Ranty McRant has entered the building!
I usually don't post reviews or thoughts on shows after I've watched them, or at least not in-depth ones, but this has been bothering me since I watched last night's Numb3rs.
Usually, Charlie's ranting and going's on is an annoyance and I mute the tv for that part, because he just can't see the bigger picture and it annoys me. But last night was the first time in four years where I felt like yelling 'Go Charlie!' at the screen.
The entire episode was kind of one annoyance after another, with all the FBI guys having target fixation, and relying on racial profiling to give them their targets. Today's climate is all about terrorists and doing whatever it takes to take them down, but that mentality has gotten in the way of actually looking at a situation rationally. I can't help but think that if the charity they had been investigating had been run by white people for homeless kids or tsunami victims or something, they would have investigated the entire situation differently, and found the real culprit a whole lot sooner. I find the fact that it turned out not to be terrorism but about gun-running, completely believable.
But that's not what this entire thing is about. What's really bugging me a day later, is the complete lack of understanding that people have about the academic world. For the most part, science has no real boundaries, at least not when it comes to geography. When I email someone on the other side of the planet, the most I think about before it hit 'send' is 'what time zone are they in?'.
People schooled in different parts of the world have different ways of doing their research or sharing their data, but the days of hoarding every little scrap of data is long gone. (Unless you're a government scientist and it's all considered classified.) True, you most likely will keep whatever you've found limited to a relatively small circle of people, but that's only until you publish. Once you've published your research, there is no way to control or secret the data away. And we *will* publish. At heart, we're all still the geeky science nerds looking to be the rock stars. The community has changed, but the drive is still the same. We want other scientists to say 'you should check out so-and-so's work, they have some good ideas' or something like that. We want other researchers to *want* to collaborate with us. My last paper was a joint effort between Ottawa, Alabama and Berlin.
We've entered into an era of sharing and collaboration, and the academic world is changing to showcase that. More scientific journals are going open-access (don't need a subscription), most journals have opened up their archives to within a few years, and most scientific journals give the option of publishing your article as open-access or subscription-based. More and more scientists are choosing open-access, even though it does cost more (yes, you have to *pay* the journal to publish your paper - don't get me started). I can go online right now with a list of 20 random journal articles, and can pretty much guarantee that I can find 13/20 fully accessible in one way or another, and without any scientific journal subscriptions. Ten years ago, it would have been closer to 2/20, if you were lucky.
Let's get back to the point of this, which is how I agree with everything Charlie did and said in last night's ep. That entire argument about how that guy's research could be used to generate human pathogens - I agree with Charlie: no scientific proof. If you're looking for something specific, you'll always find it.
Example: My Masters project is about simulating the evolution of the influenza virus, to ultimately predict when (not if) the avian flu (H5N1) will adapt to humans and start a pandemic.
Conspiracy Driven Government People: That's bioterrorism! You could tell the terrorists how to start a pandemic!
Me: If they have any brains at all, they already know how.
CDGP: What do you mean? You're giving them the tools they need to turn bird flu into people flu!
Me: Any kind of literature search will turn up several papers which tell the exact amino acid sequence to change to make avian flu (more) infectious in humans. They don't need me for that.
CDGP: Then why are you doing this!
Me: Do you really want me to get into a detailed explanation on the various differences in hemagglutinin and how each change in this gene causes a new strain to emerge, which our immune systems don't recognize?
CDGP:...
Me: Right. Well, if we can figure out the hemagglutinin sequence that will go with the amino acid change, we can start making vaccines.
(...maybe I should have used this in my committee meeting last week. Hmmmmm.)
In this climate of heightened security and governments overreacting to the slightest things and calling it terrorism, the scientific world has remained largely untouched. We don't see terrorists behind every email (even the Nigerian spams) and we don't see the dark side to every action we take. We're in it for the science and the thrill of discovery (cause it sure ain't for the money), which is what I think Charlie was trying to get across. His friend was sending *his* work to colleagues in regions of the world that *he* knew would understand and appreciate his work, and would put it to good use.
I'm not saying all scientists are altruistic saints, because more than a fair share are complete bastards who hoard research and rule their students like their personal fiefdoms. But Charlie did what he thought was right, and he did it for many reasons, only one of which was to prove a point. There is no comparison anyone can make to allow the FBI or any other law enforcement agencies to understand how the scientific community works. Think of it as a foreign country, and you don't understand the customs, so shut the hell up.
The big talk nowadays is all about inter-agency cooperation, which is like pulling teeth in most agencies (they don't like giving up their toys). The scientific community at large has mostly been about 'inter-agency cooperation' for years, and I think it's this aspect that has the government agents in last night's show confounded. They don't understand how someone could be in contact with a 'hostile foreign power' and have it not be a national security problem. I really felt for Charlie in this episode, because he was banging his head against the giant wall of 'everyone's a terrorist' that seems prevalent in today's society.
