Transcripts For CSPAN2 Lorraine 20240704

Welcome and thank you all for coming, especially on this evening. Im Eileen Gillooly and. As the executive director of the Society Fellows and heyman ceer humanities here at columbia. Its my privilege as well as my pleasure to welcome you to this evenings celebration of lorraine dustins. New book rivals how science has learned to cooperate. This is the first of what we hope will be many cooperative hosted by the columbia Global Reports, which my colleague Nicholas Lemann will tell you more about in a minute. And the society of fellow at human centers, otherwise known as the of new book series in the society of fellows. Its a series whichondistinguise society of fellows in the humanities at columbia, and which founded in 1975, is about celebrate its 50th anniversary. Before i introduce the speakers and turn over the proceedings to nick, wholl be moderating the conference session, id like to thank all the many folks who helped to make this event possible, especially camille mcduffie, courtney knights, Allison Lindsay schramm, sylvia genetic, aaron fay, and our cosponsors, the columbia Journalism School, the Columbia Center for contemporary critical and its 1313 seminar series, and the Columbia Center for science society. Lorraine destin is director emerita of the Max Planck Institute for the history of science in berlin. A visiting professor in the committee on social thought, the university of chicago, a permanent fellow at the berlin for advanced study, and the alumna of the Columbia Society of fellows internationally acclaimed for her contributions to the history of science, shes the winner of awards and prizes and the author or editor of over 20 books, many of which coauthored or coedited with colleagues, thus showing herself to be a brilliant example of how historians of science have learned to cooperate. They will deringer is an associate professor of science, technology and society at mit. His Award Winning book, calculated values, finance, politics and the quantitative age, which he completed during his residency. The society of fellows is a history how numerical calculations became an authoritative mode of public reasoning. His Research Interests ranged widely time from early compound tables and changing social relations. Since in the english countryside in 1600s to the place of computer spreadsheets in the culture wall street in the 1980s as well as currently completing a book about the long history of present value as a computational that is the problem of determine what future property ought to be worth today on the stein guard is assistant professor in the department of history here at columbia, and had she not accepted a fellowship at harvard days before we invited her to interview with the Society Fellows at columbia, she too would be in a lot of the Society Fellows. Shes the author of axiomatic mathematical thought and high modernism just out year which examines the influence of axiomatic reasoning on. Middle midcentury American Intellectual thought from the natural and social sciences to literary criticism and modern design. Her current book project, accountable to democracy say mathematical reasoning and democracy in america 1922. Now examines how mathematical and Computing Technologies impacted electoral politics in the United States in the 20th century. And finally, nicholas is the Joseph Pulitzer second and edith pulitzer more professor of journalism, the director of columbia globa report and dean emeritus of columbia Journalism School, a member of the new York Institute for the humanities. The the American Academy of arts and sciences and the American Academy of political and social science. Nick is, also a staff writer at the new yorker and the author of six books, including think most recently transaction man the rise of the deal and decline of the american dream. Please help me welcome the speakers. Of okay. So give everybody a chance to just arrange ourselves. Welcome everybody. Im really glad youre here. And its wonderful to see a packed house like this for for this book. So just say a few things and then will plunge in. We have a were maybe like the Journalism School itself, columbia global sort of sits in some zone between journalism and academe. And in that spirit we have a more sort of free flowing style of putting on events than, people sitting at a table and reading statements. So im going to start by asking each of our panelists questions and then i hope that a little ways into that theyll start interrupting each other and asking each questions or responding and then, you know, at some point well go to being interactive with the audience so please i encourage you to do that. If you do go to the mike where we we have the good luck of being filmed by and they wont history wont record and this National Television audience hear your question unless you say it into the mic so so when that time comes, a couple other i want to welcome the culture which is here selling the book our independentmembers. Columbias 1750 forces i 80, an alumni group who often come to our events and warm welcome to them and. Also want to thank the mellon foundation, which funded this book so. I, i, i promised lorraine i wouldnt use term personal journey even though were using more informal format. But i will say that the way i met lorraine is, you know, in journalism. Were always debating objectivity and its the kind of not the worlds most scintillating debate has this kind of stale quality to. And i was dean here, so i had to be in the debate. But i was getting a little weary of it. And i came across somebody told me