:12:24.059 --> 00:12:25.960
their own experience and they'll say, oh, but
00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:28.799
no, but for me, it wasn't like that, right? Like
00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:32.000
I, you know, I didn't find that I wanted to stay
00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.360
in the lab and do, you know, work. I, you know,
00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:37.519
and so my experience is really what you should
00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:39.279
be finding. But, you know, we try to kind of
00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:41.379
use our methods and data to try to make more
00:12:41.379 --> 00:12:42.960
general statements. So I think that's a bit of
00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:45.639
the pushback. But I think, yeah, I've been. And
00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:47.820
I think it's been really great that I've had
00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:49.600
so many scientists who've been willing to talk
00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:52.759
and, you know. help us understand these issues.
00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:56.080
I think part of what you said reminded me of
00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.500
the fact that there's a tendency to think about
00:12:58.500 --> 00:13:01.379
science and scientists as like purely the output,
00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:05.720
like the papers, the data, maybe the products,
00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:08.600
but there are people here, right? And as you
00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:10.480
said, like that's part of what makes the community
00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:12.919
fragile is it depends on these people being present
00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:14.679
all the time. It's not just when they publish
00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:17.120
something. And those relationships are important.
00:13:17.220 --> 00:13:19.440
It's also really important as well, I'm sure
00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:21.830
we'll talk about later, how interactions with
00:13:21.830 --> 00:13:24.490
the public should manifest or could maybe support
00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:28.350
a better future for science. Okay, time to turn
00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:30.509
the lens on the actual topic we're here to discuss,
00:13:30.610 --> 00:13:34.450
which is the whole... that we have today. But
00:13:34.450 --> 00:13:36.289
we need to start somewhere. Some other of my
00:13:36.289 --> 00:13:37.970
episodes have started with something like the
00:13:37.970 --> 00:13:40.490
Black Death or the Roman Empire when I'm going
00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:43.350
into the whole historical side of things. But
00:13:43.350 --> 00:13:45.309
I think today we're going to start somewhere
00:13:45.309 --> 00:13:47.190
around World War II. You guys get to take it
00:13:47.190 --> 00:13:49.649
wherever you want because you guys are the experts.
00:13:49.789 --> 00:13:52.529
It's not me. So let's set the stage. What was
00:13:52.529 --> 00:13:55.529
the overall state of science and how was it conducted
00:13:55.529 --> 00:13:57.710
before World War II? Was it philanthropy like
00:13:57.710 --> 00:14:00.889
Titro Bray with a pet elk in a quadrant or was
00:14:00.889 --> 00:14:03.259
it state? Controlled and self -funded. Yeah.
00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:06.740
I mean, just to start here, it really changed
00:14:06.740 --> 00:14:09.220
through time. So originally, and as you look
00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:10.840
at the scientific revolution and beforehand,
00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.659
a lot of it was patron -based. Maybe that was
00:14:13.659 --> 00:14:15.659
folks in court. Maybe that was wealthy individuals,
00:14:15.879 --> 00:14:18.100
as well as what is often referred to as sort
00:14:18.100 --> 00:14:20.879
of gentleman science, which means an individually
00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:24.100
wealthy person is interested in scientific pursuits.
00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:25.840
They do their own research. They self -fund.
00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:29.019
They publish. As we progress through time, we
00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:31.139
see the foundation of the first scientific societies.
00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:34.240
We see the university kind of come into picture
00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:38.139
as another place to do this work. And as we get
00:14:38.139 --> 00:14:41.529
closer to the 19th and 20th century. the universities
00:14:41.529 --> 00:14:44.110
as well as religious institutions are funding
00:14:44.110 --> 00:14:46.450
more and more work. So there are like limited
00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:48.850
positions. There are endowments now that can
00:14:48.850 --> 00:14:51.889
fund some of the work. So really, it's not until
00:14:51.889 --> 00:14:55.169
we see the German state in the 19th century that
00:14:55.169 --> 00:14:57.309
we get more governmental interaction and more
00:14:57.309 --> 00:14:59.570
governmental funding of work. There is some throughout
00:14:59.570 --> 00:15:02.330
time, but it didn't really become a more primary
00:15:02.330 --> 00:15:05.149
operational tool until we get closer to modern
00:15:05.149 --> 00:15:07.710
history. And certainly, as we'll talk about,
00:15:07.809 --> 00:15:10.529
that really changed drastically. in the 20th
00:15:10.529 --> 00:15:13.429
century, certainly in and around World War II,
00:15:13.509 --> 00:15:16.389
but beforehand as well. Well, was there anything
00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:18.590
different from across the world? Were there different
00:15:18.590 --> 00:15:21.889
individual systems set up or were they all kind
00:15:21.889 --> 00:15:24.769
of the same? Because, I mean, some of what you
00:15:24.769 --> 00:15:27.309
said was more about European -centric with the
00:15:27.309 --> 00:15:30.610
church representing the kind of the scientific
00:15:30.610 --> 00:15:33.250
establishment, but was that the same in, say,
00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:36.190
the budding Soviet empire or I guess that would
00:15:36.190 --> 00:15:38.730
have been the czars back then? It's a fair question.
00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:41.629
I would say, at least from my experience and
00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:44.789
talking about this time period, much of the academic
00:15:44.789 --> 00:15:47.330
and research activity is coming out of Great
00:15:47.330 --> 00:15:49.509
Britain and it's coming out of Germany as well.
00:15:49.710 --> 00:15:51.570
So certainly there are other places where this
00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:54.289
work is being done. I mean, there are already
00:15:54.289 --> 00:15:56.210
Nobel laureates in the 19th century that are
00:15:56.210 --> 00:15:59.149
coming from Spain and other places in Europe.
00:15:59.210 --> 00:16:01.389
But I do think that there is a pretty strong
00:16:01.389 --> 00:16:03.950
Eurocentric perspective at this point. Not to
00:16:03.950 --> 00:16:06.330
say that there wasn't research being done elsewhere
00:16:06.330 --> 00:16:09.460
as well. Anything to add? We'll get into it,
00:16:09.460 --> 00:16:12.940
but Germany, as Chris said, was really kind of
00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:18.240
a height of where science was happening. then
00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:20.399
we'll see how that changed. I mean, we can, we
00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:22.139
can talk about maybe, but, you know, then things
00:16:22.139 --> 00:16:24.559
changed with after World War II, obviously. But,
00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:27.179
but yeah, you know, Great Britain and yeah, and
00:16:27.179 --> 00:16:30.799
Russia, you know, Russian Empire also. But yeah,
00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:32.659
I think there was also a lot of exchange and,
00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:34.600
you know, it's interesting that going back to
00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:36.820
like some things were similar that like, you
00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:38.340
know, scientists would write each other letters
00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:40.899
and there was a lot of, you know, kind of communication.
00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:44.059
Obviously it looks different now, but, but yeah,
00:16:44.100 --> 00:16:46.870
I think that was. You know, I think the idea
00:16:46.870 --> 00:16:48.669
that like across countries there were differences,
00:16:48.769 --> 00:16:50.809
but then there were still a lot of these kind
00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:53.710
of commonalities that happened. And I do think
00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:56.750
that the Royal Society and other academic societies
00:16:56.750 --> 00:16:58.649
that were really important for distributing the
00:16:58.649 --> 00:17:01.690
information. They had positions called intelligence
00:17:01.690 --> 00:17:04.130
years, which were basically people that their
00:17:04.130 --> 00:17:06.130
whole job was making sure that information moved
00:17:06.130 --> 00:17:08.250
between these scientists. Right. It wasn't so
00:17:08.250 --> 00:17:11.190
instantaneous as we have now. So getting something
00:17:11.190 --> 00:17:12.789
written doesn't mean anyone's going to read it
00:17:12.789 --> 00:17:14.970
until you put it in front of them. I mentioned
00:17:14.970 --> 00:17:17.390
there was, and we bring in a little bit of some
00:17:17.390 --> 00:17:19.509
economics research on this period, that there
00:17:19.509 --> 00:17:21.009
is some really interesting research showing that
00:17:21.009 --> 00:17:23.509
like after World War I, so a little earlier,
00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:28.890
kind of showing how that war impacted diffusion
00:17:28.890 --> 00:17:31.009
of knowledge. Because you had these kind of more
00:17:31.009 --> 00:17:34.589
open connections before. And then there's some
00:17:34.589 --> 00:17:37.670
authors who kind of showed that. Basically, when
00:17:37.670 --> 00:17:40.710
you had the World War I happen, the scientists
00:17:40.710 --> 00:17:42.809
kind of relied on knowledge from kind of the
00:17:42.809 --> 00:17:45.549
other side. They really suffered in terms of
00:17:45.549 --> 00:17:47.789
like their science because they couldn't, you
00:17:47.789 --> 00:17:49.509
know, access. And there was a boycotting, right,
00:17:49.670 --> 00:17:52.089
of like the allied versus the central countries.
00:17:52.130 --> 00:17:54.609
And so, yeah, I think this theme also of like
00:17:54.609 --> 00:17:58.470
how you can have kind of these institutions and
00:17:58.470 --> 00:17:59.970
science happening. And then if you have like
00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:02.289
a global geopolitical shock, it can actually
00:18:02.289 --> 00:18:05.019
really change what kind of science is done. Yeah,
00:18:05.019 --> 00:18:08.859
and then we get to World War II, and even I recognize
00:18:08.859 --> 00:18:11.279
so much changed, and I'm just going to drop in
00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:13.839
a tie -in. It actually introduces a future character
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.200
that you guys brought up in kind of the notes
00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:17.880
that I had to go dig into, because there's a
00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:19.740
tie -in with Nikola Tesla that comes to my mind
00:18:19.740 --> 00:18:21.619
instantaneously. I mean, yes, in his later years,
00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:23.380
he was a bit of a crank. He had, like, the death
00:18:23.380 --> 00:18:26.019
ray and all kinds of weird stuff, a practitioner
00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:28.200
of pseudoscience. Where I'm actually going is
00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:30.400
that when he died, the U .S. government confiscated
00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.180
his notes. for national security purposes, just
00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:36.019
in case there was something that could fall into
00:18:36.019 --> 00:18:38.539
the Germans' hands. And actually, it was a Bush
00:18:38.539 --> 00:18:40.799
that actually got the hold of those notes and
00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:43.140
was the one that went through that. It's almost
00:18:43.140 --> 00:18:46.700
like that was a flag or a tell where things were
00:18:46.700 --> 00:18:50.079
actually going. Is that fair to say? Yeah. I
00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:52.200
mean, I certainly don't know as much about the
00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:54.740
Tesla case that you mentioned, but one of the
00:18:54.740 --> 00:18:57.519
aspects that Vannevar Bush, who you're referring
00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:00.569
to, spoke a lot about, and ultimately was really
00:19:00.569 --> 00:19:02.049
important in these discussions as we're talking
00:19:02.049 --> 00:19:05.710
about active conflict, was that the science was
00:19:05.710 --> 00:19:09.549
being done to protect a nation or to gain an
00:19:09.549 --> 00:19:12.359
advantage in war, which meant that... The exchange
00:19:12.359 --> 00:19:16.140
of information was not really existent or it
00:19:16.140 --> 00:19:18.480
was existent only within the boundaries of select
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:21.680
individuals in these governments. So afterwards,
00:19:21.779 --> 00:19:24.460
as we get out of World War II, a major aspect
00:19:24.460 --> 00:19:27.019
of where the focus is, is, OK, well, we've done
00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:28.740
all this work. When are we going to start sharing
00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:30.359
it externally? When are we going to make it more
00:19:30.359 --> 00:19:32.160
publicly accessible to those in our country?
00:19:32.809 --> 00:19:34.529
We know that international exchange is really
00:19:34.529 --> 00:19:36.349
important. Even though we've had to play it close
00:19:36.349 --> 00:19:38.630
to chess now, we ultimately have to move away
00:19:38.630 --> 00:19:40.690
from that if we want to be leaders in science.
00:19:40.849 --> 00:19:43.210
So that's part of the transition is ultimately
00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:45.349
this decision to go from sort of state secrets
00:19:45.349 --> 00:19:49.869
and closely guarded scientific information, which
00:19:49.869 --> 00:19:52.450
was make or break in World War II, to, yeah,
00:19:52.490 --> 00:19:54.890
maybe a more collaborative, productive, society
00:19:54.890 --> 00:19:58.380
-facing research enterprise. Yeah, and I'll just
00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:01.099
add, yeah, I think that's right on. And I think,
00:20:01.099 --> 00:20:03.279
you know, we'll get into this more, but I think
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:06.160
with World War II, you had this, you know, real
00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:08.420
change in kind of how governments thought about
00:20:08.420 --> 00:20:10.680
science, because before, you know, governments
00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:12.900
did fund some scientific work, but it wasn't
00:20:12.900 --> 00:20:16.099
really like a part of national security, right?
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.119
And then obviously, that changed a lot during
00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:20.640
the war. And so, you know, Manhattan Project,
00:20:20.859 --> 00:20:22.740
obviously, but you know, you have all these other
00:20:23.930 --> 00:20:26.470
examples, you know, radar, code breaking, all
00:20:26.470 --> 00:20:28.430
these things where it could really affect military
00:20:28.430 --> 00:20:30.970
outcomes. And so, you know, I think this idea
00:20:30.970 --> 00:20:33.329
that governments became interested in whether,
00:20:33.450 --> 00:20:35.829
you know, these scientific ideas can actually
00:20:35.829 --> 00:20:39.049
have impact on security and strategy. And so
00:20:39.049 --> 00:20:40.609
I think that was like a change in the mindset.
