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AkikonomuI was going to keep quiet about this, but I changed my mind. Alex Au at Yawning Bread recently wrote an article questioning Singapore’s push into biomedical research. (Yes, the title says stem cells, but it’s clear that the intention is to write about the entire field of biomedical engineering.) However, he’s completely and utterly missed the real issues that need to be addressed for truly incisive questioning.
To be fair, this is commentary about technical issues from a non-technical person. However, that’s still no excuse for grousing over rehashed issues that are already known to be irrelevant.
Here’s a summary of the issues over at Yawning Bread:
- Singapore has taken advantage of restrictions on research on embryonic stem cells in the US. Largely true. YB omits the adjective ‘embryonic’ initially, which is significant as the whole point of the US restrictions is the controversy over their source - human embryos. There are other kinds of stem cells, which even YB alludes to later; recently, some kinds of adult stem cells been shown to exhibit some of the desirable features of embryonic stem cells, such as pluripotency and plasticity. This may mean that this differential advantage could very quickly become obsolete, and answers YB’s later question of why Singapore appears to have focussed exclusively on embryonic stem cells.
- ‘World-class’ researchers who have been attracted to Singapore have left. True. However, it’s been clear from day one that such moves were largely publicity stunts that in themselves have little relevance to the actual pursuit of research. Two researchers do not constitute an entire research field, no matter how famous or accoladed. Besides, the real question is whether they are leaving purely because they got better offers, or whether there is something else involved - impatience with bureaucracy, lack of skilled workers, lack of research autonomy maybe? Those are the real issues that no one is addressing publicly.
- Despite available government funds, Singapore companies are only interested in making money, not research. Obvious. Companies exist to make money. Small companies do not have enough capital to invest in R&D. Startup companies are not only small, they also have unstable revenue streams to fund anything other than their core businesses. Even then, new companies can and so struggle to figure out what their niches are. R&D is a fantastically expensive endeavor. This is nothing new, and nothing worrying.
- Singapore is short of qualified researchers. True. It takes time to train them. YB does not carefully distinguish between medical doctors, science PhDs and others, which doesn’t quite begin to capture how much more difficult it is to produce a medical doctor or scientist as compared to, say, a doctorate-holder in English literature. It may not really cost $1,000,000 to train a science PhD, but that’s not that far off. Also, it’s not a pure numbers game. Diversity and quality matters too. A successful research effort in this day and age must necessarily bring together researchers from many different disciplines. 1,000 PhDs with degrees ranging from anthropology, chemistry, bioengineering, physics, computer science, psychology, botany, and mathematics (say) will be a far more potent mix than 1,000 PhDs in bioengineering who all worked in the same 10 labs, all of which were (say) in the race to make synthetic ribosomes. Also, it goes without saying that one shouldn’t trust a mail-order PhD.
- Public funding of research is a good thing, but we need more transparency. Absolutely! just as we need more transparency in a great many other governmental activities. YB uses the word “accountability”, which I am not so happy with, because there is an implicit notion of measurable outcome that is antithetical to the entire point of basic research.
- “[A] greater effort should be made to inform the tax-payer [as to] what are the risks involved, and to provide a fair prognosis.” Impossible. While I applaud the spirit, there is absolutely no way to produce such information, even in a perfectly transparent institution. The technical data is hard to distill into a such a neat picture. It’s worth repeating - measurable outcomes are antithetical to the entire point of basic research. Basic research is what you do when you don’t know what you’re doing, and neither does anyone else, and then learning from collective mistakes and failures. There’s no other way to do basic science - one is pushing the boundaries of the known from those of the unknown. In summary: the risks will always be that money will be spent with no measurable results, and that the prognosis is always unknown. That’s just empiricism for you.
- The Singapore media has been trying really hard to sound like things are going fine, despite the “setbacks” outlined above. Irrelevant. YB is trying to discredit the Singapore media for jingoism by arguing that the practice of these fields of research is in trouble in Singapore. However, he is trying to diagnose the health of a field that is ill-defined and in which success is difficult to measure. Nobody can predict how an emerging field will do. Of the many things that I have issues with in the Singapore media, this is not one of them. The real fault of the media here is its inability to provide us with insightful analysis of what’s going on in this field, which YB correctly claims is difficult because the typical journalist will not be able to understand the technical issues going on.