about lorraines Journal Articles that, then, you know, turned into her book with, peter gallus, and called objectivity. And that just turned a light on for me. And i started this material to our students and i was i was very much struck by this and other work shes done by how original and arresting and engaging it is. And you know, if we want to get back to objectivity, id be happy. But thats not our primary business. So when we started columbia reports, which is a nonprofit nonprofit action Book Publishing company, we bring out six books a year here at columbia, you see what they look like. Theyre all in the same format, but there are no wide range of topics and we live on book sales and fundraising. Hence the shout out to mellon. Um, when started, just about the first thing i did was call lorraine and we had a couple of conversations i heard about this book. Um, this was a fish that took a really long time to reel in, but, but now, almost ten years later, since we first started talking about it here is and were thrilled to have it out. Its also, you know, its history part of our journalistic impulse is to say, well, this is wonderful history, but whats the relevance to the present situation . I might slip and ask that, but i wont start with that. Okay. Um, so ill just start with how did you get onto th know from tt theres theres two long ago scientific collaborative projects that were international or that that lorraine writes about one is called the cartesian oil and one is called the International Cloud atlas. So what got you on to these. Yes well. First of all, thanks to you to eileen and especially to alva and to wilt for being here and all of you it really did begin in another project as most do, which was about the ahives of the sciences. So these are the sources which, some sciences gather in order to make possible the science of the future and examples include especially a astronomy in geology and evolutionary biology. For obvious reasons. And i became very struck by something which ran to a great deal of my training in7y formal rationality theory, namely that these long term actually survived and. The two examples in the book, examples of long term Scientific Collaborationsthe odd, but the e that i began with actually, which is not the book, in part because of the difference german and english was one of the humanities or the humanities really were in the vanguard of these Large International collaborative scholarly projects in the midnight 18th century. This was the great roman legal historian and Theodore Mommsen corpus in scripture on platinum, which was a collection of all the inscriptions of the roman empire. And this these are projects which start in the latter half of the 19th century. They survived two world wars. They survived of decolonization. They survived revolution as in the case of the corpus inscriptions in arab it survives germany being divided, germany being reunited and there are multiple opportunities not only opportunities, temptations, invitations to defect from projects. And me people defect from these projects. There an enormous investment in time trouble money, but astonishing. Only they persevere. They survive so that in many ways the seed crystal for this book, which was the story, which was the puzzle contrary to all the dictates of theory, that people do jump ship instead, they at least a core of them from generation to generation. Were talking about projects last almost 100 years, sometimes than 100 years, actually actually managto endure as collaboration once all of these questions, of course, were sharpened by the events of the to a global crises, planetary Climate Change can see the yes. The these are moments at which, we would hope, for some form of international to deal with problems which are global and scale. The only groups which manage to organize themselves on a global were the scientists reacting to both so that those were the two moments i think, which germinated this book. And so now lets go through the examples briefly and tell us about them. So the precondition for what im about to tell you is a technological precondition, which is in 1800. And it took 30 and 60 days to cross the atlaic, depending on the season, the weather. But by the end of the century, around 1900 due to innovations in steamships and navigation, it takes only five days. What this makes possible are internal National Congresses not, Just International scientific congresses. The First International congress is in 1840. In london is for the abolition of slavery. But all kinds of face to meetings of people wish to organize on, if not a planetary, at least on an international scale. And the two examples which nick mentioned and are two examples of in the scientific realm of these kinds of collaboration and the glacier, which is the great sky map, is was launched in paris in 1887, gathering the clegg de la creme of the worlds Astronomical Community and. The idea was to have a collaboration amongst observatory scattered all over the globe to photo graph the sky so that would have a record of what the sky looked like from the earth in, the year circa 1900 to pass on to astronomers of the future to. As they said, the astronomers of year 3000. So civilizations would rise, would fall, but they always be astronomers and they would be grateful for this astro photographic record of this project was only supposed to take five years, dragged on until 1970, when the object loss was administered by the International Astronomical union. But it is still much a part of Astronomical Research to these days because its only by looking at that record that we