00:20:41.579 --> 00:20:43.960
And so then I think the big question becomes,
00:20:44.259 --> 00:20:46.079
and we've brought up Bush already a few times,
00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:48.839
but what happens after the war? And so do you
00:20:48.839 --> 00:20:52.019
actually dismantle this big scientific enterprise?
00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:56.619
How does it look? What are the institutions that
00:20:56.619 --> 00:20:59.279
need to be created? And so I think there was
00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:01.859
also this point of saying you can't just create
00:21:01.859 --> 00:21:03.980
these institutions overnight. You have these
00:21:03.980 --> 00:21:07.509
top scientists and talent that's... contributing
00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:09.809
to these efforts and you can't really do this
00:21:09.809 --> 00:21:12.829
right away. And so, you know, if we want to.
00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:15.599
get into it now. But, you know, I think Bush,
00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:18.000
you know, so Vannevar Bush was asked by President
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:21.140
Roosevelt to think about this problem. And, you
00:21:21.140 --> 00:21:24.160
know, Bush had the answer in, you know, wrote
00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:28.299
about this in The Endless Frontier in 1945. And,
00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:29.680
you know, I think it's interesting because like
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:32.039
that really became the kind of blueprint, the
00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:34.400
way forward for what science looked like in the
00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:36.259
U .S. And, you know, at the same time, though,
00:21:36.299 --> 00:21:37.859
there was actually a debate. And so there was
00:21:37.859 --> 00:21:41.009
Harvey Kilgore, who That was a senator from West
00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:44.210
Virginia who chaired the subcommittee on war
00:21:44.210 --> 00:21:46.630
mobilization, but known as the Kilgore Committee.
00:21:46.829 --> 00:21:49.150
And there was a debate. They had different visions
00:21:49.150 --> 00:21:51.309
of what science would look like. And so Kilgore
00:21:51.309 --> 00:21:54.289
actually wanted a more centralized approach than
00:21:54.289 --> 00:21:57.130
Bush. And, you know, it's interesting. He argued
00:21:57.130 --> 00:21:59.509
that funding should actually be distributed based
00:21:59.509 --> 00:22:01.990
on kind of geographic equity and, you know, economic
00:22:01.990 --> 00:22:04.970
need rather than just on kind of elitist institutional
00:22:04.970 --> 00:22:07.009
merit. And so, again, this would be a different
00:22:07.009 --> 00:22:09.069
path then. I mean, there's some of this that.
00:22:09.130 --> 00:22:12.609
you can see kind of still was valued when, you
00:22:12.609 --> 00:22:15.009
know, and the way science developed. But I think
00:22:15.009 --> 00:22:16.450
that's, you know, kind of interesting part of
00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:19.250
history. The other thing I just, I think, you
00:22:19.250 --> 00:22:22.650
know, related to what I work on is there's, you
00:22:22.650 --> 00:22:26.109
know, these lessons from the war on why talent
00:22:26.109 --> 00:22:28.869
was important, right? And so, you know, if you
00:22:28.869 --> 00:22:31.369
think about many of the scientists who were involved
00:22:31.369 --> 00:22:33.390
in kind of wartime research, they're actually
00:22:33.390 --> 00:22:36.170
immigrants or refugees from Europe, right? And
00:22:36.170 --> 00:22:38.950
so there's an economist, Fabian Valdi, who writes
00:22:38.950 --> 00:22:45.769
a lot about the Jewish emigres from Germany around
00:22:45.769 --> 00:22:49.630
World War II and how they came to the U .S. and
00:22:49.630 --> 00:22:51.809
impacted science and innovation dramatically.
00:22:52.329 --> 00:22:55.609
And so you can really see that policymakers are
00:22:55.609 --> 00:22:56.950
kind of seeing these things, right? You have
00:22:56.950 --> 00:22:59.769
the power of scientific research, and you also
00:22:59.769 --> 00:23:02.849
have the value of attracting scientific talent.
00:23:03.089 --> 00:23:04.569
And so I think that really is something that
00:23:04.569 --> 00:23:07.509
was important for the development of U .S. science.
00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:10.140
And so actually going back to Tesla, your original
00:23:10.140 --> 00:23:13.660
question, you know, not really I think where
00:23:13.660 --> 00:23:15.000
you're going with this, but, you know, he was
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:16.900
also he was an immigrant. Right. He was born
00:23:16.900 --> 00:23:20.400
in what's today Croatia, arrived in 1884. So
00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:22.799
this is even happening prior to World War Two.
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:26.140
But I think this question of, you know, in how
00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:29.299
do we how did the U .S. well, how is it able
00:23:29.299 --> 00:23:31.220
to attract talent, which I think was really a
00:23:31.220 --> 00:23:34.430
big part of where where we are today? Absolutely.
00:23:34.789 --> 00:23:37.890
Sorry, if I could just chime in quickly. One
00:23:37.890 --> 00:23:39.789
of my favorite quotes from The Endless Frontier
00:23:39.789 --> 00:23:41.970
that ties directly to what you just said, Ina.
00:23:42.289 --> 00:23:46.549
So Bush talks a ton about scientists, about developing
00:23:46.549 --> 00:23:50.430
a scientific crop. Within the United States,
00:23:50.470 --> 00:23:52.329
this is primary focus, but he does explicitly
00:23:52.329 --> 00:23:55.529
say the most important single factor in scientific
00:23:55.529 --> 00:23:57.670
and technical work is the quality of the personnel
00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.960
employed. And attracting and retaining talent
00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:02.799
was something that was very important to him.
00:24:02.819 --> 00:24:04.519
He talks a lot about making sure that the positions
00:24:04.519 --> 00:24:07.160
are well -funded enough, that folks don't go
00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:08.859
straight to industry, they don't get opportunities
00:24:08.859 --> 00:24:11.079
elsewhere, that they stay within the United States
00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:14.099
to do this work. So that if and when they produce
00:24:14.099 --> 00:24:15.859
something that's valuable or important for the
00:24:15.859 --> 00:24:18.000
state, productive for public health, it happens
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.680
here first. I kind of want to follow that up
00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:22.619
a little bit. I know we're already completely
00:24:22.619 --> 00:24:25.400
off track, but that's okay. It's whimsical for
00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:29.950
a reason. The war itself, it's almost like we,
00:24:29.990 --> 00:24:33.670
as a Western society, ended up training up a
00:24:33.670 --> 00:24:37.109
whole lot more scientists or was able to concentrate
00:24:37.109 --> 00:24:40.029
the talent in such a way that there was perhaps
00:24:40.029 --> 00:24:43.250
a critical mass. All of a sudden, you had all
00:24:43.250 --> 00:24:45.549
of these wonderful people who had all these skills,
00:24:45.609 --> 00:24:48.670
and now they also needed to do something with
00:24:48.670 --> 00:24:51.970
these skills, right? So it's some of the... Was
00:24:51.970 --> 00:24:54.730
it almost preordained that we had to change something
00:24:54.730 --> 00:24:56.490
or build something because all of a sudden we
00:24:56.490 --> 00:24:58.190
have this critical mass of people with all this
00:24:58.190 --> 00:24:59.990
new talent and skills that have been trained
00:24:59.990 --> 00:25:03.269
up throughout the war? You're talking about particularly
00:25:03.269 --> 00:25:06.470
after World War II? Yeah, the whole process of
00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:09.789
the whole war. It was like we need to solve all
00:25:09.789 --> 00:25:13.170
these problems and essentially win the war. And
00:25:13.170 --> 00:25:15.210
now we have all these people that are trained
00:25:15.210 --> 00:25:17.839
in a very specialist way. Now you have to find
00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:20.140
something for them to do almost, right? I mean,
00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:21.839
that's boiling it down to something a bit more
00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:24.539
basic than where I'm trying to go, but I think
00:25:24.539 --> 00:25:28.029
it still illustrates the point. Yeah, I mean,
00:25:28.049 --> 00:25:29.829
I think this is kind of this idea that, yeah,
00:25:29.849 --> 00:25:32.190
there was there's all these people that's part
00:25:32.190 --> 00:25:34.809
of this big scientific machine, you know, apparatus
00:25:34.809 --> 00:25:36.789
that that was there. And so I think that was
00:25:36.789 --> 00:25:38.849
the debate is like, what happens now? And so
00:25:38.849 --> 00:25:41.089
I guess it's true, like, you know, where would
00:25:41.089 --> 00:25:43.430
you do with them? But yeah, you know, there were
00:25:43.430 --> 00:25:45.490
all these investments. And there is there's great
00:25:45.490 --> 00:25:49.029
research by Dan Gross and Baban Sampat that looks
00:25:49.029 --> 00:25:51.789
at this period and also kind of how all those
00:25:51.789 --> 00:25:53.990
investments impacted innovation. And part of
00:25:53.990 --> 00:25:55.769
this is all the people who are involved. Like,
00:25:55.789 --> 00:25:58.150
what did they do after? And so, yeah, there was
00:25:58.150 --> 00:26:00.930
a lot more kind of, you know, patenting and scientific
00:26:00.930 --> 00:26:04.390
activity because of these investments. I think,
00:26:04.410 --> 00:26:06.369
yeah, you're right. It's because of also, you
00:26:06.369 --> 00:26:08.950
know, the people because they are needed to do
00:26:08.950 --> 00:26:10.930
that. So, but yeah, I don't know. Maybe Chris
00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:12.710
knows more about like whether that was part of
00:26:12.710 --> 00:26:16.150
the dialogue that Bush, you know, had. Yeah.
00:26:16.230 --> 00:26:18.890
So from my understanding, I think at this point,
00:26:18.990 --> 00:26:21.210
at least, you know, at the highest levels of
00:26:21.210 --> 00:26:24.200
government. There was a pretty strong appreciation
00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:27.200
for the value of science, right? I mean, this
00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:29.599
conversation between FDR or that started with
00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:32.339
FDR and ultimately led to the Endless Frontier.
00:26:32.890 --> 00:26:35.869
was recognizing the tremendous value provided
00:26:35.869 --> 00:26:39.210
by the work done both before and in World War
00:26:39.210 --> 00:26:42.349
II. So in addition to the fact that we've already
00:26:42.349 --> 00:26:44.130
mentioned the Manhattan Project, we mentioned
00:26:44.130 --> 00:26:47.069
radar, which, by the way, is a fascinating story
00:26:47.069 --> 00:26:50.009
of, you almost call it like scientific warfare,
00:26:50.210 --> 00:26:54.190
where the German U -boats were particularly problematic
00:26:54.190 --> 00:26:56.829
in the Atlantic. It was a major problem. Radar
00:26:56.829 --> 00:26:59.470
comes along, gives the Allied forces an advantage.
00:26:59.670 --> 00:27:02.329
Then there is a technological development. on
00:27:02.329 --> 00:27:04.430
the German side that makes it easy to detect
00:27:04.430 --> 00:27:07.109
when somebody is using radar. And then ultimately,
00:27:07.230 --> 00:27:10.109
a brand new form of radar comes in that circumvents
00:27:10.109 --> 00:27:13.069
that as well. So in addition to that, there's
00:27:13.069 --> 00:27:15.490
a major emphasis on infectious diseases. That's
00:27:15.490 --> 00:27:17.710
also represented in the endless frontier. There
00:27:17.710 --> 00:27:20.170
is a huge drop between World War I and World
00:27:20.170 --> 00:27:22.529
War II in terms of deaths associated with infectious
00:27:22.529 --> 00:27:25.529
disease, both in the general population as well
00:27:25.529 --> 00:27:27.750
as in soldiers on the battlefront. That comes
00:27:27.750 --> 00:27:30.670
from transfusable blood plasma developments,
00:27:30.970 --> 00:27:33.539
the production of population quantities of antibiotics
00:27:33.539 --> 00:27:36.319
like penicillin, and also importantly, development
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:39.660
of insecticides like DDT to reduce insect -borne
00:27:39.660 --> 00:27:42.480
illnesses. So this, I mean, this gave a huge
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:44.779
advantage. And it was ultimately in the context
00:27:44.779 --> 00:27:47.220
of the challenge of World War II, excuse me,
00:27:47.259 --> 00:27:51.039
World War I, and the Spanish flu that was really
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:52.660
a deciding factor in the war, at least played
00:27:52.660 --> 00:27:55.039
a role in it. How can we make sure that these
00:27:55.039 --> 00:27:57.559
infectious diseases don't change how the outcome
00:27:57.559 --> 00:28:00.180
of World War II plays out? So because there was
00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:03.440
this well -established value, I think, in the
00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:05.420
output of science. The focus wasn't so much on,
00:28:05.500 --> 00:28:07.539
oh, we got to give these people something to
00:28:07.539 --> 00:28:11.720
do, but rather, hey, you know. We need to make
00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:13.819
sure that in peacetime we can benefit from this
00:28:13.819 --> 00:28:16.319
in the same way. It's clear that if we provide
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:19.000
the resources, we attract and develop the talent,
00:28:19.140 --> 00:28:21.460
they will produce. We don't necessarily know
00:28:21.460 --> 00:28:24.299
what the output will be. We don't know how the
00:28:24.299 --> 00:28:26.119
basic knowledge that they generate will translate
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:28.460
to some kind of industrial development or public
00:28:28.460 --> 00:28:30.680
health development. But we know that if we do
00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:33.279
this enough, we will get those wins like we got
00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:35.819
in World War II. So, yeah, as I said, I think
00:28:35.819 --> 00:28:38.140
a lot of the focus is on... okay, hey, this was
00:28:38.140 --> 00:28:40.980
great. This has provided a huge benefit. The
00:28:40.980 --> 00:28:43.160
development also of the biomedical infrastructure
00:28:43.160 --> 00:28:45.319
between World War I and World War II played a
00:28:45.319 --> 00:28:46.859
huge role in this. We know this is important.
