Thornton started by shaking his head. This ones gotten two Goods and two Fairs, and it wasnt very impressive to me either. It may be a candidate for limited discussion. It doesnt really exhibit a grasp of the difficulties involved with codon tampering, and I think it replicates the work being done in Seattle. The applicant seems to have been too busy with the broader impacts component to fully acquaint himself with the literature. Besides which, it wont work.
People laughed shortly at this extra measure of disdain, which was palpable, and to those who didnt know Thornton, a little surprising. But Frank had seen Stuart Thornton on panels before. He was the kind of scientist who habitually displayed an ultrapure devotion to the scientific method, in the form of a relentless skepticism about everything. No study was designed tightly enough, no data were clean enough. To Frank it seemed obvious that it was really a kind of insecurity, part of the gestural set of a beta male convincing the group he was tough enough to be an alpha male.
The problem with these gestures was that in science, ones intellectual power was like the muscle mass of an Australopithecus, there for all to see. You couldnt fake it. No matter how much you ruffed your fur or exposed your teeth, in the end your intellectual strength was discernable in what you said and how insightful it was. Mere skepticism was like baring teeth; anyone could do it. For that reason Thornton was a bad choice for a panel, because while people could see his attitude and try to discount it, he set a tone that was hard to shake off. If there was an always-defector in the group, one had to be less generous oneself in order not to become a sap.
That was why Frank had invited him.
Thornton went on: The basic problem is at the level of their understanding of an algorithm. An algorithm is not just a simple sequence of mathematical operations that can each be performed in turn. Its a matter of designing a grammar that will adjust the operations at each stage, depending on the results from the stage before. Theres a very specific encoding math that makes that work. They dont have that here.
The others nodded and tapped in notes at their consoles. Soon enough they were on to the next proposal, with that one posted under Dont Fund.
Now Frank could predict with some confidence how the rest of the day would go. A depressed norm had been set, and even though the third reporter, Alice Freundlich from Harvard, subtly rebuked Thornton by talking about how well designed her first jacket was, she did so in a less generous context, and was not overenthusiastic. They think that the evolutionary processes of gene conservation can be mapped by cascade studies, and they want to model it with big computer array simulations. They claim theyll be able to identify genes prone to mutation.
Habib Ndina shook his head. He too was a habitual skeptic, although from a much deeper well of intelligence than Thorntons; he wasnt just making a display, he was thinking. Isnt the genomes past pretty much mapped by now? he complained. Do we really need more about evolutionary history?
Well, maybe not. Broader impacts might suffer there.
And so the day proceeded, and, with some subliminal prompting from Frank (Are you sure they have the lab space? Do you think thats really true though? How would that work? How could that work?) the time came when the full Shooting Gallery Syndrome had emerged. The panelists very slightly lost contact with their sense of the proposals as human efforts performed under a deadline, and started to compare them to some perfect model of scientific practice. In that light, of course, all the candidates were wanting. They all had feet of clay and so their proposals all became clay pigeons, cast into the air for the group to take potshots at. New jacket tossed up: bang! bang! bang!
This ones toast, someone said at one point.
Of course a few people in such a situation would stay anchored, and begin to shake their heads or wrinkle their noses, or even protest the mood, humorously or otherwise. But Frank had avoided inviting any of the real stalwarts he knew, and Alice Freundlich did no more than keep things pleasant. The impulse in a group toward piling on was so strong that it often took on extraordinary momentum. On the savannah it would have meant an expulsion and a hungry night out. Or some poor guy torn limb from limb.
Frank didnt need to tip things that far. Nothing explicit, nothing heavy. He was only the facilitator. He did not express an obvious opinion on the substance of the proposals at any point. He watched the clock, ran down the list, asked if everybody had said what they wanted to say when there was three minutes left out of the fifteen; made sure everyone got their scores into the system at the end of the discussion period. Thats an Excellent and five Very Goods. Alice do you have your scores on this one?
Meanwhile the discussions got tougher and tougher.
I dont know what she could have been thinking with this one, its absurd!