- The average, otherwise well-educated citizen is ill-equipped to comprehend the technical aspects of research. Absolutely. However, I would argue that the onus is on researchers to reach out to the public and get them to understand the issues and why people would care about them. Only the researchers themselves have the potential to really understand what’s going on in their own research - often, they become the world’s sole expert in very narrow domains of accomplishment. Singapore researchers absolutely need to be more outspoken about the kinds of things that they’re working on. That doesn’t necessarily mean more science demos to bored pupils in secondary schools - it could even mean bringing the controversies into the classroom, the newspapers, open houses, and community centers.
So much for that article. Like I said, little (if any) of this is original. I’ve certainly harped on many of these issues myself. If anything, I think YB has totally missed the boat on the real issues, which surely must include:
- Why are star scientists leaving? Did we piss them off? Easy come, easy go is clearly a factor, but the public deserves to know why they have left, often after consuming many, many tax dollars. If nothing else, funding agencies need to learn from their past mistakes. This means answering many, if not all of these questions:
- Did the funding agencies have unrealistic expectations? (This certainly seemed to have been in a factor in the Johns Hopkins (Singapore) fiasco.)
- Is the scientific endeavor overly bureaucratic in Singapore?
- Are they having trouble finding lab supplies? Export restrictions? Long import times for vital chemicals? I’ve encountered these problems before.
- Is lab equipment not adapted to the Singapore climate? (Mundane as it seems, I’ve experienced equipment failures due to humidity, even in the air-conditioned environment of a lab bench.)
- Are junior staff and graduate students simply not up to snuff? (Quality matters.)
- Are they chafing under any lack of research autonomy? (Senior scientists are used to having complete freedom over their research directions.)
- Is investing so much into a very few, select fields (like biomedical engineering) really appropriate? The conventional argument is that Singapore is a small country with limited resources, so it makes sense to specialize. This is complete nonsense on at least three counts. First, Singapore is not poor - it’s one of the wealthiest nations in the world, both in absolute terms and when measured on a per capita basis. We’re not Ethiopia, or even Israel. Second, researchers don’t form a zero-sum community. Specialization on a personal level is beneficial, but bringing together researchers from many different backgrounds will create many more opportunities for collaboration and mutual learning. Different fields are no longer mutually independent - it takes many different points of view to ferret out insidious assumptions, clarify contexts and reduce the risk of groupthink. Quantity is not quite as as important as quality and diversity. Third, research is inherently risky, and it’s a well-understood strategy (especially in finance) to reduce risk by diversification. Putting all our eggs in one basket can produce astronomical results, but at enormous risk of total failure. If such a strategy isn’t good enough for Temasek Holdings or GIC, why is it good enough to dictate our science policy for the foreseeable future?
- Non-scientists have inflated expectations of research. This is something best solved with outreach activities. Science fairs and liquid nitrogen ice cream is a little corny, but can do a lot to make science more accessible. Also, it will go far to dispel the notion that science is about learning named laws and doing lots of calculations, then checking to see if you get the correct answer.
Ok, that’s enough from me. If you have any questions, please talk to a scientist!
References
- Alex Au, Yawning Bread, Where are we now with stem cell research?, 2008-05-28.
- National Institutes of Health, Stem Cell Information, 2006-10-06. A very nice explanation of the key issues for non-experts and non-technical audiences.
Are you not a scientist? Who else can I talk to?
Anyway, I’m glad you recognise that a mix of PhDs from a wide range of academic disciplines is more ideal than a bunch of folks with the same types of PhDs. I do wonder if there are other folks in the sciences who are as enlightened as you.
Also, I think you have a very valid point that perhaps many of our local journalists do not possess the required expert knowledge to analyse the issues. However, those with expert knowledge might sometimes not be able to write in terms simple enough for the masses to understand.
You seem to have the knowledge and are able to present the technical stuffs in easy to understand terms. Perhaps you should start a specialist blog dealing with these issues. Of course, that’s assuming if you have time.
You said,”However, he’s completely and utterly missed the real issues that need to be addressed for truly incisive questioning.”