00:28:47.119 --> 00:28:49.460
How do we keep it going? All right, I'm going
00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:52.019
to pivot back a little bit here. So we've kind
00:28:52.019 --> 00:28:55.279
of set up how we ended up with a significant
00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:57.759
amount of talent and the means to be able to
00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:01.059
support large scientific endeavors. But what
00:29:01.059 --> 00:29:04.789
about like... pre -World War II in as far as
00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:08.089
those big state scientific endeavors. I mean,
00:29:08.109 --> 00:29:10.190
I can point at different things that have happened
00:29:10.190 --> 00:29:12.390
that were concerted efforts, but most of them
00:29:12.390 --> 00:29:14.630
weren't really led by the state, so to speak.
00:29:14.769 --> 00:29:17.130
I mean, one that comes to mind for me is like
00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.529
mapping the world. I don't know if I would necessarily
00:29:19.529 --> 00:29:22.210
call that true science, but science happens because
00:29:22.210 --> 00:29:24.789
of it. It was a state -sponsored thing to go
00:29:24.789 --> 00:29:26.869
around and map the world and find the new world
00:29:26.869 --> 00:29:29.880
and resources and the like, but was like... the
00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:31.700
Manhattan Project and the Space Race really the
00:29:31.700 --> 00:29:33.940
first of their kind at that scale from the state
00:29:33.940 --> 00:29:38.140
specifically? Yeah, I think it's true. And I
00:29:38.140 --> 00:29:40.559
think Chris gave a great overview of some of
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:43.829
these. earlier institutions. And so, you know,
00:29:43.829 --> 00:29:46.269
as you said, you had governments that sponsored
00:29:46.269 --> 00:29:49.569
or states sponsored some of these large, you
00:29:49.569 --> 00:29:51.750
know, technical or scientific projects. And so
00:29:51.750 --> 00:29:53.910
you can even go back to like Greek city -states
00:29:53.910 --> 00:29:56.950
or Roman times. So you had kings who were, you
00:29:56.950 --> 00:29:59.230
know, inventing war machines and, you know, like
00:29:59.230 --> 00:30:02.390
the death ray, the famous death ray. So I think
00:30:02.390 --> 00:30:04.130
there were examples of these. But as you said,
00:30:04.170 --> 00:30:05.869
like mapping expeditions, that was, you know,
00:30:05.910 --> 00:30:08.569
it's a good example of this where it's a big
00:30:08.569 --> 00:30:10.549
endeavor. And I actually want to bring in a little
00:30:10.549 --> 00:30:13.420
bit of economics. If I can hear that, this is
00:30:13.420 --> 00:30:16.660
what, yeah, so, you know, economists point to
00:30:16.660 --> 00:30:19.799
this as kind of a classic public good, you know,
00:30:19.799 --> 00:30:22.500
this issue around why do you need a government
00:30:22.500 --> 00:30:25.299
here? And so if you think about, you know, maps,
00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:28.220
you know, you can also think about canals, railroads,
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:30.619
you know, public health systems, and, you know,
00:30:30.619 --> 00:30:33.339
going back to military projects, you know, the
00:30:33.339 --> 00:30:35.000
state, why does the state have to get involved?
00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:37.380
Well, what, you know, economists point to is
00:30:37.380 --> 00:30:39.140
that if you have something like those projects
00:30:39.140 --> 00:30:41.470
or knowledge. We can shift to kind of think about
00:30:41.470 --> 00:30:44.210
basic science. Once it's created, you actually
00:30:44.210 --> 00:30:46.549
can't prevent people from benefiting from it,
00:30:46.569 --> 00:30:50.029
right? So once you have the map of the world,
00:30:50.230 --> 00:30:53.369
you can't really prevent people from accessing
00:30:53.369 --> 00:30:56.650
that knowledge. You know, the idea here is that
00:30:56.650 --> 00:30:59.130
like the social returns are much higher than
00:30:59.130 --> 00:31:01.690
the private ones. And so if you have any individual
00:31:01.690 --> 00:31:04.190
firm, you know, or the private sector, they won't
00:31:04.190 --> 00:31:06.309
actually invest in those projects. You need the
00:31:06.309 --> 00:31:08.670
government to step in. And so, you know, as you
00:31:08.670 --> 00:31:10.990
said, like mapping is a great example. Like once
00:31:10.990 --> 00:31:13.109
you've mapped, you know, or surveyed a territory,
00:31:13.309 --> 00:31:15.210
a lot of people can benefit from that information.
00:31:15.750 --> 00:31:19.170
So if we turn then to, you know, basic scientific
00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:21.609
research, it's very similar. So you have like
00:31:21.609 --> 00:31:23.309
benefits, right, that are really widespread.
00:31:24.750 --> 00:31:26.990
It's also unpredictable. And the benefits often
00:31:26.990 --> 00:31:28.990
come much later. And so that's what, you know,
00:31:28.990 --> 00:31:31.190
Chris was talking about Bush and kind of that
00:31:31.190 --> 00:31:33.569
question around after World War II. You know,
00:31:33.589 --> 00:31:36.529
we don't really know what's going to happen with
00:31:36.529 --> 00:31:38.890
the science that's being done. And eventually,
00:31:38.970 --> 00:31:40.769
maybe it'll lead to things that are going to
00:31:40.769 --> 00:31:43.390
be really useful, but we don't know. And so,
00:31:43.390 --> 00:31:45.130
you know, I think that was actually Bush's like
00:31:45.130 --> 00:31:48.339
key insight is that science is a public. good.
00:31:48.420 --> 00:31:50.660
And so, you know, industry alone is not going
00:31:50.660 --> 00:31:53.319
to invest in it. They will under invest. And
00:31:53.319 --> 00:31:56.019
so you need, you know, the government to step
00:31:56.019 --> 00:31:58.920
in. Now, you know, I will say then that, you
00:31:58.920 --> 00:32:02.259
know, so we, you know, Chris mentioned like radar,
00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:04.460
right. And all these other things that happened
00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:07.019
during World War II. And, you know, the benefits
00:32:07.019 --> 00:32:10.240
were still right. Like. And benefiting from those
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:12.200
things today. And so what economists call that
00:32:12.200 --> 00:32:14.740
is these positive spillovers, because like you
00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:16.700
have those initiatives, investments, people working
00:32:16.700 --> 00:32:19.099
on it, and then we benefit from it today. Now,
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:20.940
going back to what you said, like, so what about
00:32:20.940 --> 00:32:23.880
the Manhattan Project? What about, you know,
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:25.680
the space race? Well, you know, I think the Manhattan
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:28.759
Project, like it was obviously really huge, right?
00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:31.599
But, you know, the numbers aren't really if you
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:32.920
think about like how many people were working
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:35.039
on it, right? How much was invested? But I think
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:37.700
what's really unique was like also the fact that
00:32:37.700 --> 00:32:39.359
it was interdisciplinary and there was a lot
00:32:39.359 --> 00:32:42.839
of uncertainty. But what was striking about it
00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:45.519
was that it wasn't just about, you know, trying
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:47.640
to kind of advance the discipline, right? It
00:32:47.640 --> 00:32:50.359
was trying to solve like a specific challenge.
00:32:50.420 --> 00:32:52.759
So it was built around a problem, which actually
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:54.799
the way science is done in most places, it's
00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:57.440
not actually like that, right? Like very interdisciplinary.
00:32:57.819 --> 00:33:00.160
And so, you know, I think the Manhattan Project,
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:02.019
it was like, you know, different because no one
00:33:02.019 --> 00:33:04.839
knew whether it could actually like, you know,
00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:06.559
work out and you had physics. You had physicists,
00:33:06.660 --> 00:33:08.440
you had chemists, you had mathematicians, you
00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:11.539
know, all these different people coming together
00:33:11.539 --> 00:33:13.799
at a scale that hadn't existed before. So I think,
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:15.599
you know, during wartime, you have this kind
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:18.099
of push that, you know, there's something even,
00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:21.559
you know, bigger that's going on. I think the
00:33:21.559 --> 00:33:23.119
other thing that's interesting about it is that
00:33:23.119 --> 00:33:25.400
the concentration of talent, right? So you had
00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:28.460
so many leading scientists, you know, and it
00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:30.779
was really something that can't happen automatically,
00:33:31.140 --> 00:33:33.599
right? It involved, you know, institutions, funding,
00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:37.559
migration. happened to. And so, and then you
00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:39.480
move to the space race, where I think, you know,
00:33:39.500 --> 00:33:41.779
a lot of what was learned from the Manhattan
00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:43.880
Project, you know, kind of translated, but it
00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:46.119
became something permanent, right? So it wasn't,
00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:48.099
the Manhattan Project was something kind of temporary,
00:33:48.299 --> 00:33:51.319
right, during this crisis period. And now, obviously,
00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:52.839
then you go into kind of, you know, the Cold
00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:55.700
War period, and you have, you know, NASA and
00:33:55.700 --> 00:33:58.599
these standing institutions. And, you know, obviously,
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:02.019
like, how that was able to happen, given, you
00:34:02.019 --> 00:34:04.480
know, kind of like the costs associated with
00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:06.220
it. Obviously, there was like a political aspect
00:34:06.220 --> 00:34:08.820
to it that maybe we can return to. But I think
00:34:08.820 --> 00:34:10.780
that, you know, kind of transition to kind of
00:34:10.780 --> 00:34:15.619
permanence is interesting. Yeah. I was just gonna
00:34:15.619 --> 00:34:17.760
say, let's go to that debate. I mean, that seems
00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:20.239
we've already kind of talked about it. I know
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.420
very little about it. You mentioned that we have
00:34:23.420 --> 00:34:27.920
Vanir Bush and Harley Kilgore. So, I mean, that
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:31.579
debate is the way the space race or those institutions
00:34:31.579 --> 00:34:37.840
became permanent. So yeah, sorry, go ahead. No,
00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:40.199
I was just gonna leave it. I was just Yeah, go,
00:34:40.340 --> 00:34:42.739
go, just go. I don't know much about it. Yeah.
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:47.179
No, I Yes. So no, I love this, this conversation
00:34:47.179 --> 00:34:49.800
and talking about this debate, because the setup
00:34:49.800 --> 00:34:51.900
of the National Science Foundation through the
00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:55.460
NSF Act is really where the foundation of the
00:34:55.460 --> 00:34:59.139
modern US science apparatus starts. So this debate
00:34:59.139 --> 00:35:01.559
was about Yeah, how do we go about that? Bush
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:03.900
had his very clear vision, which he laid out
00:35:03.900 --> 00:35:07.289
in The Endless Frontier. focused largely on scientific
00:35:07.289 --> 00:35:09.570
autonomy, attraction and retention of talent,
00:35:09.829 --> 00:35:12.710
letting science basically run its own course
00:35:12.710 --> 00:35:15.349
and in time trust that there will be valuable
00:35:15.349 --> 00:35:19.510
output. He was extremely concerned with, as Ina
00:35:19.510 --> 00:35:22.230
mentioned, extremely concerned with focusing
00:35:22.230 --> 00:35:24.429
too much on very sort of specific directions,
00:35:24.570 --> 00:35:27.530
whether that came from industrial players that
00:35:27.530 --> 00:35:30.170
had like a commercial need, needed to create
00:35:30.170 --> 00:35:33.090
immediate profit, or if that was even coming
00:35:33.090 --> 00:35:35.440
from political figures who wanted certain. things
00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:38.380
to be focused and not others. So he ultimately
00:35:38.380 --> 00:35:41.199
really wanted the science to be the core focus
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:44.000
and let the scientists steer the ship. The vision
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:46.719
of Kilgore, which makes sense in the context
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:49.219
of the time, he was from West Virginia. He was
00:35:49.219 --> 00:35:52.159
one of the New Deal senators. His focus was largely
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:55.280
on, okay, well, if we believe in science has
00:35:55.280 --> 00:35:57.760
value, it should be value for the public. So
00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.599
if it's value for the public, the public should
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:03.530
have... some say and how what science gets done
00:36:03.530 --> 00:36:06.949
and how it gets articulated. So there was like
00:36:06.949 --> 00:36:09.190
one of the core differences was this idea of,
00:36:09.250 --> 00:36:12.170
OK, who makes these funding decisions? Of course,
00:36:12.170 --> 00:36:14.050
on the Bush side, it was the scientists, the
00:36:14.050 --> 00:36:16.329
experts, and basically in a peer review process.
00:36:16.849 --> 00:36:19.110
Whereas Kilgore wanted scientists to be a major
00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:21.489
voice in that room. But there was sort of a committee
00:36:21.489 --> 00:36:23.849
structure where there would be members of the
00:36:23.849 --> 00:36:26.010
general public in some cases. There would also
00:36:26.010 --> 00:36:28.110
be political appointees. It would be steered
00:36:28.110 --> 00:36:30.190
by a director who would be appointed, I believe,
00:36:30.230 --> 00:36:32.789
by the president. So, you know, the vision there,
00:36:32.869 --> 00:36:35.409
at least from his point of view, was, well. We
00:36:35.409 --> 00:36:36.570
don't want to just have these scientists go do
00:36:36.570 --> 00:36:38.929
their interesting things that they're focused
00:36:38.929 --> 00:36:41.469
on. We need to make sure that it benefits the
00:36:41.469 --> 00:36:43.969
general public. So, again, it fits into that
00:36:43.969 --> 00:36:47.829
dynamic of New Deal politics and where the Senate
00:36:47.829 --> 00:36:49.750
and really where Congress was at at the time.