stars and the motions ofe of socalled proper motions of the socalled stars, the other was a very different kind of meteorolo thought that what we needed was a carefully calibrated and atlas to, the types, the major types of clouds so that observers all over the would mean the same thing when they said cumulus, cumulus, nimbus stratus, etc. This was also a product of a much smaller and more Informal Group who met in uppsala, sweden in august of 1894 to create the first International Cloud. The cloud atlas is now it must be its fourth edition in 2070,■< seen online and is still being used by observers all over the world to stand rise their perceptions and classify creations of clouds. Well, let me a couple of the things. As i have vowed not to use the term personal journey, i also found that to use the term key takeaways, but, you know, in the business school. But its counterintuitive. As you said at the outset, we have the image of scientists, people with big egos who are always competing each other. I got some of that from reading hits, work with her colleagues. And but here they are working together. So why are they working together . Yeah, thats a really good ■question. Oh, the so that the balance that has to be struck is between an intense, ferocious competition for the very scarce resource of recognition, honor and some form of collaboration. You mightsk well, why is the collaboration necessary at its necessary because there are too many things to investigate. This is a realized passion that dawns on the scientists in middle of the 17th century with the creation of the first academies. So they know theyve to somehow cooperate, but they consider each other to be arch rivals for fame and glory. And sometimes now as then, for academic positions and, the book is really about the delicate equilibrium that has to be struck in order for this system to at all. And the message is not that this was a problem that was solved once and for all. Its that its a work in progress and at any moment it could be. And i think it at the moment being destabilized a few things about. This one, i guess were working on this of in the covid high covid and it was striking i guess the way to put it is. Whats the difference between on zoom, which was not possible during the time described in your book, but is possible now and having inperson meetings which you describe with great spirit humor in the book . Well, well, for one thing, people cant get drunk on zoom in the same way they can. And my impression, not the official protocols, these international collaborations, but the stuff find in the archives is that these were really quite boozy gatherings and that that was necessary because, you know, to go back to the cult to see how the project you just had to look attronomer. So the observatory in paris, i dont know many of you know paris, but its its on the bank. So michelle, most of the delegates that came very sensibly stayed in that neighborhood, you know, where they could walk to the meetings. Where did the british stay . They stayed at the Hotel Anglais on the right bank where they could hold their private of war against. The french and the germans, as to what telescope was going to be used, what grid measurement was going to be used, and the only way in which those very fierce altercations could be settled was over nine course dinners at everybody got extremely tipsy and became best by the end of the meeting. Its really difficult to replicate that on zoom before. While im asking the next question, being advised that if you can move the mic a few inches from okay, so i assume a lot of people in the room seen the movie oppenheimer the impression i get from the book is that that could create a kind false positive impression about Scientific Collaboration in the sense that for reasons that are obvious, one government is sponsoring the whole thing and everybody leaves they are and becomes a Government Employee in a very remote area. And thats the way to make a big breakthrough. But that idea runs to the way i your book about when collaboration is successful. I mean, the film. Has a problem which even more fundamental in which it is the very name suggests its centered on one individual and i mean, this is something that historians of science wrestle all the time, which is the scientists conceive of their history as a kind of Mount Rushmore of titanic figures. And its not as if there arent titanic figures. Its just that it is an intrinsically collect enterprise. You get only, you know, the only the faintest glimpse of that in the film, even though los alamos was the ultimate collaborative project and also theyre all theyre all there together with their families in a remote location, as you say, youve got to imagine the typical scientific as people going home to their home countries with their usual jobs, their usual preoccupy patients, and yet somehow theyve got to sustain the momentum, the commitments they made after those nine course dinners and the fourth toast to their colleagues in remote parts of the world. And thats more that its that sustained quality of collaboration as opposed tohe intense, secluded, very highly funded project of the los alamos kind, which is the template Scientific Collaboration. I want to push you to take it even one step further. If im not over reading the book, which is if you want a guarantee the failure of a Scientific Collaboration, you would have it be done only by one government and controlled by the right. And by taking taking it too far, i could imagine. I mean, the situation with los alamos was also anomalous in that it benefited hugely from the fact