He's not going to be able to change anything, but you gotta give him props for even trying. :)
My final thought in this rambly diatribe: WAH!! MEGAN!! COME BACK!! :(
Usually, Charlie's ranting and going's on is an annoyance and I mute the tv for that part, because he just can't see the bigger picture and it annoys me. But last night was the first time in four years where I felt like yelling 'Go Charlie!' at the screen.
The entire episode was kind of one annoyance after another, with all the FBI guys having target fixation, and relying on racial profiling to give them their targets. Today's climate is all about terrorists and doing whatever it takes to take them down, but that mentality has gotten in the way of actually looking at a situation rationally. I can't help but think that if the charity they had been investigating had been run by white people for homeless kids or tsunami victims or something, they would have investigated the entire situation differently, and found the real culprit a whole lot sooner. I find the fact that it turned out not to be terrorism but about gun-running, completely believable.
But that's not what this entire thing is about. What's really bugging me a day later, is the complete lack of understanding that people have about the academic world. For the most part, science has no real boundaries, at least not when it comes to geography. When I email someone on the other side of the planet, the most I think about before it hit 'send' is 'what time zone are they in?'.
People schooled in different parts of the world have different ways of doing their research or sharing their data, but the days of hoarding every little scrap of data is long gone. (Unless you're a government scientist and it's all considered classified.) True, you most likely will keep whatever you've found limited to a relatively small circle of people, but that's only until you publish. Once you've published your research, there is no way to control or secret the data away. And we *will* publish. At heart, we're all still the geeky science nerds looking to be the rock stars. The community has changed, but the drive is still the same. We want other scientists to say 'you should check out so-and-so's work, they have some good ideas' or something like that. We want other researchers to *want* to collaborate with us. My last paper was a joint effort between Ottawa, Alabama and Berlin.
We've entered into an era of sharing and collaboration, and the academic world is changing to showcase that. More scientific journals are going open-access (don't need a subscription), most journals have opened up their archives to within a few years, and most scientific journals give the option of publishing your article as open-access or subscription-based. More and more scientists are choosing open-access, even though it does cost more (yes, you have to *pay* the journal to publish your paper - don't get me started). I can go online right now with a list of 20 random journal articles, and can pretty much guarantee that I can find 13/20 fully accessible in one way or another, and without any scientific journal subscriptions. Ten years ago, it would have been closer to 2/20, if you were lucky.
Let's get back to the point of this, which is how I agree with everything Charlie did and said in last night's ep. That entire argument about how that guy's research could be used to generate human pathogens - I agree with Charlie: no scientific proof. If you're looking for something specific, you'll always find it.
Example: My Masters project is about simulating the evolution of the influenza virus, to ultimately predict when (not if) the avian flu (H5N1) will adapt to humans and start a pandemic.
Conspiracy Driven Government People: That's bioterrorism! You could tell the terrorists how to start a pandemic!
Me: If they have any brains at all, they already know how.
CDGP: What do you mean? You're giving them the tools they need to turn bird flu into people flu!
Me: Any kind of literature search will turn up several papers which tell the exact amino acid sequence to change to make avian flu (more) infectious in humans. They don't need me for that.
CDGP: Then why are you doing this!
Me: Do you really want me to get into a detailed explanation on the various differences in hemagglutinin and how each change in this gene causes a new strain to emerge, which our immune systems don't recognize?
CDGP:...
Me: Right. Well, if we can figure out the hemagglutinin sequence that will go with the amino acid change, we can start making vaccines.
(...maybe I should have used this in my committee meeting last week. Hmmmmm.)
In this climate of heightened security and governments overreacting to the slightest things and calling it terrorism, the scientific world has remained largely untouched. We don't see terrorists behind every email (even the Nigerian spams) and we don't see the dark side to every action we take. We're in it for the science and the thrill of discovery (cause it sure ain't for the money), which is what I think Charlie was trying to get across. His friend was sending *his* work to colleagues in regions of the world that *he* knew would understand and appreciate his work, and would put it to good use.
I'm not saying all scientists are altruistic saints, because more than a fair share are complete bastards who hoard research and rule their students like their personal fiefdoms. But Charlie did what he thought was right, and he did it for many reasons, only one of which was to prove a point. There is no comparison anyone can make to allow the FBI or any other law enforcement agencies to understand how the scientific community works. Think of it as a foreign country, and you don't understand the customs, so shut the hell up.
The big talk nowadays is all about inter-agency cooperation, which is like pulling teeth in most agencies (they don't like giving up their toys). The scientific community at large has mostly been about 'inter-agency cooperation' for years, and I think it's this aspect that has the government agents in last night's show confounded. They don't understand how someone could be in contact with a 'hostile foreign power' and have it not be a national security problem. I really felt for Charlie in this episode, because he was banging his head against the giant wall of 'everyone's a terrorist' that seems prevalent in today's society.
He's not going to be able to change anything, but you gotta give him props for even trying. :)
My final thought in this rambly diatribe: WAH!! MEGAN!! COME BACK!! :(