00:36:50.349 --> 00:36:52.710
I'm going to make a very, very crass observation.
00:36:53.030 --> 00:36:55.090
Keep in mind that I'm a Canadian. It just seems
00:36:55.090 --> 00:36:58.150
to boil down of. One was pro -regulation and
00:36:58.150 --> 00:37:01.889
one was not. Yes and no. I mean, yeah. I mean,
00:37:01.929 --> 00:37:05.570
I think, again, what's interesting, I think,
00:37:05.650 --> 00:37:07.289
about this debate, and I'd love to hear your
00:37:07.289 --> 00:37:10.150
thoughts on this too, Ina, is that the operation
00:37:10.150 --> 00:37:13.329
that they were focused on, right, this idea of
00:37:13.329 --> 00:37:17.010
public and political players being involved or
00:37:17.010 --> 00:37:20.789
not purely sort of a scientific effort. the reasons
00:37:20.789 --> 00:37:22.510
for that and the justification for that have
00:37:22.510 --> 00:37:25.030
really kind of changed over time. And what I
00:37:25.030 --> 00:37:27.989
mean by that is, is that what Bush was concerned
00:37:27.989 --> 00:37:31.489
with wasn't necessarily what I would say scientists
00:37:31.489 --> 00:37:34.130
are concerned with now in today's world, of there
00:37:34.130 --> 00:37:36.989
being more and more political control and a fear
00:37:36.989 --> 00:37:39.469
of sort of shifting things in a direction that
00:37:39.469 --> 00:37:41.570
doesn't necessarily serve the evidence and the
00:37:41.570 --> 00:37:44.269
science. So anyways, yeah, I find this conversation
00:37:44.269 --> 00:37:47.820
really interesting because Kilgore's perspective
00:37:47.820 --> 00:37:50.300
and the perspective of those who supported him
00:37:50.300 --> 00:37:53.239
has merit, right? Like one of the big issues
00:37:53.239 --> 00:37:55.760
that we have right now and that maybe even contributed
00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:58.039
to the position that the U .S. is in is that
00:37:58.039 --> 00:38:00.500
there isn't a lot of dialogue between science
00:38:00.500 --> 00:38:04.480
and the public. The public benefits from science.
00:38:04.539 --> 00:38:06.920
The public pays for the science. But there's
00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:10.000
not necessarily a lot of – view into how the
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:13.579
sausage is made or dialogue between the two.
00:38:13.980 --> 00:38:16.119
One of my favorite stats, I pulled this from
00:38:16.119 --> 00:38:18.239
a survey once, is that the average member of
00:38:18.239 --> 00:38:20.780
the U .S. public knows significantly more fictional
00:38:20.780 --> 00:38:23.860
scientists than they do real ones. To me, that's
00:38:23.860 --> 00:38:28.900
a big, big problem. What? Really? Yeah. I mean,
00:38:28.920 --> 00:38:31.139
again, this is one survey. I think it was a sample
00:38:31.139 --> 00:38:33.840
size of about 1 ,000. But the idea is that the
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:36.059
general interactions of the scientific community
00:38:36.059 --> 00:38:39.119
are relatively insular. go to our meetings, we
00:38:39.119 --> 00:38:42.719
hang out at our universities and have these conversations,
00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.460
whereas the public doesn't necessarily get to
00:38:45.460 --> 00:38:47.360
be involved in those conversations. Another good
00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:49.860
example, look at how we publish science. A lot
00:38:49.860 --> 00:38:52.760
of it ends up behind paywalls or ends up in places
00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:54.679
where it's really difficult to understand and
00:38:54.679 --> 00:38:57.860
access. So it means that over time, as we become
00:38:57.860 --> 00:39:00.059
more specialized, that the separation between
00:39:00.059 --> 00:39:03.530
the two has really grown. So now... As we're
00:39:03.530 --> 00:39:06.429
seeing changes in how the government perceives
00:39:06.429 --> 00:39:07.829
the value of science and how it should be done,
00:39:07.949 --> 00:39:10.869
we don't necessarily have maybe as much public
00:39:10.869 --> 00:39:13.949
support as we could simply because they don't
00:39:13.949 --> 00:39:16.170
have as good of an insight into who we are, how
00:39:16.170 --> 00:39:19.090
we operate, and how that work has benefited them
00:39:19.090 --> 00:39:24.969
over decades of contributions. This is all really
00:39:24.969 --> 00:39:27.389
fascinating. I don't know if you have heard about
00:39:27.389 --> 00:39:31.280
the Golden Fleece Award, which is... I had to
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:33.920
look it up again, but it's, so it was in like
00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:37.659
the 1970s, the Senator from Wisconsin would basically
00:39:37.659 --> 00:39:42.300
give an award to essentially like the science
00:39:42.300 --> 00:39:44.360
that was like kind of the most ridiculous or
00:39:44.360 --> 00:39:46.780
something like that. And so anyway, but it reminds
00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:49.380
me a little bit of these kind of like, you know,
00:39:49.380 --> 00:39:51.909
if you just kind of look at. projects that are
00:39:51.909 --> 00:39:54.130
funded by the NSF, they, you know, it's hard
00:39:54.130 --> 00:39:56.369
for people to understand, like, why should we
00:39:56.369 --> 00:39:59.409
be investing in these projects, right? Like it's,
00:39:59.409 --> 00:40:00.769
and there's so many of these famous examples,
00:40:00.829 --> 00:40:02.530
they sound ridiculous. And then actually, it
00:40:02.530 --> 00:40:05.349
turns out, like, you know, though that research
00:40:05.349 --> 00:40:08.050
was like critical, right, to like some advance
00:40:08.050 --> 00:40:11.130
in health. And so it's, you know, I think what
00:40:11.130 --> 00:40:13.030
Chris was saying that, you know, it's like, it's
00:40:13.030 --> 00:40:15.190
hard sometimes to, you know, you want the public
00:40:15.190 --> 00:40:17.170
to be involved in these things and to, you know,
00:40:17.170 --> 00:40:20.349
kind of have a voice. But then, yeah, I think
00:40:20.349 --> 00:40:21.960
it's It's hard to kind of have those connections
00:40:21.960 --> 00:40:24.480
happen. And I think this also goes back to what
00:40:24.480 --> 00:40:25.980
we were talking about with like, you know, why
00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:30.690
the. government needs to invest in science? And,
00:40:30.829 --> 00:40:32.489
you know, how do you actually measure the benefits?
00:40:32.690 --> 00:40:35.150
Well, it's really hard to measure long run benefits.
00:40:35.250 --> 00:40:37.369
So I know that a lot of, there's been a lot of
00:40:37.369 --> 00:40:39.909
effort by policymakers, economists, to try to
00:40:39.909 --> 00:40:42.409
like, look at like NSF grants, like what is,
00:40:42.429 --> 00:40:45.309
you know, what are the returns to those investments
00:40:45.309 --> 00:40:47.349
to the government and society? Well, how do you
00:40:47.349 --> 00:40:49.690
measure that, right? It's very difficult to think
00:40:49.690 --> 00:40:52.090
about, like, everything that came out of like,
00:40:52.230 --> 00:40:55.050
you know, this one NSF grant, well, there, you
00:40:55.050 --> 00:40:57.510
know, there could be you know, related things
00:40:57.510 --> 00:41:00.389
that have discoveries, right? Or it's, you know,
00:41:00.389 --> 00:41:02.369
how do you kind of track, like, what's the paper
00:41:02.369 --> 00:41:05.110
trail to measure that? And I think that's where,
00:41:05.130 --> 00:41:09.030
if you think about, you know... What politicians
00:41:09.030 --> 00:41:12.349
worry about, like, you know, they're, you know,
00:41:12.349 --> 00:41:14.849
voters, they want to know what the benefits are.
00:41:14.929 --> 00:41:16.590
And so I think we're in this period now, again,
00:41:16.670 --> 00:41:19.449
of like, where, you know, there's kind of reflection
00:41:19.449 --> 00:41:21.590
on like, how do we actually measure those benefits?
00:41:21.630 --> 00:41:24.190
And how can we show the public that useful to
00:41:24.190 --> 00:41:27.789
invest in this kind of research? So I just want
00:41:27.789 --> 00:41:30.469
to get back to so how did the frontier the the
00:41:30.469 --> 00:41:33.769
ideas that were put out in that book end up winning
00:41:33.769 --> 00:41:36.900
the day? We've kind of missed that part of the
00:41:36.900 --> 00:41:39.340
question. And then we're already kind of talking
00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:42.239
about it. So how does that then hook up with
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:44.980
the social contract between scientists and what
00:41:44.980 --> 00:41:47.739
the state actually looks like? What's expected
00:41:47.739 --> 00:41:51.179
of both sides? So I guess first, how did the
00:41:51.179 --> 00:41:54.619
Bush idea end up winning the day? Like, how did
00:41:54.619 --> 00:41:57.539
that all that debate kind of crystallize into
00:41:57.539 --> 00:42:00.199
what we have? I think obviously a lot of things
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:02.699
go into how folks end up voting and how these
00:42:02.699 --> 00:42:05.380
bills end up being drawn up. You know, from my
00:42:05.380 --> 00:42:08.739
perspective, I do think that there was a significant
00:42:08.739 --> 00:42:12.480
respect for Bush and his office and the success
00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:14.539
that it had brought in World War II. So that
00:42:14.539 --> 00:42:16.300
carried a lot of weight in this conversation.
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:19.300
So you've got this scientist who is. plugged
00:42:19.300 --> 00:42:23.719
into the levers of power in D .C. that understands
00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:25.739
who he needs to be talking to, has built up these
00:42:25.739 --> 00:42:28.699
relationships over many years, has all of these
00:42:28.699 --> 00:42:31.039
different massive successes that can be pointed
00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:33.619
to to say, hey, I know how this should be done
00:42:33.619 --> 00:42:36.280
and ultimately how it should be successful. And
00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:37.699
it's also important to note that The Endless
00:42:37.699 --> 00:42:40.610
Frontier, yes, it was. articulated by Bush. But
00:42:40.610 --> 00:42:42.969
behind the scenes, he ran multiple committees
00:42:42.969 --> 00:42:46.170
with countless other experts that provided sub
00:42:46.170 --> 00:42:48.469
-reports that then informed his larger strategy.
00:42:48.769 --> 00:42:50.869
So there was already, I think, a critical mass
00:42:50.869 --> 00:42:54.099
amongst leadership and science to... back this
00:42:54.099 --> 00:42:57.760
proposal. So from my point of view, how influential
00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:00.280
Bush was and really his connection with both
00:43:00.280 --> 00:43:04.280
science, the scientific community, and with government
00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:08.340
is at least a key part in how that viewpoint
00:43:08.340 --> 00:43:10.900
won out. Whereas again, Kilgore, influential
00:43:10.900 --> 00:43:13.699
politician, a senator, but not necessarily a
00:43:13.699 --> 00:43:16.519
scientist equipped to talk about how things should
00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:19.719
be done. And honestly, maybe we'll talk about
00:43:19.719 --> 00:43:21.980
this later, but... That reflects an interesting
00:43:21.980 --> 00:43:24.119
change in maybe even public attitude towards
00:43:24.119 --> 00:43:27.000
science and sort of rising anti -intellectualism.
00:43:27.059 --> 00:43:29.500
I think at the time, there was much more respect,
00:43:29.679 --> 00:43:32.260
especially within government, for what intellectual
00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:34.760
sort of science -facing people brought to the
00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:37.639
table. Whereas now, there is increasingly more,
00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:40.179
whatever you want to call it, sort of skeptical,
00:43:40.460 --> 00:43:42.280
folks that are skeptical of science that have
00:43:42.280 --> 00:43:45.280
viewpoints that are more pseudoscience. And that
00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:48.400
is also better reflected in the folks that represent
00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:51.099
them in government. which was not the case necessarily
00:43:51.099 --> 00:43:57.059
then. So we have the debate. Now we have kind
00:43:57.059 --> 00:43:59.619
of like a social contract built between the state,
00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:02.460
the scientists, and the public. What was actually
00:44:02.460 --> 00:44:04.579
that look like? What was expected on both sides?