YB is simply saying the govt has sunk alot of money into a research area without much tangible results - hence there is a need for more transparency. As a citizen, I too am concern about the billions spent. You said we cannot expect measurable outcome from basic research….I was wondering if we should even be involved in basic research given we have to import so many foreign talents just to get started. There’s alot of applied research that we can do and the outcome is more measurable.
Funding agencies who are given this taxpayers money do their job by allocating it…money spent, job done. 10 years later somebody start asking what has been accomplished…that is what happened to A* and many departments now need industry sponsorship to get projects started to ensure they are relevant.
Why should Singaporeans support the govt’s relatively large budget on R&D if the govt is unable to explain the benefits of this spending? Of course research involves risks and no one is demanding guaranteed outcome …but what about assurance that we have the process in place to make the best bets..and that we are not spending the money just because it is available.
Lucky Tan,
Elia’s point was that the measurability of the outcome of research is not a measure of the value of the research. The lack of measurability does not imply the lack of positive outcome. Nor does it even mean that the potential benefits can’t be explained. Something can have positive benefits that are difficult to measure. Surely we do not think that ethical behaviour should not be encouraged just because it is difficult to measure how ‘ethical’ any given kind of behaviour is. Surely we do not think knowledge is not worth acquiring just because there is way to measure the ‘quantity’ of knowledge a person has. Surely we do not think happiness is not worth acquiring just because there is no unproblematic way to measure happiness. Elia is trying to separate the fallacious equation of measurability with desirability that so often dominates political discussions in Singapore.
But even if you insist on financial returns as the only measure, then there’s still a good argument that applied research thrives when it is situated in an ecology of researchers that includes basic researchers. Those of us who have worked in scientific research in Singapore are probably aware of the problems that arise when there too few scientists and too many engineers. Another way to look at it is that there are many countries competing in fields of applied research. Most of them back up their applied research with accompanying basic research. We are not competing with just other engineers, we are competing with people who can leverage on the symbiosis between engineers and pure scientists to go the extra mile. How can we expect to compete with these other countries if we won’t invest in the kind of ecology of thinkers that other countries have?
I find Lucky Tan’s comment interesting in the way it indicates the extent of cynicism that Singaporeans have in trusting the govt to make successful financial decisions. Well-justified cynicism, I must say.
But, strangely enough, basic research is possibly the only field that Singapore has invested in that has no clearly ‘valuable’ outcomes, and I would agree with twasher that the links between basic research and applied research are essential for the commercial product pipeline that applied research is further downstream on.
Aaron,
Suddenly I’ve thought of something: if I wanted to find some studies on the links between basic research and commercial product generation, which humanities/social science disciplines should I be looking in? And if there are no such studies, which humanities/social science disciplines are equipped to work together to discover the link?
Thanks,
SM
SM,
I am unable to answer unless you are more specific about what is the exact query you have. On its face, your query seems more suited to be investigated from the perspective of a business school. The folks in business schools use a number of the same techniques as the social sciences. I don’t think the humanities would be a good choice for discovering “links” because in the humanities people typically argue for a certain perspective and not “discover”. It’s a little hard for me to articulate the differences (or what I think are the differences to be more exact) but if you want to investigate relationships, most social science disciplines or business disciplines should teach you how to determine if there’s a relationship between basic research and commercial product generation by apply some statistics.
The thing that intrigues me about this demand for accountability for R&D is that people don’t ever seem to do the same for the arts. I’ve certainly never heard a grumble to the tune of “We spend $1m on the arts and I all I got was this T-shirt with a poem on it” being taken seriously. Yet I would consider them to be exceedingly similar endeavors: both are done essentially for the sake of doing them; there might be material gains or national prestige attached to the next blockbuster musical or the next Viagra, but that’s not why most artists or scientists do what they do.
Aaron,
Statistics techniques need variables if they are to be useful. My question was more on how these variables are developed/chosen to begin with. Although the outcomes of basic research are not measurable (other than in terms of journal impact factor and number of publications, which cannot be taken for more than they are), there may be other variables of basic research that are related to commercial product generation.