Let me start by suggesting limited discussion.
Frank began subtly to apply the brakes. He didnt want them to think he was a bad panel manager.
Nevertheless, the attack mood gained momentum. Baboons descending on wounded prey; it was almost Pavlovian, a food-rewarded joy in destruction. The pleasure taken in wrecking anything meticulous. Frank had seen it many times: a carpenter doing demolition with a sledgehammer, a vet who went duck-hunting on weekends It was unfortunate, given their current overextended moment in planetary history, but nevertheless real. As a species they were therefore probably doomed. And so the only real adaptive strategy, for the individual, was to do ones best to secure ones own position. And sometimes that meant a little strategic defection.
Near the end of the day it was Thorntons turn again. Finally they had come to the proposal from Yann Pierzinski. People were getting tired.
Frank said, Okay, almost done here. Lets finish them off, shall we? Two more to go. Stu, were to you again, on Algorithmic Analysis of Palindromic Codon Sequences as Predictors of Gene/Protein Expression. Mandel and Pierzinski, Caltech.
Thornton shook his head wearily. I see its got a couple of Very Goods from people, but I give it a Fair. Its a nice thought, but it seems to be promising too much. I mean, predicting the proteome from the genome would be enough in itself, but then understanding how the genome evolved, building error-tolerant biocomputersits like a list of the big unsolved problems.
Francesca Taolini asked him what he thought of the algorithm that the proposal hoped to develop.
Its too sketchy to be sure! Thats really what hes hoping to find, as far as I can tell. There would be a final toolbox with a software environment and language, then a gene grammar to makes sense of palindromes in particular, he seems to think those are important, but I think theyre just redundancy and repair sequences, thats why the palindromic structure. Theyre like the reinforcement at the bottom of a zipper. To think that he could use this to predict all the proteins a gene would produce!
But if you could, you would see what proteins you would get without needing to do microassays, Francesca pointed out. That would be very useful. I thought the line he was following had potential, myself. I know people working on something like this, and it would be good to have more people on it, its a broad front. Thats why I gave it a Very Good, and Id still recommend we fund it. She kept her eyes on her screen.
Well yeah, Thornton said crossly, but where would he get the biosensors that would tell him if he was right or not? Theres no controls.
That would be someone elses problem. If the predictions were turning out good you wouldnt have to test all of them, that would be the point.
Frank waited a beat. Anyone else? he said in a neutral tone.
Pritchard and Yao Lee joined in. Lee obviously thought it was a good idea, in theory. He started describing it as a kind of cookbook with evolving recipes, and Frank ventured to say, How would that work?
Well, by successive iterations of the operation, you know. It would be to get you started, suggest directions to try.
Look, Francesca interjected, eventually were going to have to tackle this issue, because until we do, the mechanics of gene expression are just a black box. Its a very valid line of inquiry.
Habib? Frank asked.
It would be nice, I guess, if he could make it work. Its not so easy. It would be like a roll of the dice to support it.
Before Francesca could collect herself and start again, Frank said, Well, we could go round and round on that, but were out of time on this one, and its late. Those of you who havent done it yet, write down your scores, and lets finish with one more from Alice before we go to dinner.
Hunger made them nod and tap away at their consoles, and then they were on to the last one for the day, Ribozymes as Molecular Logic Gates. When they were done with that, Frank stuck its Post-it on the whiteboard with the rest. Each little square of paper had its proposals averaged scores written on it. It was a tight scale; the difference between 4.63 and 4.70 could matter a great deal. They had already put three proposals in the Fund column, two in the Fund If Possible, and six in the Do Not Fund. The rest were stuck to the bottom of the board, waiting to be sorted out the following day. Pierzinskis was among those.