00:44:05.119 --> 00:44:07.139
Yeah, I mean, I could start. I think Chris maybe
00:44:07.139 --> 00:44:11.510
could fill in some of the institutional. But,
00:44:11.710 --> 00:44:14.010
you know, the way that I think I was thinking
00:44:14.010 --> 00:44:16.030
about this is that, you know, between kind of
00:44:16.030 --> 00:44:18.190
scientists and society, there was a bit of kind
00:44:18.190 --> 00:44:20.789
of like a bargaining, right? So, yeah, this contract
00:44:20.789 --> 00:44:23.929
was that, you know, you have these institutions
00:44:23.929 --> 00:44:27.670
that were created after the end of World War
00:44:27.670 --> 00:44:30.210
II. And essentially the government kind of agreed
00:44:30.210 --> 00:44:34.349
to provide long -term support for research, significant
00:44:34.349 --> 00:44:36.920
amounts of it. And, you know, with relatively
00:44:36.920 --> 00:44:39.380
few strings attached. So Chris talked about autonomy,
00:44:39.579 --> 00:44:41.739
right, and kind of these other aspects of kind
00:44:41.739 --> 00:44:44.659
of the Bush, you know, Bush's approach. And in
00:44:44.659 --> 00:44:46.619
return, scientists were expected to generate
00:44:46.619 --> 00:44:48.179
knowledge that would then, you know, contribute
00:44:48.179 --> 00:44:50.880
to national security, right, economic growth,
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:53.739
public health, and like social progress. And
00:44:53.739 --> 00:44:55.619
so I think one thing that, you know, I've been
00:44:55.619 --> 00:44:58.059
reflecting on also seeing kind of changes in
00:44:58.059 --> 00:45:00.639
the last year or so, right, is like how much
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:03.320
trust there was in the system, right? And so
00:45:03.320 --> 00:45:06.360
if you think about on the policymaker side, they
00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:08.440
were willing to kind of, you know, fund research
00:45:08.440 --> 00:45:10.920
without exactly knowing what the payoffs were
00:45:10.920 --> 00:45:12.460
going to be. So going back to like, what are
00:45:12.460 --> 00:45:15.199
the benefits, right? And so, you know, again,
00:45:15.239 --> 00:45:18.219
kind of giving grants to researchers who are
00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:20.099
doing basic science, or, you know, even applied
00:45:20.099 --> 00:45:22.619
work that they don't really know if it's if there's
00:45:22.619 --> 00:45:25.099
going to be a return. And so, you know, there
00:45:25.099 --> 00:45:27.159
wasn't really even, you know, we can, I don't
00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:29.780
know if we've talked yet about 1980 and the Bayh
00:45:29.780 --> 00:45:32.340
-Dole Act, but even prior to that, right, there
00:45:32.340 --> 00:45:35.960
was like, Again, very little prospect of commercial
00:45:35.960 --> 00:45:39.400
impact. Faculty at universities weren't really
00:45:39.400 --> 00:45:42.760
patenting based on research that was funded by
00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:46.500
federal funds. And so, again, going back to this
00:45:46.500 --> 00:45:49.920
idea that there was this understanding that basic
00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:51.920
research was a public good. There didn't have
00:45:51.920 --> 00:45:54.579
to be a commercial impact. And so, you know,
00:45:54.579 --> 00:45:57.210
I think this idea that like the. the scientists,
00:45:57.309 --> 00:46:00.550
you know, could kind of do what they thought
00:46:00.550 --> 00:46:03.329
was kind of the most beneficial from a scientific
00:46:03.329 --> 00:46:06.010
perspective. Now, and, you know, I think this
00:46:06.010 --> 00:46:08.849
is this kind of feature of the post -war contract,
00:46:08.969 --> 00:46:11.269
which is autonomy. And so government funded science,
00:46:11.329 --> 00:46:13.110
but they didn't really dictate every research
00:46:13.110 --> 00:46:16.369
question. Now, I also think then, you know, the
00:46:16.369 --> 00:46:18.949
social contract is also about talent. And so,
00:46:18.969 --> 00:46:21.409
you know, we talked earlier about, you know,
00:46:21.429 --> 00:46:24.409
kind of thinking about the U .S. becoming, you
00:46:24.409 --> 00:46:26.599
know, Chris mentioned Bush also talked about
00:46:26.599 --> 00:46:28.920
this, like being open to scientists and students
00:46:28.920 --> 00:46:31.519
coming from around the world. Right. And so the
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:34.480
importance of like attracting talent, a big part
00:46:34.480 --> 00:46:35.739
of that. And actually, I have some work right
00:46:35.739 --> 00:46:39.480
now looking at the importance of the 1965 Immigration
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:42.039
and Nationality Act, which was like just around
00:46:42.039 --> 00:46:44.920
the time of Civil Rights Act. President Kennedy
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:47.559
was was really pushing for this. But if you look
00:46:47.559 --> 00:46:51.239
at how science developed and kind of who the
00:46:51.239 --> 00:46:53.420
scientists were, it really changed a lot in that
00:46:53.420 --> 00:46:54.800
time because you had a lot. lot of international
00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:58.039
students coming to do PhDs in the U .S., staying
00:46:58.039 --> 00:47:00.179
and, you know, having their careers here, but
00:47:00.179 --> 00:47:02.820
also scientists coming. I mean, if you look at
00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:04.820
data on like Nobel Prize winners, right, like,
00:47:04.840 --> 00:47:07.400
you know, a lot of Nobel Prize winners did their
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:09.500
prize winning work in the U .S., but actually
00:47:09.500 --> 00:47:12.280
like were born in other countries, right? So
00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:14.039
again, this idea that immigration is a big part
00:47:14.039 --> 00:47:16.320
of the story. And also, you know, Chris mentioned
00:47:16.320 --> 00:47:18.500
there was also a lot of investment in universities,
00:47:18.940 --> 00:47:21.960
right? And so training, training talent. And
00:47:21.960 --> 00:47:24.679
so those became the places where you had training
00:47:24.679 --> 00:47:27.500
happening and the science happening and, you
00:47:27.500 --> 00:47:31.380
know, had very open institutions. And so I think,
00:47:31.380 --> 00:47:33.820
you know, this question today about like, are
00:47:33.820 --> 00:47:37.000
we revisiting that social contract? You know,
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:39.219
I think there's a lot more pressure on scientists,
00:47:39.340 --> 00:47:42.119
on universities to really show what the returns
00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:44.579
are. What are they producing? How is that impacting
00:47:44.579 --> 00:47:46.980
the economy? And I think, you know, that kind
00:47:46.980 --> 00:47:50.860
of departs a bit from Bush's. vision, which is
00:47:50.860 --> 00:47:53.019
that society really has to invest in research
00:47:53.019 --> 00:47:56.179
because of these long run benefits that are really
00:47:56.179 --> 00:47:58.519
large, even if you can't predict them. And so,
00:47:58.519 --> 00:48:00.119
you know, again, I think there's this challenge
00:48:00.119 --> 00:48:02.139
right now of like, how do we balance this of
00:48:02.139 --> 00:48:04.760
like showing that it's useful and it's helping
00:48:04.760 --> 00:48:07.800
the economy when a lot of the research that's
00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:10.659
being done that needs, you know, that. previously
00:48:10.659 --> 00:48:13.300
it was funded, we, you know, don't know what's
00:48:13.300 --> 00:48:14.960
going to happen. And I think also with talent,
00:48:15.059 --> 00:48:17.780
right, we are in this period of potentially like
00:48:17.780 --> 00:48:20.699
restricting talent that comes to the U .S. And
00:48:20.699 --> 00:48:22.340
so, you know, we're in a system where like I
00:48:22.340 --> 00:48:26.019
think over 30 percent of our PhDs awarded in
00:48:26.019 --> 00:48:28.300
the U .S., you know, our international students.
00:48:29.849 --> 00:48:32.309
Yeah, and even in some fields, even more. So
00:48:32.309 --> 00:48:34.690
I think computer science, it's like, you know,
00:48:34.690 --> 00:48:37.690
seen like 60%. So and you think about, you know,
00:48:37.690 --> 00:48:39.690
these fields that are really critical in terms
00:48:39.690 --> 00:48:42.849
of like, you know, innovation happening. And
00:48:42.849 --> 00:48:45.429
so, you know, science is so international. And
00:48:45.429 --> 00:48:48.369
so kind of what happens if you start to, you
00:48:48.369 --> 00:48:50.090
know, some of the policies that are being discussed
00:48:50.090 --> 00:48:52.349
about kind of shortening the length of the PhD,
00:48:52.489 --> 00:48:56.070
if you're, you know, for non citizens, or, you
00:48:56.070 --> 00:48:58.969
know, other policies that could change things
00:48:58.969 --> 00:49:02.130
a lot. Yeah, and just on that point too, you
00:49:02.130 --> 00:49:04.210
know, obviously as we've already sort of alluded
00:49:04.210 --> 00:49:06.929
to, a lot of science policy changes have happened
00:49:06.929 --> 00:49:08.710
in the last year and a half in the United States.
00:49:08.909 --> 00:49:11.550
But one of them on that point about sort of...
00:49:11.820 --> 00:49:14.780
homegrown U .S. citizen talent versus attracting
00:49:14.780 --> 00:49:19.000
talent from elsewhere, there's also been destabilization
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:21.860
of the existing policies that support homegrown
00:49:21.860 --> 00:49:24.980
scientists, right? So a very good example is
00:49:24.980 --> 00:49:28.800
the NSF's Graduate Student Research Fellowship
00:49:28.800 --> 00:49:31.840
Program. So as of very recently, the number of
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:33.980
awards that have been given out has been as dropped
00:49:33.980 --> 00:49:36.360
significantly. I believe the past year it was
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:39.699
about half. I think the administration then ultimately
00:49:39.699 --> 00:49:41.570
revised that and added a few. few hundred more.
00:49:41.769 --> 00:49:45.230
But the point stands that between 2024 and 2025,
00:49:45.570 --> 00:49:48.909
the number of U .S. citizens receiving this reward,
00:49:49.150 --> 00:49:50.690
those are the only people that are eligible for
00:49:50.690 --> 00:49:53.550
it, has dropped. But amazingly, if we're talking
00:49:53.550 --> 00:49:55.309
about how do we prove value in these types of
00:49:55.309 --> 00:49:57.869
things, that fellowship, which was a part of
00:49:57.869 --> 00:50:00.750
the NSF from the very early days. was responsible
00:50:00.750 --> 00:50:03.349
for producing, if I'm not mistaken, I think about
00:50:03.349 --> 00:50:06.329
50 Nobel laureates, or at least they were supported
00:50:06.329 --> 00:50:09.590
in part by that program, right? So that shows
00:50:09.590 --> 00:50:12.230
just how valuable that program is if we do it.
00:50:12.250 --> 00:50:15.150
So why cut the numbers? If we're concerned about
00:50:15.150 --> 00:50:17.969
increasing representation of U .S. citizens in
00:50:17.969 --> 00:50:21.989
our own science, sort of why destabilize one
00:50:21.989 --> 00:50:23.829
of the few programs that really does that quite
00:50:23.829 --> 00:50:26.889
well? Okay, just because I could keep you guys
00:50:26.889 --> 00:50:29.619
here and talk about this forever. But I'm going
00:50:29.619 --> 00:50:31.239
to have to skip a couple of questions because
00:50:31.239 --> 00:50:34.300
we're jumping around, which is fantastic. But
00:50:34.300 --> 00:50:36.639
also, we're quickly shifting in our discussion
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:38.679
towards the present. And I still think we need
00:50:38.679 --> 00:50:42.900
to hit one kind of... shift that kind of happened
00:50:42.900 --> 00:50:45.639
I guess in the late 70s or into 80s although
00:50:45.639 --> 00:50:47.940
I think you guys will get into it and tell me
00:50:47.940 --> 00:50:49.599
that I'm wrong and it goes further back than
00:50:49.599 --> 00:50:53.619
that but like how we changed in the viewing of
00:50:53.619 --> 00:50:55.539
ownership of scientific discovery because there
00:50:55.539 --> 00:50:58.739
was a point somewhere along in the 80s at least
00:50:58.739 --> 00:51:01.400
I recognized it a bit more in the 90s where it
00:51:01.400 --> 00:51:03.380
became controlled a bit more by corporations
00:51:03.380 --> 00:51:06.039
and you started to have even science fiction
00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:08.940
put corporations as governments and stuff like
00:51:08.940 --> 00:51:11.980
this in the far future. So there was definitely
00:51:11.980 --> 00:51:14.579
a shift that was happening, wasn't there? Yeah,
00:51:14.659 --> 00:51:17.159
I mean, I could talk about one... piece that
00:51:17.159 --> 00:51:19.519
I'm a bit more familiar with. Well, I think you've
00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:21.340
already mentioned the act as well, right, in
00:51:21.340 --> 00:51:22.840
the same time frame. Yeah, that's what I was
00:51:22.840 --> 00:51:26.880
going to maybe touch on is that kind of a real
00:51:26.880 --> 00:51:29.820
turning point that a lot of economists have also
00:51:29.820 --> 00:51:32.380
studied kind of the impacts of this was the Bayh
00:51:32.380 --> 00:51:35.360
-Dole Act, which was in 1980. And so that was
00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:37.739
essentially a law that allowed universities,
00:51:38.260 --> 00:51:40.619
faculties, members who are working on research.
00:51:41.320 --> 00:51:43.840
that kind of has commercial potential to patent
00:51:43.840 --> 00:51:47.139
and license inventions that arose from, and the
00:51:47.139 --> 00:51:49.559
key is from federally funded research. And so
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:51.760
before that, you know, the federal government
00:51:51.760 --> 00:51:54.400
really retained the, you know, the rights, the
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:56.980
IP. And, you know, you hear in these stories
00:51:56.980 --> 00:51:58.320
that like, you know, there were kind of all these
00:51:58.320 --> 00:52:01.139
really promising discoveries that were kind of
00:52:01.139 --> 00:52:03.260
like sitting, you know, sitting on ideas, sitting
00:52:03.260 --> 00:52:05.500
on dusty shelves, right? That like nothing ever
00:52:05.500 --> 00:52:08.900
happened with. And so, you know, the goal then
00:52:08.900 --> 00:52:12.059
was to really make it easier to move these discoveries
00:52:12.059 --> 00:52:14.340
from laboratory into commercial products. And,
00:52:14.340 --> 00:52:16.059
yeah, it's interesting because, like, it was,
00:52:16.119 --> 00:52:19.000
you know, buy and dole. And so, you know, there
00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:21.820
was, like, this, you know, bipartisan effort.
