Ryan Westafer

We’re now mass producing life: Korea’s “Tomorrow Puppies.”

Drug Sniffing Dogs Cloned (Image above is from BBC)

Mass Production & Mass Pollution

I’ve had a stance for a while on the whole mass production trend.  Homogenization of society and mass production appear to have emerged together, creating a more uniform society displaying similar needs, e.g. iPods.  As we mass-produce these things, we also mass produce pollutants.  Perhaps, though, we have actually increased the overall efficiency of our manufacturing processes, producing less waste per product; that is a valid point.  However, an often overlooked property of these processes is the character or quality of the waste.   I’m not referring only to the quantity here, rather the uniformity of the waste: the predominance of certain kinds of waste due to massively parallel production using similar highly efficient processes.  I’ve never heard people talk about “waste diversity” but maybe we ought to extend diversity incentives to that space.

Living Things – Natural Selection

NB: First, I won’t talk about the ethics of mass production of worker-creatures (like those sniffer dogs).  Neither will I talk about natural selection, other than to say: we observe this process in the present-day regardless of religious beliefs.  “Evolution” involves debate over millennia, but we’re talking about two centuries here.  OK, so back to the take on technology, diversity, and living things.

Technology bears the majority of human innovation and variation.  Our sluggish cycle of human generations, reproduction that is, doesn’t keep pace.  Our DNA still stores most of the information needed to reproduce itself – some external environmental factors and nurturing by parents and society also contribute to the reproductive success of a person.  However, I’m seeing more and more reliance upon advanced technology to correct flaws which ordinarily would prohibit reproduction.  With cloning, we could even remove the male from the loop entirely.  I’m not aware of a way to produce male human children from cloned female cells, so, if over-applied, this practice would reduce the number of men on the planet.  It would also reduce the selective pressure for women to have fully-functional reproductive systems since the fertilization would be on-demand and medically assisted.

Is there a potential problem here?  I do think we face a growing challenge, but a little awareness will probably go a long way.  For instance, consider science fiction.  Some sci-fi awakens our imaginations to fantastic technologies of tomorrow, while other dystopian science fiction helps maintain some healthy caution.  By even-handedly examining technologies, we are better prepared to select the technologies supporting our existence.  Maybe in an exaggerated sense, science policy is the natural selection of tomorrow.

A Balanced Outlook

Given our increasing dependence upon technology for survival, it had better keep changing quickly and adapting in a robust manner, or we will have problems indeed.

There is at least one “catch” to the concern of mass production defeating the highly valued diversity: consumer demands change quickly due to product wearout, obselescence, and style/whim, etc.  Though our processes may be extremely efficient, today we’re cranking out iPhones, but soon they might be iWearables or iImplants.  Since our hearts are never set on one product for long, it seems possible the rate of change of technology will balance the rate of efficiency increase.  This would mitigate the effect of over-production of any particular waste type.

Kristin also brought up a good point: current cloning methods can’t control for varied expressions of genes and the cellular differentiation processes.  Life has built-in processes to maintain diversity.  Although DNA is very well designed to transmit a message faithfully, some processes exist to enforce genetic variety (e.g. “crossing over”).

Here’s a closing thought… perhaps even the soot of yesterday’s wood-burning stoves could be the input to tomorrow’s nanotechnology manufacturing plants: Fullerenes, carbon nanotubes.  We now need to apply technology to sustain technology.  After all, it seems unlikely other approaches could keep up.  This is technological self-sustainability: a reason engineers will have jobs well into the future.

There are many challenging aspects to standardized education.  One thing I have come to realize is that it’s not just a matter of “setting the bar.”

While one might expect standardized education to only advance society, it affects each student differently.  A seemingly “below-average student” (by some broad/comprehensive standardized measure) could actually just be too focused to perform well by the standard measure.  Every student is unique.  About half of all students are above average and half below, and some students are “outliers:” either scoring exceptionally low or very high.

We typically evaluate students by comprehensive tests.  Teachers must devote time preparing the majority of students for the tests, so the advanced students are effectively wasting time while the others catch up.  So, I think it’s impossible to only set a minimum standard for a single body of students and not inadvertently affect the high performers.  This is why we have Advanced Placement and accelerated tracks for the students.  Segmenting students by scores allows us to at least differentiate among 3 main groups: below-average, average, and above-average.  Instructors can then be more efficient with respect to meeting the needs of each group.

Narrow versus Broad – Specialization and Standardization

Is focus bad?  Consider the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.

Specialization is something I’ve noticed more and more from international students arriving at U.S. graduate schools.  Some students, particularly some I’ve met from China, have discussed considerable specialization at the high school level.  The U.S. seems to be (slowly) heading in that direction.  While I have noticed we have fewer students (compared to years past) choosing “undecided engineering” upon enrollment,  even the choice of “electrical engineering” is very broad.  (I’ve put together lists from several freshman recruiting sessions at Georgia Tech)  I know Computer Engineering graduates at Tech who in graduate school finally specialize in bioinformatics, business consulting, etc.  An American student could never “catch up” to the expertise of the highly specialized student of the same age and in the same field.

So now we need standards for all the specialties.  For instance, we now have computer engineering distinct from electrical engineering, and we have environmental engineering distinct from civil engineering.  Specialization is sometimes at odds with standardization.

Of course, we need “Jacks-of-all-trades” just as we need specialists.  Maybe we do in fact have a balance in the U.S., but standardization is likely upsetting that balance.  For instance, a major funding agency in the U.S. distinguishes among grant recipients on factors such as outreach or “broader impacts,” which I think are good in principle, but I’ve heard several people say these are weighted too much and dilute the efforts to achieve breakthroughs.

Forcing Progress – Does it Work?