That evening the group went out for dinner at Tara, a good nearby Thai restaurant with a wall-sized fish tank. The conversation was animated and wide-ranging, the mood getting better as the meal wore on. Afterward a few of them went to the hotel bar; the rest retreated to their rooms. At eight the next morning they were back in the conference room doing everything over again, working their way through the proposals with an increasing efficiency. Thornton recused himself for a discussion of a proposal from someone at his university, and the mood in the room noticeably lightened; even when he returned they held to this. They were learning each others predilections, and sometimes jetted off into discussions of theory that were very interesting even though only a few minutes long. Some of the proposals brought up interesting problems, and several strong ones in a row made them aware of just how amazing contemporary work in bioinformatics was, and what some of the potential benefits for human health might be, if all this were to come together and make a robust biotechnology. The shadow of a good future drove the group toward more generous strategies. The second day went better. The scores were, on average, higher.
My Lord, Alice said at one point, looking at the whiteboard. There are going to be some very good proposals that were not going to be able to fund.
Everyone nodded. It was a common feeling at the end of a panel. Rate of funded proposals was down to around ten or twenty percent these days.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if we could fund about ninety percent of all the applications. You know, only reject the limited-discussions. Fund everything else.
It might speed things up.
Might cause a revolution.
Now back to reality, Frank suggested. Last jacket here.
When they had all tapped in their grading of the forty-fourth jacket, Frank quickly crunched the numbers on his general spreadsheet, sorting the applicants into a hierarchy from one to forty-four, with a lot of ties.
He printed out the results, including the funding each proposal was asking for; then called the group back to order. They started moving the unsorted Post-its up into one or another of the three columns.
Pierzinskis proposal had ended up ranked fourteenth out of the forty-four. It wouldnt have been that high if it werent for Francesca. Now she urged them to fund it; but because it was in fourteenth place, the group decided it should be put in Fund If Possible, with a bullet.
Frank moved its Post-it on the whiteboard up into the Fund If Possible column, keeping his face perfectly blank. There were eight in Fund If Possible, six in Fund, twelve in Do Not Fund. Eighteen to go, therefore, but the arithmetic of the situation would doom most of these to the Do Not Fund column, with a few stuck into the Fund If Possible as faint hopes, and only the best couple funded.
Later it would be Franks job to fill out a Form Seven for every proposal, summarizing the key aspects of the discussion, acknowledging outlier reviews that were more than one full place off the average, and explaining any Excellents awarded to nonfunded reviews; this was part of keeping the process transparent to the applicants, and making sure that nothing untoward happened. The panel was advisory only, NSF had the right to overrule it, but in the great majority of cases the panels judgments would standthat was the whole pointthat was scientific objectivity, at least in this part of the process.
In a way it was funny. Solicit seven intensely subjective and sometimes contradictory opinions; quantify them; average them; and that was objectivity. A numerical grading that you could point to on a graph. Ridiculous, of course. But it was the best they could do. Indeed, what other choice did they have? No algorithm could make these kinds of decisions. The only computer powerful enough to do it was one made up of a networked array of human brainsthat is to say, a panel. Beyond that they could not reach.
So they discussed the proposals one last time, their scientific potential and also their educational and benefit-to-society aspects, the broader impacts rubric, usually spelled out rather vaguely in the proposals, and unpopular with research purists. But as Frank put it now, NSF isnt here just to do science but also to promote science, and that means all these other criteria. What it will add to society. What Anna will do with it, he almost said.
And speak of the devil, Anna came in to thank the panelists for their efforts; she was slightly flushed and formal in her remarks. When she left, Frank said, Thanks from me too. Its been exhausting as usual, but good work was done. I hope to see all of you here again at some point, but I wont bother you too soon either. I know some of you have planes to catch, so lets quit now, and if any of you have anything else you want to add, tell me individually. Okay, were done.
Frank printed out a final copy of the spreadsheet. The money numbers suggested they would end up funding about ten of the forty-four proposals. There were seven in the Fund column already, and six of those in the Fund If Possible column had been ranked slightly higher than Yann Pierzinskis proposal. If Frank, as NSFs representative, did not exercise any of his discretionary power to find a way to fund it, that proposal would be declined.
Another day for Charlie and Joe. A late spring morning, temperatures already in the high nineties and rising, humidity likewise.