00:52:22.019 --> 00:52:25.599
And buy, actually, I think the story in... But
00:52:25.599 --> 00:52:28.860
I think that his wife had, you know, a form of
00:52:28.860 --> 00:52:33.059
cancer, you know, and had a health issue. And
00:52:33.059 --> 00:52:36.239
essentially, like, you know, there was no therapy,
00:52:36.260 --> 00:52:38.539
you know, there was nothing that was developed
00:52:38.539 --> 00:52:40.940
because it hadn't, you know, there was research
00:52:40.940 --> 00:52:42.980
that had been promising that wasn't commercialized.
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.539
Maybe Chris knows the story better. But yeah,
00:52:45.619 --> 00:52:47.579
so I think this idea that like, how can we actually
00:52:47.579 --> 00:52:50.079
get this science kind of, you know, into like
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.760
helping society was a goal. And so, you know,
00:52:53.760 --> 00:52:56.349
there's been. And research has kind of looked
00:52:56.349 --> 00:52:59.289
at this shift and, you know, what as faculty
00:52:59.289 --> 00:53:01.429
started to kind of commercialize more. And actually,
00:53:01.469 --> 00:53:04.130
the NSF has its own program, which I'm involved
00:53:04.130 --> 00:53:07.030
a little bit in evaluation of, which is called
00:53:07.030 --> 00:53:09.550
the NSF I -Corps program. So it's actually something
00:53:09.550 --> 00:53:12.329
that is funded by the, you know, by the NSF to
00:53:12.329 --> 00:53:14.650
try to train. It's like an entrepreneurship training
00:53:14.650 --> 00:53:16.690
program. So you take faculty at universities
00:53:16.690 --> 00:53:19.349
and, you know, how do you get them thinking about
00:53:19.349 --> 00:53:22.059
the market? you know, for their research? What
00:53:22.059 --> 00:53:24.199
would be the product that would be developed?
00:53:24.440 --> 00:53:26.480
And so, but I think that shift, yeah, it was
00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:29.639
really in the 80s. Yeah, no, I think you nailed
00:53:29.639 --> 00:53:31.960
it. The only piece I would add to it is also
00:53:32.599 --> 00:53:35.840
I believe it's in 1981, but there's a major shift
00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:38.360
in tax structure as well, that there was the
00:53:38.360 --> 00:53:43.519
addition of basically making investments by companies
00:53:43.519 --> 00:53:45.699
and by corporations into research and development,
00:53:45.860 --> 00:53:47.519
something that they could ultimately deduct.
00:53:47.840 --> 00:53:50.440
So that shift, being able to make those expenses
00:53:50.440 --> 00:53:53.579
something that was not necessarily purely out
00:53:53.579 --> 00:53:55.599
of pocket, coming purely out of their profits,
00:53:55.739 --> 00:53:57.900
they could instead shift it from their total
00:53:57.900 --> 00:54:01.000
revenue. So, yeah, I mean, I think those two
00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:03.059
things together. in addition to the fact that
00:54:03.059 --> 00:54:05.820
the... Although the total research dollars coming
00:54:05.820 --> 00:54:08.320
from the Fed continue to rise, the proportion
00:54:08.320 --> 00:54:11.260
relative to economic output continue to drop
00:54:11.260 --> 00:54:13.599
throughout this period. So as the federal government
00:54:13.599 --> 00:54:16.400
is taking less and less ownership of how research
00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:21.420
is done, you're seeing these changes in policy
00:54:21.420 --> 00:54:24.760
and law that are encouraging investment from
00:54:24.760 --> 00:54:27.380
industry into science. And by and large, I think
00:54:27.380 --> 00:54:30.460
that's a great thing. It's led to a lot of valuable
00:54:30.460 --> 00:54:33.929
products. Certainly, you see a surge. and things
00:54:33.929 --> 00:54:35.570
like pharmaceutical companies and diagnostic
00:54:35.570 --> 00:54:38.349
companies after this period. But yeah, I would
00:54:38.349 --> 00:54:41.550
say, as Ina mentioned, the early 1980s was a
00:54:41.550 --> 00:54:44.449
point where the emphasis was, how can we make
00:54:44.449 --> 00:54:47.590
science more commercial? It's a double -edged
00:54:47.590 --> 00:54:49.610
sword, certainly, but that was really where they
00:54:49.610 --> 00:54:52.250
were focused. So then how does that knock on
00:54:52.250 --> 00:54:55.809
effects to other parts of the scientific apparatus?
00:54:57.240 --> 00:55:00.900
NASA is famous for letting all of their patents
00:55:00.900 --> 00:55:03.900
go straight to the public. And so now you have
00:55:03.900 --> 00:55:06.960
these institutions that are trying to potentially
00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:11.460
commercialize those patents. So was there knock
00:55:11.460 --> 00:55:16.219
-on effects throughout the apparatus? Well, what
00:55:16.219 --> 00:55:19.760
I would say is that starting in this period and
00:55:19.760 --> 00:55:22.940
continuing until now, because of that point of
00:55:22.940 --> 00:55:26.099
emphasis, how do we make the research that we're
00:55:26.099 --> 00:55:29.699
doing valuable to the public or valuable to some
00:55:29.699 --> 00:55:32.820
kind of commercial enterprise. You see less and
00:55:32.820 --> 00:55:36.280
less interest in necessarily funding higher risk,
00:55:36.360 --> 00:55:40.219
more basic research programs. So instead, the
00:55:40.219 --> 00:55:43.000
emphasis becomes, yeah, what's the long tail
00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.739
view of this research? What is the immediate
00:55:44.739 --> 00:55:47.099
impact? How fast will we be able to get there?
00:55:47.219 --> 00:55:51.150
And then work that is a little bit more... that
00:55:51.150 --> 00:55:54.250
doesn't necessarily have a direct line to some
00:55:54.250 --> 00:55:56.809
kind of commercial value becomes less and less
00:55:56.809 --> 00:55:58.949
emphasized. Now, granted, there have been changes
00:55:58.949 --> 00:56:01.469
also in certain grants that were created to help
00:56:01.469 --> 00:56:05.969
avoid that or reinvest in basic research in a
00:56:05.969 --> 00:56:08.579
traditional sense. But I think really that change
00:56:08.579 --> 00:56:11.739
in attitude continued to seep into these agencies
00:56:11.739 --> 00:56:14.119
that are run by the federal government and put
00:56:14.119 --> 00:56:16.599
more and more pressure on scientists to, yeah,
00:56:16.659 --> 00:56:18.980
to be how do we make your work as productive
00:56:18.980 --> 00:56:21.679
as possible? So I would say maybe that's the
00:56:21.679 --> 00:56:23.820
kind of the through line is that these changes
00:56:23.820 --> 00:56:27.199
in policy precipitated a general attitude of
00:56:27.199 --> 00:56:30.920
how do we make research immediately more valuable
00:56:30.920 --> 00:56:34.440
to the public? OK, so just before we get to the.
00:56:35.070 --> 00:56:38.090
the present day, I'm in Canada, I'm not in the
00:56:38.090 --> 00:56:40.349
US, you know, Europe, did they have the same
00:56:40.349 --> 00:56:43.050
kind of shift towards more corporate entities
00:56:43.050 --> 00:56:44.989
and trying to make sure that, you know, these
00:56:44.989 --> 00:56:49.769
things became quicker to market and to add to
00:56:49.769 --> 00:56:52.809
the citizens of the country? Or was it really
00:56:52.809 --> 00:56:55.489
just follow the leader from the States? Like,
00:56:55.550 --> 00:56:57.869
how did that all come to be? Yeah, I mean, I
00:56:57.869 --> 00:57:00.820
think that, yeah, I wouldn't say that. Europe
00:57:00.820 --> 00:57:03.559
and Canada just followed the U .S. I mean, I
00:57:03.559 --> 00:57:05.679
think I'm actually so I'm in Europe right now
00:57:05.679 --> 00:57:08.760
in France. And yeah, I mean, I think there is
00:57:08.760 --> 00:57:12.039
this idea of, you know, similar ideas that you
00:57:12.039 --> 00:57:14.760
want, you know, you want to the public, you want,
00:57:14.820 --> 00:57:18.440
you know, the government wants to see the benefits
00:57:18.440 --> 00:57:21.199
of what they're investing in. But but I would
00:57:21.199 --> 00:57:25.010
say, you know, my sense is that Canada. Europe,
00:57:25.070 --> 00:57:30.630
for sure, has placed more emphasis on publicly
00:57:30.630 --> 00:57:34.409
funded science and less pressure on universities
00:57:34.409 --> 00:57:37.550
to patent discoveries or create startups compared
00:57:37.550 --> 00:57:42.079
to the U .S. innovative activities and starting
00:57:42.079 --> 00:57:43.760
entrepreneurship startups i mean there's really
00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:46.440
great examples from europe but if you look at
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:48.280
you know people always say if you just look at
00:57:48.280 --> 00:57:50.659
mit and like kind of kendall square like there's
00:57:50.659 --> 00:57:54.739
like so much activity there um compared to kind
00:57:54.739 --> 00:57:57.340
of you know if you look at a typical kind of
00:57:57.340 --> 00:58:01.260
country in over here. And so, you know, I think
00:58:01.260 --> 00:58:03.639
just this idea that U .S. is much more kind of
00:58:03.639 --> 00:58:06.340
innovative and has a lot more of this commercialization.
00:58:06.820 --> 00:58:08.679
But yeah, I mean, I think this is where I think
00:58:08.679 --> 00:58:11.639
kind of back to this, I keep bringing this up,
00:58:11.659 --> 00:58:14.159
but I think this is, you know, problem that countries
00:58:14.159 --> 00:58:15.980
are trying to solve, which is like, how do you
00:58:15.980 --> 00:58:19.309
preserve science as a public good while also
00:58:19.309 --> 00:58:21.329
turning these discoveries into, you know, economic
00:58:21.329 --> 00:58:23.949
and social benefits. So, and I will mention,
00:58:23.969 --> 00:58:26.130
you know, there's one thing that came to mind
00:58:26.130 --> 00:58:30.349
when Chris was speaking just now. And then you
00:58:30.349 --> 00:58:32.530
mentioned, you know, about NASA giving away patents.
00:58:32.630 --> 00:58:34.869
And there was such an interesting study that
00:58:34.869 --> 00:58:37.750
this economist Heidi Williams did of looking
00:58:37.750 --> 00:58:41.269
at Solara and like when kind of, you know, kind
00:58:41.269 --> 00:58:43.090
of the human genome project. And this is like,
00:58:43.110 --> 00:58:45.820
you know, like a big... a big effort right international
00:58:45.820 --> 00:58:49.559
effort and you had kind of this interesting like
00:58:49.559 --> 00:58:51.800
now economists love what we call natural experiments
00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:54.260
so you had kind of this you know private you
00:58:54.260 --> 00:58:58.340
know effort to try to you know, to do this. And
00:58:58.340 --> 00:59:00.219
then you also have the public effort. And what
00:59:00.219 --> 00:59:02.599
Heidi was able to show is that it's a bit random
00:59:02.599 --> 00:59:04.980
of like which genes like were, you know, kind
00:59:04.980 --> 00:59:07.739
of ended up being discovered. And so you had
00:59:07.739 --> 00:59:10.300
patents on the private ones and not on the public
00:59:10.300 --> 00:59:13.300
ones. And then she could like follow what happened.
00:59:13.480 --> 00:59:15.840
And I think this idea like what came out of that
00:59:15.840 --> 00:59:17.619
work, and there's been kind of follow up to and
00:59:17.619 --> 00:59:19.900
it's a bit more nuanced, but but the idea that
00:59:19.900 --> 00:59:23.159
if you have, you know, the public has access
00:59:23.159 --> 00:59:25.800
to this information, and it's like not patented,
00:59:25.840 --> 00:59:27.800
then you're going to get more follow -on innovation.
00:59:28.400 --> 00:59:31.019
And so, and I haven't seen, well, you know, I
00:59:31.019 --> 00:59:32.840
haven't seen a study on NASA. Maybe it's a good
00:59:32.840 --> 00:59:36.300
topic for a PhD student in economics to pursue.
00:59:36.679 --> 00:59:38.219
But I think that's something we're still learning
00:59:38.219 --> 00:59:39.900
about because, you know, this thing we, you know,
00:59:39.900 --> 00:59:41.460
we didn't get into it. We didn't have time today,
00:59:41.539 --> 00:59:44.039
but like, you know, patents, are they good or
00:59:44.039 --> 00:59:47.150
bad? That's a big question, right? You know,
00:59:47.170 --> 00:59:50.050
you need incentives for people to invest into
00:59:50.050 --> 00:59:53.849
that, you know, R &D. And if you don't have a
00:59:53.849 --> 00:59:56.329
patent, then people may not do it. But then,
00:59:56.329 --> 00:59:58.309
you know, this tension, then it's also you're
00:59:58.309 --> 01:00:01.389
not kind of giving access to that discovery to
01:00:01.389 --> 01:00:03.269
other people. So anyway, I think that's another
01:00:03.269 --> 01:00:06.949
topic for another session. Yeah, it's a whole
01:00:06.949 --> 01:00:11.389
can of worms. But I think we've kind of arrived
01:00:11.389 --> 01:00:15.960
at the present. Gosh, I got to tell you, when
01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:18.639
I look south, I'm like, holy smokes, what is
01:00:18.639 --> 01:00:23.099
going on? How much change can one country do
01:00:23.099 --> 01:00:29.920
in just two years? So, I mean, I wrote this question
01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:32.599
originally, but I don't even know where to take
01:00:32.599 --> 01:00:37.019
it. I feel like I'm pretty information dense.