Sidetracking a little,
I don’t think the humanities would be a good choice for discovering “links” because in the humanities people typically argue for a certain perspective and not “discover”.
Hahaha and the social sciences “discover” without arguing for a certain perspective?
Anyway when I said ‘links’ I was not restricting it to causal links only. And philosophy, geography and history excel at discovering many kinds of links and variables. Their contribution to the refining of human thought processes is unmatched by any science or social science discipline.
Elia,
I agree.
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SM:
Umm, geography and history are considered social sciences as well. They are distinguished from the humanities by more empirical approaches — their starting point is social data.
The humanities includes things like literature, music, philosophy, and languages (and by the latter I don’t mean linguistics).
The distinction between the humanities and the social sciences is often completely eroded in Singaporean vocabulary, in which they are all lumped under ‘the arts’. In the more usual context, economists, philosophers and historians would be quite offended to be thought of as artists.
In any case, that doesn’t detract from your quite correct point that there’s a lot of interpretation involved in the social sciences as well.
Elia:
I suspect people grumble less about spending on the arts because they perceive such spending as bringing them enjoyment. There are more people who enjoy attending artistic events or admiring good architecture than there are people who get excited about scientific discoveries. Also, spending on the arts is localized — if Singapore doesn’t support a local arts scene, locals cannot enjoy ‘live’ arts performances or local exhibitions. But even if Singapore doesn’t support basic research, a science fan can still get his kicks from reading about basic research done in other countries.
Oh, and as to a discipline studying the links between science and commerical returns, Google “economics of science”.
As a local chemist, I must say that generally chemicals are readily available. A few caveats: CWC list, dangerous goods (=> sea-freight, 6-8 weeks). Granted, you don’t get next-day delivery like Aldrich gives elsewhere, but they can get things to you in a few days which is quite decent.
The humidity does play a role - deuterated solvents soak up water like nobody’s business, and some more air-sensitive compounds might not survive. The answer could be found in equipment (glovebox) and lab technique.
As a B.Sc. (Hons) graduate, there is simply a dearth of synthetic chemistry jobs. You have a handful as a RA/equivalent in big companies, in monolithic A*/gov linked institutions, and that’s it. Universities usually don’t hire. Graduate slave^H^H^H^H^H student labor is cheaper.
Anyway, trained labor is available (IMHO), but nobody’s hiring. The chemists Singapore hires are analytical (QA/QC), and engineeers. So, in all likelihood this trained labor gets sopped up by the MOE, and there usually is no turning back.
andrew:
1. I don’t doubt that many chemicals can be obtained without much fuss. However as a chemist, surely you must know that many important reagents fall into the CWC list. Also, technique does help in making things like Grignards, but I’d be hesistant to say that the cure for ALL humidity issues is merely technique and glove box. It definitely complicates matters when syntheses assume you can do reactions in the regular hood when in fact you are doing it in the glove box…
2. If it’s any consolation, there is also a paucity of jobs for synthetic chemists stateside as well. It looks like a global trend, even. My friends in organic chemistry are very worried; many of them aren’t getting the jobs in big pharma that they wanted.
CWC chemicals are generally commodity chemicals - cheap, consumed in bulk. If you anticipate a need for them, you can maintain a buffer. Obviously, economies of scale applies and being in a large organization makes such stockpiling more worth it.
I usually prefer to buy than make, buying being faster and cheaper (factoring the tangible or intangible cost of labor). But, if you’re a chemist, you usually can make your own precursors. Check out Org/Inorg Synth. An example is methyl iodide which generally takes a long time to ship. Very useful for methylating something, but which takes a long time to arrive. DIY - http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/orgsyn/prepContent.asp?prep=CV2P0399
Agree with your point generally about humidity, but I would still argue that lab technique is still very important, probably being the greater limiting factor than our environment for most cases. Take a look at [[Schlenk line]] and [[Air-free technique]].
Side note. Derek Loewe’s recent article here is quite relevant to science in Sg.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/06/19/anarchy_in_the_eu.php
He quoted from somebody else:
“… Science and innovation are chaotic, stochastic processes that cannot be governed and controlled by desk-bound planners and politicians, whatever their intentions. Good scientists are by definition anarchists.”
Agree 100 %