Habib Ndina shook his head. He too was a habitual skeptic, although from a much deeper well of intelligence than Thornton s; 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 full Shooting Gallery Syndrome slowly 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 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 were 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 that did not bode well for the species. 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 weekendsIt 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 Thornton s 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 Mathematical and Algorithmic Analysis of Palindromic Codons as Predictors of a Genes 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 make 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 that a particular gene would produce!
But if you could, you would see what proteins you would get without needing to do microassays and use crystallography to see what came up, 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 they were 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.
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.
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 overule 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, 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.
They stayed in the house for the balm of the air-conditioning, falling out of the ceiling vents like spills of clear syrup. They wrestled, they cleaned house, they ate breakfast and elevenses. Charlie read some of the Post while Joe devastated dinosaurs. Something in the Post about India s drought reminded Charlie of the Khembalis, and he put in his earphone and gave his friend Sridar a call.
Hey Sridar, its Charlie.
Charlie, good to hear from you! I got your message.
Oh good, I was hoping you had. Hows the lobbying business going?
Were keeping at it. Weve got some interesting clients, if you know what I mean.
Yes I do.
Charlie and Sridar had worked together for a lobbying firm several years before. Now Sridar worked for Branson and Ananda, a small but prestigious firm representing several foreign governments in their dealings with the American government. Some of these governments had customs at home that made representing them to Congress a challenge.
So you said something about a new country? Im glad youre keeping an eye out for new clients for me.
Well it was through Anna, like I said. Charlie explained how they had met. When I was talking to them I thought they could use your help.
Oh dear, how nice.
Yeah well, you need some challenges.
Right, like I have no challenges. Whats this new country, then?
Have you heard of Khembalung?
I think so. One of the League of Drowning Nations?
Yeah thats right.
Youre asking me to take on a sinking island nation?
Actually theyre not sinking, its the ocean thats rising.
Even worse. I mean what are we going to be able to do about that, stop global warming?
Well, yeah. Thats the idea. But you know. Therell be all sorts of other countries working on the same thing. Youd have lots of allies.
Uh-huh.
Anyway they could use your help, and theyre good guys. Interesting. I think youd enjoy them. You should at least meet with them and see.
Yeah okay. My plate is kinda full right now, but I could do that. No harm in meeting.
Oh good. Thanks Sridar, I appreciate that.
No problem. Hey can I have Krakatoa too?
Bye.
Bye.
After that Charlie was in the mood to talk, but he had no real reason to call anybody. He and Joe played again. Bored, Charlie even resorted to turning on the TV. A pundit show came on and helplessly he watched. They are such lapdogs, he complained to Joe. See, that whole studio is a kind of pets bed, and these guys sit in their places like pets in the palm of a giant, speaking what the giant wants to hear. My God how can they stand it! They know perfectly well what theyre up to, you can see the way they parade their little hobbies to try to distract us, see that one copies definitions out of the dictionary, and that one there has memorized all the rules of pinochle for Christs sake, all to disguise the fact that they have not a single principle in their heads except to defend the rich. Disgusting.