01:00:37.099 --> 01:00:39.860
I take in a lot of information. But I don't even
01:00:39.860 --> 01:00:43.539
know how to process, like, what's these ramifications
01:00:43.539 --> 01:00:46.079
going on? Because even if you, you know, switch
01:00:46.079 --> 01:00:49.119
the policy 180 degrees, you can't go back to
01:00:49.119 --> 01:00:52.079
what it was. Like, it's not that simple. So,
01:00:52.079 --> 01:00:54.940
I don't know. I'm just going to leave it there
01:00:54.940 --> 01:00:59.260
and leave it to you guys. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:04.199
Boy, is it hard to summarize the scale and scope
01:01:04.199 --> 01:01:09.269
of recent changes to U .S. science policy. kind
01:01:09.269 --> 01:01:12.170
of across the government. But sticking to our
01:01:12.170 --> 01:01:15.449
areas of expertise, it's been a whirlwind. I've
01:01:15.449 --> 01:01:18.230
been maintaining this tracker for my company
01:01:18.230 --> 01:01:20.829
that basically just pulls articles about different
01:01:20.829 --> 01:01:23.050
changes so that I can have it all in one place.
01:01:23.170 --> 01:01:25.889
And just after a year and a half, it's a really
01:01:25.889 --> 01:01:28.769
long document. Some things are more minor. Some
01:01:28.769 --> 01:01:31.949
things are massive changes. But I would say,
01:01:31.969 --> 01:01:35.539
to your point, one of the most important... points
01:01:35.539 --> 01:01:38.539
of discussion in a general sense is that science
01:01:38.539 --> 01:01:43.320
relies on stability and reliable infrastructure
01:01:43.320 --> 01:01:46.960
to continue to produce discoveries that then
01:01:46.960 --> 01:01:50.019
lead to innovations. So as you do these mass
01:01:50.019 --> 01:01:52.440
shifts, as you change things dramatically from
01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:54.420
how they've been done and how they've been productive,
01:01:54.719 --> 01:01:58.260
that destabilization in and of itself puts the
01:01:58.260 --> 01:02:00.480
infrastructure and the enterprise at risk. So
01:02:00.480 --> 01:02:03.599
even if some of these policies have a rosy end,
01:02:03.719 --> 01:02:06.039
how they're being rolled out, And ultimately,
01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:09.559
the lack of scientific input on how these are
01:02:09.559 --> 01:02:12.420
being developed and rolled out is a big, big
01:02:12.420 --> 01:02:14.860
part of the problem. Just quickly, you know,
01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:19.809
we've seen. grant terminations, freezes in delivery
01:02:19.809 --> 01:02:22.969
of grant funds, including some that support clinical
01:02:22.969 --> 01:02:25.630
trials and longitudinal studies. There have been
01:02:25.630 --> 01:02:28.369
massive personnel cuts to scientific agencies
01:02:28.369 --> 01:02:31.190
and including government scientists. There's
01:02:31.190 --> 01:02:34.489
certainly an effort to have more tighter, centralized
01:02:34.489 --> 01:02:38.730
political control over both the work being done
01:02:38.730 --> 01:02:40.989
at some of these agencies, as well as their ability
01:02:40.989 --> 01:02:43.670
to communicate externally. You know, I mentioned
01:02:43.670 --> 01:02:49.039
the NSF. GRFP cuts. And maybe today, I think
01:02:49.039 --> 01:02:51.920
where most people are focused is, again, that
01:02:51.920 --> 01:02:55.920
additional layers of political oversight, especially
01:02:55.920 --> 01:02:58.179
on grant funding decisions. There's been a lot
01:02:58.179 --> 01:03:00.179
of discussion about a recently proposed rule
01:03:00.179 --> 01:03:03.739
by the Office of Management and Budget to effectively
01:03:03.739 --> 01:03:09.030
set aside. scientists -led decision -making in
01:03:09.030 --> 01:03:12.829
the funding of scientific research. So instead
01:03:12.829 --> 01:03:15.889
of it being peers evaluating the work and deciding
01:03:15.889 --> 01:03:19.050
who gets funded, ultimately those folks would
01:03:19.050 --> 01:03:21.489
shift to more of an advisory role, and then a
01:03:21.489 --> 01:03:23.429
political appointee would be responsible for
01:03:23.429 --> 01:03:26.309
making those decisions. That also goes as far
01:03:26.309 --> 01:03:29.230
to include how their ability to use those funds
01:03:29.230 --> 01:03:32.070
to publish science, the ability to travel for
01:03:32.070 --> 01:03:35.940
conferences, it just... It injects, as I said,
01:03:36.039 --> 01:03:38.940
a layer of political influence into the process.
01:03:39.380 --> 01:03:41.920
And yeah, a lot of people are very concerned
01:03:41.920 --> 01:03:44.460
about what that means because of what we've described
01:03:44.460 --> 01:03:48.739
in this episode, that that is fundamentally not
01:03:48.739 --> 01:03:50.820
how science has been done in the United States
01:03:50.820 --> 01:03:54.079
up until now. Yeah. And to put, I guess, a labor
01:03:54.079 --> 01:03:57.400
and economic point on it, it must be, I assume,
01:03:57.440 --> 01:04:00.460
going to be harder to retain and attract new
01:04:00.460 --> 01:04:03.159
talent. Right now. And that's exactly. Yeah,
01:04:03.199 --> 01:04:05.320
I think that's where, you know, we talked already
01:04:05.320 --> 01:04:08.400
a little bit about immigration. Right. And so
01:04:08.400 --> 01:04:12.000
this idea of attracting talent. But that's, you
01:04:12.000 --> 01:04:13.800
know, thinking about global talent. But, you
01:04:13.800 --> 01:04:15.199
know, I think what we're going to pick up on
01:04:15.199 --> 01:04:17.000
what Chris was talking about with what's happened,
01:04:17.260 --> 01:04:20.159
you know, in terms of government agencies. And
01:04:20.159 --> 01:04:22.679
so we didn't really get to talk much about, you
01:04:22.679 --> 01:04:25.920
know, after World War Two. that you had kind
01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:27.780
of the role of a government scientist, right?
01:04:27.860 --> 01:04:30.500
And it became a really attractive career path,
01:04:30.760 --> 01:04:32.599
right? And so you had these agencies, right,
01:04:32.659 --> 01:04:36.559
NASA, EPA, NIH, and you had government scientists,
01:04:36.780 --> 01:04:40.179
you know, really, you know, talented individuals
01:04:40.179 --> 01:04:43.199
who, you know, wanted to come to work for these
01:04:43.199 --> 01:04:45.099
agencies, you know, because there were these
01:04:45.099 --> 01:04:47.000
also, you know, mission, you know, mission driven
01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:50.900
agencies. And, you know, we think about the scientific
01:04:50.900 --> 01:04:53.840
workforce, you know, often we focus on universities
01:04:53.840 --> 01:04:56.280
often, but really like, you know, within the
01:04:56.280 --> 01:04:58.300
government, you have so much, you know, kind
01:04:58.300 --> 01:05:00.639
of in terms of science being produced and these
01:05:00.639 --> 01:05:03.480
career paths. And so now when we're in this period
01:05:03.480 --> 01:05:05.639
where what Chris was talking about, where you
01:05:05.639 --> 01:05:08.119
have, you know, workforce reductions, you have
01:05:08.119 --> 01:05:11.019
all, you know, going back to the Mertonian norms,
01:05:11.380 --> 01:05:14.000
you know, some of these things around community
01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:17.179
and, you know, going to conferences or, you know,
01:05:17.179 --> 01:05:19.739
autonomy, those have also changed. And so it
01:05:19.739 --> 01:05:22.550
really raises, I think, long -term questions
01:05:22.550 --> 01:05:25.949
about the long term, whether, you know, the government
01:05:25.949 --> 01:05:28.949
will be able to attract talent, right? So given
01:05:28.949 --> 01:05:32.329
that there is this now uncertainty and the trust
01:05:32.329 --> 01:05:35.550
is kind of, you know, maybe been eroded, you
01:05:35.550 --> 01:05:38.230
know, will people see these institutions as desirable
01:05:38.230 --> 01:05:40.550
places to build careers? And, you know, this
01:05:40.550 --> 01:05:43.030
is true also for economists, right? It's like
01:05:43.030 --> 01:05:45.190
we have a lot of PhD economists would also go
01:05:45.190 --> 01:05:47.989
work for government institutions. And so, you
01:05:47.989 --> 01:05:50.030
know, I think we all have stories we know of
01:05:50.030 --> 01:05:52.030
people who've kind of gone through this and are,
01:05:52.030 --> 01:05:54.449
you know, aren't sure about whether even in the
01:05:54.449 --> 01:05:56.409
future, they're going to want to work for the
01:05:56.409 --> 01:05:58.289
government. So, you know, and even we can go
01:05:58.289 --> 01:06:00.889
back to the Manhattan Project, we've talked about
01:06:00.889 --> 01:06:03.030
a lot, but like, you know, what if all the, you
01:06:03.030 --> 01:06:05.590
know, Oppenheimer, Feynman, you know, Fermi,
01:06:05.590 --> 01:06:07.130
what if they didn't want to be involved, right?
01:06:07.230 --> 01:06:09.710
So then that becomes a question. If you don't
01:06:09.710 --> 01:06:12.070
have the talent wanting to be a part of it, what
01:06:12.070 --> 01:06:15.300
does that mean? Yeah. And just to add to that,
01:06:15.400 --> 01:06:18.119
what would have happened if folks like Einstein
01:06:18.119 --> 01:06:20.820
didn't feel safe to emigrate into the United
01:06:20.820 --> 01:06:22.980
States? Would they have gone somewhere else?
01:06:22.980 --> 01:06:24.840
Would the Manhattan Project have been missing
01:06:24.840 --> 01:06:27.840
key players that ultimately led to the success
01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:30.429
of the project? So, yeah, I mean, as I said,
01:06:30.570 --> 01:06:33.090
I think the immigration story here is a huge
01:06:33.090 --> 01:06:36.329
part of the problem. The United States has benefited.
01:06:36.469 --> 01:06:39.110
Its point of leadership is not just the output
01:06:39.110 --> 01:06:41.449
of the science, but it is also that the United
01:06:41.449 --> 01:06:43.750
States in the last 50 years has been kind of
01:06:43.750 --> 01:06:46.730
the place to do the research, the place to come
01:06:46.730 --> 01:06:49.030
to conferences and to meet other scientists.
01:06:50.429 --> 01:06:52.610
also to get their education. Maybe they go home,
01:06:52.630 --> 01:06:55.329
maybe they go back to China, they go back to
01:06:55.329 --> 01:06:58.050
Sweden, but they might have gotten their graduate
01:06:58.050 --> 01:07:00.750
schooling done in the United States. They may
01:07:00.750 --> 01:07:03.449
have done a postdoc here. So if we start to dial
01:07:03.449 --> 01:07:06.030
that back down, how does that trickle down to
01:07:06.030 --> 01:07:07.849
the folks, everyone else in the United States
01:07:07.849 --> 01:07:10.610
that has benefited maybe quietly from the work
01:07:10.610 --> 01:07:13.090
of all of these immigrants? For sure. I do want
01:07:13.090 --> 01:07:14.989
to touch on one more thing before we get to call
01:07:14.989 --> 01:07:17.329
outs and the infamous last question. I've had
01:07:17.329 --> 01:07:20.489
to skip over a lot because You guys are so fascinating,
01:07:20.650 --> 01:07:24.030
and I keep learning more and more things. But
01:07:24.030 --> 01:07:25.909
there's this last question I really want to touch
01:07:25.909 --> 01:07:29.769
on, and I get it. You guys have definitely made
01:07:29.769 --> 01:07:32.489
the case today that science is always, at least
01:07:32.489 --> 01:07:34.949
how we conduct it, how we build it within a state
01:07:34.949 --> 01:07:37.789
or an institution, is political. But it also
01:07:37.789 --> 01:07:41.929
became the literal backbone of law and regulation.
01:07:42.650 --> 01:07:44.590
I mean, we didn't get the time to talk about
01:07:44.590 --> 01:07:48.320
it, but the Clean Air Act, EPA's founding. I
01:07:48.320 --> 01:07:52.920
guess, are we kind of reaping the reaper's harvest
01:07:52.920 --> 01:07:55.119
at this point? Because that kind of made science
01:07:55.119 --> 01:07:59.079
political, or at least the scientist in absentia,
01:07:59.139 --> 01:08:01.440
because we are not very good talkers, political
01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:04.739
is like an entity. Because government does it,
01:08:04.760 --> 01:08:08.139
to some individuals, it can't be trusted. Like,
01:08:08.139 --> 01:08:11.460
is that kind of where we're in today? Is that
01:08:11.460 --> 01:08:14.889
kind of a one way to sum it up? Chris? Huge question.
01:08:15.750 --> 01:08:18.130
I know, I know. I saved the worst for last. I'm
01:08:18.130 --> 01:08:22.630
sorry. No, no, it's a great question. You know,
01:08:22.670 --> 01:08:26.909
I think I would actually argue, and I have many
01:08:26.909 --> 01:08:29.329
times at this point, that, as you said, science
01:08:29.329 --> 01:08:33.010
is inherently political. If it depends on the
01:08:33.010 --> 01:08:35.590
function of government, it depends on politics.
