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Apparently a Lim Leng Hiong (who blogs at FreshBrainz) has also read Cong Cao’s article in Science critiquing the future of the biosciences in Singapore, and has read my article, and summarily thinks that I have unconditionally endorsed its findings in its entirely because I didn’t write anything bad about it.

Perhaps now is a good time to note that:

1. I do agree with much that Cao has to say, because I think it is true, even if he is not a scientist, “just”¹ a policy analyst.
2. Just because I don’t write anything to the contrary doesn’t mean I endorse the point of view taken. If that were true, all my posts would lost whatever ironic value they had!
3. While FreshBrainz is dismissive of Cao’s article (for reasons I do not agree with as stated below),  he has provided no substantial evidence to contradict Cao’s claims.

Here is a reproduction of the comment I fired off on his blog as a response to his post:

Hello,

Thanks for linking to my blog. I will thank you, however, for not putting words in my mouth as you have in this post. If you read it carefully, the only part I have stated my own agreement with Cong Cao’s letter is the need for more open discussion about ethical issues. In this case, I didn’t comment further because I don’t have time for a longer commentary, nor did I think I had anything more useful to say. It most certainly does <b>not</b> mean that I categorically endorse everything that is written.

Just because I post or write about an article does not mean I necessarily “agree wholeheartedly “with the premises of it. As a scientist yourself, surely you must understand the value of listening to all points of view. (At least once, that is.)
“I should mention that Dr. Cao’s… primary training is likely not in science.” So what? I’d prefer to think it’s possible that nonexperts can still have intelligent things to say about science and how it is practiced. Let’s not stray into ad hominem here. Nonexperts have, after all, have played not unimportant roles in setting public policy in Singapore. Let’s check the egos at the door, thanks.

I agree with you that incremental research can drive commercial benefits. you’ve answered at length about the commercial aspects of the R&D enterprise in the pharmacy industry (and probably better than I can), but let me ask you a more fundamental question: is research all about profit? I don’t exactly see, for example, people becoming ornithologists because they want to feed the capitalist pipeline for birds. Yes, researchers have to eat, but let’s get real - how many scientists are in science for the money? There are much more profitable careers out there in, say, high finance. (Cao’s point #2.) I’m concerned, and I think Cao is too, that current government policies may attract the wrong kind of talent to science, people who are more interested in making money than actual science. That wouldn’t exactly be a win-win situation.

“The timeframe is incorrect - the pioneer batch of A*Star PhD students will be graduating this year.” Fine, but I believe the metric of 10 years was supposed to apply from the undergrad to postdoc timeframe. Ten years seems reasonable to me, and I don’t see the point of belaboring this.

“[I]f they successfully become world-leading scientists with strong personalities then it will be very difficult to switch them towards the entrepreneurial mindset.” I don’t know what exactly you mean by “strong personalities”, but there are plenty of startups created by “world-leading scientists” in all sorts of fields. Just because someone is established doesn’t mean he/she can’t spinoff discoveries into new companies. This is exactly the kind of mindset that Cao warns against (#2).

“It’s hard to say how much Singapore has benefited specifically from the stem cell controversy in the USA”: really? Let me point you to a few choice quotes in the mainstream media:

“Alan Colman, an English biochemist and a leader of the British team that created the first cloned mammal in 1997, the answer was to abandon the cold moors, heaths, and braes of Scotland for steamy Singapore./ But it wasn’t the tropical weather that drew Colman. Instead, the 56-year-old scientist chose the city-state because of its tolerant climate for research using embryonic stem cells.” - Bruce Einhorn, Business Week Asia is Stem Cell Central, 2005-01-10.

“Two of America’s most prominent cancer researchers, Neal G. Copeland and Nancy A. Jenkins… said politics and budget cuts had left financing in the United States too hard to come by.” - Wayne Arnold, New York Times, Singapore Acts as Haven for Stem Cell Research, 2007-08-16.

I’m sure there are plenty more opinions like this out there; these are just two that I am aware of. Clearly the decision for researchers to come to Singapore is varied and complex, but you cannot deny that it takes a lot for established researchers to uproot themselves and throw themselves into a foreign society with lots of unknowns.

