Reed's Ruminations: A Blog by Dan Reed

The (Scientific) Good News

I was ten years old when I saw the light – the scientific light. For me, it was a Road to Damascus experience, catalyzed by a single event. My grade school teacher instructed each of the students to select a single, thin volume from the science encyclopedia and begin reading quietly at his or her desk. In retrospect, I realize it was probably the desperate act of an overwhelmed teacher who simply wanted a bit of quiet time. For me, though, it was a transformative revelation, a portal on a world of rationality, cause and effect and experiment-driven understanding.

For all those nagging questions, there was a systematic, repeatable mechanism to obtain and verify answers. The world could make sense, and the unknown was knowable. There were other people like me, and I could dream of being one of them – a scientist! It was thrilling and wondrous, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had found the passion of my life.

The Universal Passion

Over the past 40+ years, that passion has led me to extraordinary and unexpected places. Yet across all that diversity, I have observed a universal behavioral constant, one that transcends national borders, cultures and languages. Scientists and scientific thinking are the same everywhere. They see the world through the same eyes and value the same things, a common approach to problem solving and reasoning. Above all, though, they share the passion and the curiosity, the unrelenting desire to know, to understand.

What drives us? It's not tenure; it's not publication; it's not research funding. Those are artifacts. It's not even fame, fortune or glory, though a few scientists seek those too. Rather, it's the desire to know, to understand, to add a small piece to the varied mosaic that is our limited but expanding human knowledge of this vast and varied universe. Depending on your assessment of the Fermi Paradox, perhaps it's to be the first sentient being in this brane to understand a small bit of its workings. If knowledge is your passion, that is reward enough.

Childlike Curiosity

Soon after I had completed my Ph.D., I read Peter Medawar's great book, Advice to a Young Scientist, and resonated with his insightful words:

I am often asked, "What made you become scientist?" But I can't stand far enough away from myself to give a really satisfactory answer, for I cannot distinctly remember a time when I did not think that a scientist was the most exciting possible thing to be.

I am no behavioral psychologist, but I suspect that all children are born with the insatiable curiosity that sustains scientific curiosity. All too often, though, I fear that our educational system punishes curiosity and rewards conformity. Only a small fraction remains sufficiently iconoclastic and self-confident to resist, asking those seemingly annoying questions that defy authority and drive discovery.

Why? It's a simple but profound question.

"Daddy, why is the sky blue?" It's Rayleigh scattering, of course!

"Mommy, why does is it cold in winter?" It's axial tilt of the Earth! (Sadly, a stunning fraction of North American college graduates believe it's because the Earth is closer to the sun during the summer.)

"Daddy, why are insects not as big as elephants?" It's about surface area, volume and energy, as Haldane explained in his delightful essay, On Being the Right Size. (Ignore the politics at the end.)

The answers to simple questions often expose deep truths. Encourage and preserve the curiosity of children. Share the wonder; share the passion; share the good news. Scientists and children – they are more alike than different.

Innovation: The Fierce Urgency of Now

As a boy, I remember my grandfather and my uncles telling stories about the Great Depression, the struggle to find a job – any job – and the life changing perspectives that fear and uncertainty brought. Whether it was my grandfather's lifelong distrust of banks (perhaps more well-founded than I then realized) or the small concrete markers from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) or Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects that employed my uncles, the effects were both psychological and tangible.

Today, we face economic challenges that are unprecedented in the memory of most of the living. The recession, two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP, is real, and the feared "D word" – depression – is whispered ominously. Companies and storied banks are failing, jobs and fortunes are being lost, families are being disrupted, and lives are being destroyed. The fear and uncertainty are palpable, and few have escaped unscathed.

Franklin Roosevelt's famous comment, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," was a subtle but telling observation on behavioral economics. Fear deepens the economic downward spiral because making producers and consumers more conservative and risk averse, decreasing spending and the flow of funding. Government action (or inaction) can mitigate (or exacerbate) the severity but not eliminate it. In this spirit, President Obama has often used a phrase from speeches by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., -"the fierce urgency of now" – as a mantra for economic and social action.

Innovating the Future

The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 (aka the economic stimulus package) emphasizes investment in infrastructure construction, reminiscent of the CCC and WPA, health care, education, efficient energy and one of the key foundations of our innovation economy – science and technology. For the latter, the House proposal includes $10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation and $6 billion to expand broadband Internet access in rural and other underserved areas.

The Computing Research Association (CRA) policy blog, contains an analysis of the ARRA proposal and its implications for computing. Among other things, the proposal includes increased funding for the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST). One notable element of the ARRA proposal is $100M for the Department of Energy's Advanced Scientific Computing Research program.

If history is any guide, Congressional debates on ARRA will undoubtedly be highly partisan and acrimonious. What emerges from the political process may well differ in some substantive ways from the Democratic proposal. However, in a global economy, there can be no doubt that competitive advantage accrues to those who innovate more rapidly and successfully, making research investment a critical element of the fierce urgency.

Computing Sociology and Innovation

We are suffering from a research funding shortfall, which the economic stimulus, as a step toward funding the America COMPETES Act, will help address. However, I believe we in computing are suffering from a larger, more ill-defined but more pernicious problem – the lack of strategic thinking and long-term research vision. I am not alone in that perspective.

In November 2008, NSF CISE, the CRA and the Computing Community Consortium convened a one day summit to discuss the future of computing research. Attendees included selected heads of major computing departments and information science schools, as well as industrial research leaders. We all came together to discuss some key questions:

• Are there signs and guideposts for how most effectively to move the field forward—especially without losing the essence of our identity and the strength of our contributions?
• What is the appropriate balance between curiosity-driven research and technological engagement, the essence of what Donald Stokes called Pasteur's Quadrant?
• As stewards of the field, how do we ensure the right decision processes are in place for faculty hiring and promotion, graduate student admissions and mentoring, and funding practices and processes, to create the most vibrant and exciting future?
• How do we enhance our community's willingness to value professional service, which can increase advocacy for our field, both at our own institutions and nationally, leading to the resources needed to fuel innovation?

You can find more details in the December issue of Computing Research News (CRN).

We did not reach definitive conclusions, but we agreed that there are substantive issues to be addressed. Our economic crisis and the potential for new funding via ARRA make it important that we face these computing community questions forthrightly and directly.