01:08:37.550 --> 01:08:40.550
U .S. scientists for decades enjoyed bipartisan
01:08:40.550 --> 01:08:42.609
support, and that led to all of these things
01:08:42.609 --> 01:08:44.890
that we've discussed, and that's great. As that
01:08:44.890 --> 01:08:47.329
shifts, now suddenly we're realizing the fact
01:08:47.329 --> 01:08:50.189
that because the scientists themselves are not
01:08:50.189 --> 01:08:53.909
necessarily as equipped to maybe do the advocacy,
01:08:54.029 --> 01:08:56.250
they're not close enough to the levers of power.
01:08:56.869 --> 01:08:59.590
Maybe they're not as good at organizing. Now
01:08:59.590 --> 01:09:02.170
that there is less sort of well -established,
01:09:02.170 --> 01:09:04.289
trusted support, the scientists were sort of
01:09:04.289 --> 01:09:05.930
caught. I would say U .S. scientists were caught.
01:09:06.270 --> 01:09:09.489
flat footed. We're surprised by a lot of these
01:09:09.489 --> 01:09:12.689
changes. So why I say I disagree some is just
01:09:12.689 --> 01:09:14.970
to say that I think that because science has
01:09:14.970 --> 01:09:17.930
always had this, or modern science has always
01:09:17.930 --> 01:09:21.090
had this political connection, that we need to
01:09:21.090 --> 01:09:24.279
do better to actually be. part of those conversations
01:09:24.279 --> 01:09:27.619
things like You know, there are policy fellowships,
01:09:27.619 --> 01:09:29.539
you know that help support scientists and get
01:09:29.539 --> 01:09:31.880
them into roles of established roles in government
01:09:31.880 --> 01:09:34.420
I'd love to see more representation of scientists
01:09:34.420 --> 01:09:37.979
in in actual elected positions I would say that
01:09:37.979 --> 01:09:40.399
increasing the amount of political activity for
01:09:40.399 --> 01:09:42.390
scientists is a good thing That may not necessarily
01:09:42.390 --> 01:09:45.770
be very partisan. It may be focused on specific
01:09:45.770 --> 01:09:48.949
issues of expertise. But I think the time may
01:09:48.949 --> 01:09:51.369
have passed where we can just trust that the
01:09:51.369 --> 01:09:53.449
government and maybe also to some extent the
01:09:53.449 --> 01:09:56.350
public will continue to foot the bill without
01:09:56.350 --> 01:09:59.430
us necessarily having to keep them along for
01:09:59.430 --> 01:10:01.649
the ride. Yeah, no, I think that's great. And
01:10:01.649 --> 01:10:04.069
I'll just add, I guess one thing that I was thinking
01:10:04.069 --> 01:10:05.550
about, because I think this is a great question,
01:10:05.689 --> 01:10:10.199
is, you know, it's whether that science is political
01:10:10.199 --> 01:10:14.199
or that it's politically consequential. And so,
01:10:14.199 --> 01:10:15.960
you know, if you think about, like you mentioned,
01:10:16.159 --> 01:10:18.520
you know, Clean Air Act and you think about,
01:10:18.560 --> 01:10:20.619
you know, kind of other ways that we turn to
01:10:20.619 --> 01:10:23.560
scientists to provide us like with evidence to
01:10:23.560 --> 01:10:26.420
make policy decisions, I think that's something
01:10:26.420 --> 01:10:29.399
that I hope will continue. And I think this is
01:10:29.399 --> 01:10:31.720
where, you know, if we think about, you know,
01:10:31.720 --> 01:10:34.380
even the Manhattan Project, right? Like scientists
01:10:34.380 --> 01:10:37.270
made... you know, that possible, right? The atomic
01:10:37.270 --> 01:10:40.010
bomb, but scientists didn't decide to build it,
01:10:40.069 --> 01:10:42.750
fund it or use it. So those are political or
01:10:42.750 --> 01:10:45.310
military decisions and not clear if it was good
01:10:45.310 --> 01:10:48.069
for society, right? And so, but I think there's
01:10:48.069 --> 01:10:50.729
kind of distinction between, yeah, there's the
01:10:50.729 --> 01:10:52.729
science and, you know, for example, like telling
01:10:52.729 --> 01:10:54.890
us whether a pollutant is going to increase health
01:10:54.890 --> 01:10:58.810
risks, but then it's up to, you know, society
01:10:58.810 --> 01:11:02.720
and our politicians and, you know. policymakers
01:11:02.720 --> 01:11:05.279
to kind of then think about how much you know
01:11:05.279 --> 01:11:07.720
regulation should society should there be right
01:11:07.720 --> 01:11:10.300
and so i think yeah it's nuanced and so i don't
01:11:10.300 --> 01:11:12.640
know i think we're entering a period for all
01:11:12.640 --> 01:11:14.479
the reasons that you know we've discussed already
01:11:14.479 --> 01:11:16.960
and chris was pointing to where Now, whether
01:11:16.960 --> 01:11:19.479
there's trust in those institutions to use the
01:11:19.479 --> 01:11:22.279
science, I think that's kind of a question. And,
01:11:22.279 --> 01:11:25.359
you know, I think this is where, you know, kind
01:11:25.359 --> 01:11:27.579
of whether we're going to kind of continue to
01:11:27.579 --> 01:11:30.119
have these institutions like peer review, replication,
01:11:30.460 --> 01:11:33.119
you know, thinking about, you know, vaccine research
01:11:33.119 --> 01:11:35.359
effective, you know, whether the evidence can,
01:11:35.500 --> 01:11:37.779
we're going to have institutions that can actually
01:11:37.779 --> 01:11:40.479
like help us get the right science, scientific
01:11:40.479 --> 01:11:43.439
evidence that kind of helps with the policy decisions.
01:11:44.699 --> 01:11:46.199
You know, and then just like going back to something
01:11:46.199 --> 01:11:48.479
that we started with, too, of like thinking about
01:11:48.479 --> 01:11:51.619
what I've seen in different places. So like going
01:11:51.619 --> 01:11:53.760
back to Tajikistan and former Soviet countries,
01:11:53.859 --> 01:11:56.500
I really think like, you know, scientific institutions
01:11:56.500 --> 01:11:59.699
seem to be most effective when they're open and
01:11:59.699 --> 01:12:03.050
independent. Right. And so. That, I think, is
01:12:03.050 --> 01:12:05.649
the question now. You know, if we need credible
01:12:05.649 --> 01:12:08.670
science, you know, are we going to be able to
01:12:08.670 --> 01:12:11.590
have kind of, yeah, those institutions remain
01:12:11.590 --> 01:12:14.510
that are going to be open and independent? So,
01:12:14.510 --> 01:12:18.430
yeah, let's see. I'm optimistic still that we
01:12:18.430 --> 01:12:21.670
will come, you know, we will make it through,
01:12:21.770 --> 01:12:25.710
but let's see. Yeah, me too. I think stealing
01:12:25.710 --> 01:12:27.850
yourself from doom is one of the most important
01:12:27.850 --> 01:12:30.470
things that we can do right now and remain focused
01:12:30.470 --> 01:12:33.550
on, yeah, how can we continue to do science and
01:12:33.550 --> 01:12:36.289
maybe protect what remains of successful policy?
01:12:36.649 --> 01:12:39.710
So, yeah, I mean, like I said, I think it's important
01:12:39.710 --> 01:12:42.569
that – I'll say this obviously as a communicator,
01:12:42.590 --> 01:12:46.090
very self -serving. But, yeah, I think a groundswell
01:12:46.090 --> 01:12:49.649
of empathetic scientific communicators can go
01:12:49.649 --> 01:12:52.380
a long way towards – having these individual
01:12:52.380 --> 01:12:54.520
conversations with members of the public. And
01:12:54.520 --> 01:12:56.819
if everyone is able to influence a small number
01:12:56.819 --> 01:12:59.819
of people to support these policies or learn
01:12:59.819 --> 01:13:02.220
even a bit about the evidence that goes behind
01:13:02.220 --> 01:13:04.420
them, I think we will ultimately be much better
01:13:04.420 --> 01:13:06.340
off. Sure, it would have been better that we
01:13:06.340 --> 01:13:08.819
did more of that 20 years ago. Maybe we, you
01:13:08.819 --> 01:13:10.180
know, our circumstance now would be different.
01:13:10.460 --> 01:13:14.619
But, you know, maybe what's the old saying? The
01:13:14.619 --> 01:13:16.420
best time to start was yesterday. The next best
01:13:16.420 --> 01:13:18.859
time to start is today. And I think that's really
01:13:18.859 --> 01:13:21.899
where I try to encourage folks. Perfect. That's
01:13:21.899 --> 01:13:24.279
a great place to end the main part of the interview
01:13:24.279 --> 01:13:27.979
on a positive note. I always prefer that to the
01:13:27.979 --> 01:13:30.020
doomsayers because then we get stuck and we don't
01:13:30.020 --> 01:13:33.779
do anything. So now it's time for call outs.
01:13:33.960 --> 01:13:37.399
And this is just an opportunity to call out past
01:13:37.399 --> 01:13:40.699
colleagues, future work, something you read the
01:13:40.699 --> 01:13:42.399
other day that you thought everyone should hear,
01:13:42.539 --> 01:13:45.239
really anything at all. And you could have nothing
01:13:45.239 --> 01:13:46.920
to call out at this moment because you've talked
01:13:46.920 --> 01:13:48.260
too much because I've already had you for over
01:13:48.260 --> 01:13:53.170
an hour. I think I'm good. Maybe I'll just say
01:13:53.170 --> 01:13:55.789
one that relates very closely to our discussion
01:13:55.789 --> 01:13:59.529
today. Go read The Endless Frontier. It's not
01:13:59.529 --> 01:14:03.369
a particularly long or dense text. Not every
01:14:03.369 --> 01:14:06.010
single aspect of it was turned into policy, but
01:14:06.010 --> 01:14:09.189
it does lay, I think, a view of how science and
01:14:09.189 --> 01:14:11.729
government can work together productively. And
01:14:11.729 --> 01:14:13.550
I think folks will find themselves, scientists
01:14:13.550 --> 01:14:15.909
especially, just kind of nodding along the way.
01:14:16.510 --> 01:14:18.979
So yeah, I would say this has been a... core
01:14:18.979 --> 01:14:20.699
focus of the discussion, so go check it out.
01:14:21.819 --> 01:14:24.460
Awesome. Now, it's time for the infamous last
01:14:24.460 --> 01:14:27.199
question. Who wants to go first? Who wants to
01:14:27.199 --> 01:14:33.159
tell their favorite science joke? No volunteers?
01:14:33.300 --> 01:14:38.560
Do I have to pick? Alright, I'll do it. Hopefully
01:14:38.560 --> 01:14:40.979
the delivery is good enough and it's not just
01:14:40.979 --> 01:14:43.460
me thinking that this is funny. Oh, no, no, no.
01:14:43.539 --> 01:14:46.960
The worse the delivery, the better. The more
01:14:46.960 --> 01:14:49.840
groaning, the better. Good. Okay. So really,
01:14:49.979 --> 01:14:52.939
this is maybe dad jokes, which I'm becoming more
01:14:52.939 --> 01:14:56.659
and more good at. Yes. Okay. So this is one I
01:14:56.659 --> 01:15:00.399
came across recently, and I really love it. Darwin
01:15:00.399 --> 01:15:05.300
counted finches and Mendel counted peas. Watson
01:15:05.300 --> 01:15:08.960
and Crick counted on Rosalind Franklin. I like
01:15:08.960 --> 01:15:14.380
that. Okay. Should I go? You go for it. All right.
01:15:14.399 --> 01:15:18.329
So this one. It actually came in handy very recently.
01:15:18.430 --> 01:15:22.050
My 10 -year -old had his first kind of introduction
01:15:22.050 --> 01:15:25.310
in his science class to the particle theory of
01:15:25.310 --> 01:15:30.069
matter. So here we go. Why should you never trust
01:15:30.069 --> 01:15:36.909
an atom? They make up everything. Perfect. Thank
01:15:36.909 --> 01:15:38.970
you guys so much for being on. This was amazing.
01:15:39.350 --> 01:15:42.229
Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, I learned a
01:15:42.229 --> 01:15:45.189
lot. It's great. Likewise. And that's an episode
01:15:45.189 --> 01:15:48.329
that is in the books. Definitely the longest
01:15:48.329 --> 01:15:50.069
one I've ever put out. So I'm going to keep this
01:15:50.069 --> 01:15:52.890
real brief. We've only got two more episodes
01:15:52.890 --> 01:15:55.989
left of season two. And then we'll be taking
01:15:55.989 --> 01:15:59.609
a bit of a break until September. So thanks for
01:15:59.609 --> 01:16:01.369
sticking with us. And if you liked it, leave
01:16:01.369 --> 01:16:03.649
a review. Reviews are really important to the
01:16:03.649 --> 01:16:05.170
show and getting it out there to other people.
01:16:05.810 --> 01:16:07.949
Stay tuned because the next two episodes you
01:16:07.949 --> 01:16:12.460
definitely don't want to miss. In a world so
01:16:12.460 --> 01:16:17.800
chaotic, so misbehaved, echoes of melodies remind
01:16:17.800 --> 01:16:24.939
us it's always. Colors weave stories, painting
01:16:24.939 --> 01:16:31.819
the sky, swaying to rhythms as the galaxies fly
01:16:31.819 --> 01:17:01.550
by. Chasing down wonders, always seeking.