I agree that the US is losing its edge in embryonic stem cell research, but it’s not like stem cell research in the US is dead. Yes, the federal government opposes the funding of certain types of embryonic stem cell research, but states like California, Illinois and New Jersey are picking up the slack in funding that the federal government is reluctant to give. (I’m not an expert in this, so I’m not sure what has happened in the US in this field.) Besides, I don’t even read Cao’s article to mean that US supremacy in such research will be re-established once Bush is gone. I think Cao is merely pointing out that Singapore’s remarkable growth in biotech and biomed R&D can be partly attributed to a one-time event, that of the Bush administration’s policymaking, and that once the Bush administration is gone, the *rate* of growth will decline because of that if nothing else changes. I think it’s useful to bear in mind the context here, that there has been a lot of publicity over the impressive and remarkable growth of Singapore biomedical research where five years ago or so Singapore had very little to offer.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Singapore was very shrewd in publicising the availability of research funds and permissive legislation. It was a very clever move in terms of attracting talent to come. What Cao wants to point out is that this is a one-off thing, and that future growth in bio-____ in Singapore won’t be that easy. Although Cao doesn’t mention it, the failed examples of Johns Hopkins, Warwick and U. New South Wales are important counterexamples that illustrate that easy money and an encouraging public sector isn’t sufficient to guarantee results.

“If I am reading this correctly, Dr. Cao wonders why there isn’t widespread debate about biomedical issues here, unlike the explosive and divisive situation in the United States.” You are presenting a false dichotomy. In the EU for example, there has also been plenty of debate over the ethical issues over embryonic stem cell research and cloning, but it’s neither “explosive” nor “divisive”. That that is the case in the US is more cultural than anything. That’s just how Americans do things, by blaring their opinions at everyone.

“It’s not that public information on bioethics isn’t available, you can read about it anywhere: in the newspapers, on the Internet, there are even public talks on bioethics.” I think you’re missing the point. The claim is not that Singaporeans have no access to bioethics, but that Singaporeans aren’t talking about it.

“The real reason why most Singaporeans don’t fight over ethics in science is because - they simply don’t care about science at all.” True, but when did “most Singaporeans” care about anything other than money and one-upping each other? If you want to be the cynic, why not go the whole hog?

“Scientific culture doesn’t exist among the general public. This is hardly surprising considering that even our oldest biomedical research institute is only 20 years old.” Thanks for completely ignoring physics, chemistry, mathematics, psychology and sociology, just to name a few. What a non sequitur. Again you’re missing the point. Singaporeans don’t have to be scientists to worry about scientific issues. Ideally all that is necessary is an educated background and a healthy interest in such matters.

Which brings me to my next point: Singaporeans in general are apathetic. They’ve been conditioned to by the prevailing political climate. Even the “hundreds of political blogs read by thousands of Singaporeans daily” is nothing compared to the indifferent of the general population. That this would continue to hold true for issues of bioethics and other concerns regarding the effects of scientific research is tragic and a reflection of the relative unsophistication of Singapore society.

I don’t naysay for the sake of being on the other side. I have better things to do than to seek this kind of attention. If you want to misunderstand my actions then I have nothing further more to say.

I find it interesting that even today, here and now, it is so easy to find people who have trouble distingushing between criticism of the person, criticism of entities represented and criticism of the arguments.

References

1. Cong Cao, Science, “Making Singapore a Research Hub”, 316, 1423-4, 2007-06-08. doi: 10.1126/science.316.5830.1423
2. This website, Singapore, Research Hub? A Critical view, 2007-06-17.
   
3. Lim Leng Hiong, Freshbrainz, Naysayers Strike Back!, 2007-06-23.

1. The “just” is to be taken without condescension or derogation.↩

Tory atlas of the world, originally uploaded by jonanamary.

Another one of those ‘what the people of _____’ think the world looks like spoofs. This one comes from the UK. Those damn Brits, thinking they still own the world…

Intellectual property rights maven Lawrence Lessig announces that for the next ten years, the focus of his work will shift from pure IP issues to also dealing with corruption. Writes Lessig:

Yet governments continue to push ahead with [idiotic ideas...] Why?

The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a “corruption” of the political process. I don’t mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean “corruption” in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can’t even get [simple and clear issues] right.

Lessig takes considerable pain to say that he means by “corruption” activities such as shilling, where personal activities which are supposed to be impartial can be unduly influenced, however subtly, by monetary gain.

Yet Lessig could learn from the Singapore government, which has preached all these years that . Take this quote as a typical example:

The government defends the high salaries as necessary to attract the brightest people and to prevent corruption.

“If we don’t do that … corruption will set in and we will become like many other countries,” Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean was quoted as saying in the Straits Times last week.

Since all that is needed to solve corruption are higher incomes, clearly all Lessig has to do  to solve to “corruption” is to push for a raise in “incomes”. There, that’s ten years’ of work done in a few seconds. How awesome is that?

References

1. Lawrence Lessig, “Required Reading: the next 10 years“, 2007-06-21.
2. Koh Gui Qing, Reuters,”Singapore ministers set for million-dollar pay hike“, 2007-04-05.