We need more (good) teachers.  With one professor facing 200 students, each student is presented with the same information as many others.  Two hundred dialogues just aren’t feasible.  So, we have instruction by dictation.  It’s dilution from the start.  The instructor tailors his/her material to the audience, but not to the individual.  The diffusion of information in this manner suggests partial capture by each unique student.  Without conversing with students, one cannot achieve the full transfer of the information.

Another perspective is that we may need fewer students.  Should we really push all high school students to university?  In many ways, the average is stationary: there will always be a spread of students.  The best today may seem better than yesterday, but could it be an illusion based upon the changing environment?  Our species hasn’t changed dramatically, aptitudes probably haven’t changed, rather the resources have changed.  When someone raises the standards, teachers and students must find ways to meet the standards (in some cases even forging student test answers to improve scores (in Atlanta, GA)).  Sure the students and teachers will adapt, but how?  Does a below-average student adapt in a way we can predict?

I think the result of this musing is that standards deal with averages, and we must account for that where necessary in unique situations.  It seems a student desiring to stand out should exert only sufficient comprehensive effort to exceed the standards, but meanwhile he/she should devote the majority of effort toward a single interesting subject.

A Perspective

Tech has given me and my fellow students innumerable opportunities to lead extracurricular programs cultivating balanced/well-rounded graduates.  However, the required bulk of the college experience takes a sort of “cookie-cutter” approach and can easily leave little time for the other development.

Indeed there is a bit of a disconnect between what is taught and assessed, and what is expected of U.S. engineering graduates.  A standardized undergraduate “McEducation” (as one professor put it) spoon-fed much of the material to me in a somewhat stifling way.  Should we mass-produce graduates?  Should we drive all high school graduates to universities?  The classes provided good challenges and problems, and the professors prepared me to solve them.  However, I had almost forgotten the magic of actually finding the problems and discussing their relevance and significance – the thrill of blazing a path.  That was the void for which I turned to academic research.

Outlook

I believe in the mantra “it takes all kinds.”

I also see a fundamental mixing and homogenization of things in our world.  Despite a round Earth, our world is becoming “flat.”  The separation between people, cities, planets, and nearly anything is virtually decreasing.  Air travel moved people among cities within the space of a day.  Electronic communication has enabled practically instantaneous communication among a majority of the population.  I’m not talking about broadband in a majority of homes (not true), but rather TV, phone, and radio.  Cultural divides are changing, and slang and dialect seem to be mixing.

We are now bombarded by so much diffuse information: tweets, fast-paced TV ads, websites featuring 10 different types of content on a single page, etc.  How will the future generation of students focus?  I think this is something we must address, and naturally, we will strive to make the diffusion in the world efficient, manageable, and convenient.  Will this be the task of tomorrow’s students?

Standardization must diversify into specializations… multiple standards.  Indeed this is already happening.

A Challenge to Instructors

I challenge professors to do as Feynman, E.F. Taylor (Oersted winner, 1998), and others have done: introduce the modern concepts early and without obsolete baggage.  Excite the students with the newest things, but teach them the time-invariant tools of the trade which allow them to efficiently solve problems both old and new.  Show students on the first day of class the latest technology, and  “put the cart before the horse” a bit to lead them backwards through the syllabus toward the fundamentals they intuitively know.

Links

Should Everyone Go to College? (Added 2009-09-18.  I glad to see some agreement on this point.)

The Infinity Project (open curriculum for science and engineering)

It seems obvious that lawyers scrutinize jury selection because it is a controllable factor which has some at least statistically significant influence on outcomes.  Now, here’s a question:  can someone “game” the selection process – undetected?

• No selection.
• No (or fewer) exemptions.  The educated, wealthy, disabled, etc. must be included.
• No unanimity requirement.  Use majority or perhaps super-majority (> 85%).  Unanimity is an ideal which is inconsistent with significant sample sizes and random selection.

The latest from the “we” campaign highlights scientific testimony presented to Congress which demonstrates the necessity of energy reform in America.  We need to “Repower America” by improving cleaning up legacy technologies and advancing the new.  One impediment is partisan competition with the big energy lobby.  The progressive movement is big on data but weak on funds.  In Washington, the dollar gets it done.

Last week, former Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Warner (retired) spoke before the congressional “Energy and Environment” subcommittee.  Based upon scientific data and decades of experience, their testimony is available below:

http://www.repoweramerica.org/content/al-gore-clean-energy-legislation

Will the hard facts and prominent leadership change anything?  The voices and faces alone are are not enough.  In our society, we vote with our dollars, and they’re still tied to oil and coal.  After all, we have few alternatives.

All right fellow internet-connected humans… it’s time to support Wikipedia, even in a small way.  I’m sure more than 1 million people worldwide use Wikipedia, so seriously… can’t they raise $6 million?  Wouldn’t that conservative estimate imply only $6 per person?  OK, so I’m a student, and I’m careful with cash anyway- but this was a no-brainer.  Give at least $6; heck, why not give $30 to make up for four friends who won’t contribute.  Then, urge them to contribute!

I consider that everyone at Tech I interacted with in the last week has probably directly benefited from Wikipedia.  The impact is huge, yet the Wikimedia Foundation is a lean non-profit which, by its premise, extracts huge effort from an immense number of “volunteers.”  I expect a donation will go much further toward world impact when invested in this organization than one could expect with most other global non-profits.

This brings to mind another point.  Warren Buffet consistently remarks that one must carefully consider the leadership when investing in organizations.  Though I’m still a meager contributor, I think we all strive for impact in what we do.  In philanthropic investments, I believe we can use the same investment strategy.  After all, we still want a good ROI, just not in our own wallets.  Looking at the Wikipedia management, financials, and dedication to transparency, I see that this is a well-managed and worthy cause with an immediately global impact and with sufficient internal drive and momentum to become even greater.