that had been a forced most talented scientists europe, like hans beta, for example, or john von neumann, who were part and essential of this collaboration. So even though it looks like an extremely american project, it was in Fact International project, but also just to a little more, if youre a if youre a head of state, you would i want to do this right. So going to own the whole thing and control and make it, you know, a french, not an international project, but that impulse would not actually be to the work. Right . It depends on what it is. I mean, to take the case of the french because the french strength in mathematics would be better able to speak to this than. I, i could imagine, frankly, an all french mathematics project that could be quite successful with the kind of project and empirical project, especially an empirical on a global scale thats impossible to imagine with one government. Well, me switch since you prompted this to alma and ask if you study lets say we can see the point to lorraine. Can we cling to saying well, at least mathematicians, so Little Geniuses and they work alone. Is that fair . No. I mean, the simple too early to say, but the simpl■is of course, of course. Thats not the case. Right. I think that whats kind of interesting because the learning starts the book with the car right, as this kind of last moment that there was still the belief that one individual, one scientist or at least wanted to believe can have and do all the experiments on his og that for science i think its the interesting question is that for science, we no longer has anymore that there is the soul kind of scientist it can really do everything. She can do everything on our own yet for mathematics, we still have that we still think that for some reason the question of a question should be why has it been the case that the kind of self formation of the lone mathematician has survived after. And i think, you know, there is part of it is the self fashioning of mathematician that have done a lot of work over the years of making sure that that sort of vision of mathematics will continue. But all the stories that lauren tells in the book, there is the First International congress of mathematics of mathematicians starts the end of the 19th century. It still on until, of course, today and more than that, over the past few years we have seen very clearly the rise of mathematical collaboration have really, really i will say that e things that i really enjoyed about the book is this moment about this emphasis is put on face to face communication. s how important it really reminded me. So the first the first paper ever wrote, i was still in grad, still in grad school at the time. I was looking at this effort by mathematician starting in the 1950s to write the proof. It took 30 years, do about 100 mathematician. The was thousands of pages. And the question how can they collaborate on such a thing . And the thing that came out is exactly this point about face to face, the face to face communication with were incribly important. But one of the things that the face of face to face communication was important for. It was not just this feeling of having a community that wanted belongs to, but also for the ability to understand what is the mathematical, mathematica d i think theres been a lot of work by historian of science showing that the face to face and communication, its not. I mean, i love the idea of the nine course meal. I think i want somebody at nsf to read the book so they will the nsf now start funding this of dinners. But i think that its not just about that sort of kind of building of a community. Its also what historians shown that even if its about experimental or its about theoreticalcommunication are fundamental for the ability of scientific knowledge to travel. In other words, the notion that you can, once scientists can or monmouth addition at the same can just simply published a result and then another mathematician or another scientist on the other side of the earth will, just pick up the paper and read that and be able to follow up. Its simply not the case in most cases. You know, thats is foundation. I think for the not just the kind of ability of the community to sustain itself as a community for long term, but just for the scientific knowledge to actually circulate globally. Well, were you are you buying this heavy emphasis on collaboration and to face collaboration . Did that strike you as something you hadnt thought about before . No, i actually i agree, i really i really like it. I have a similar sort of when i, when my dear friends, is a historian of organic chemistry. And i remember reading many of his first paper he ever wrote with papers about about this 1890s conference on chemical nomenclature. And again, the story were always like it came down to people getting together like that was really essence of it. But what really struck me about the book was that the theres kind of a kind of two stories in some ways, and one is a story about Scientific Collaboration and another a different story, which is about what kind of Scientific Community and the thing that that struck me was theres one story in the book which is sort of what we have largely, which is already been discussing which is the history of science, civic collaboration, of practice, of Scientific Collaborations that examples of projects that span geographic space that were international that were enduring and influential. But in some ways, i didnt necessarily think that was what the book wasoing to be about. Theres another story which runs kind of alongside it not parallel, but into into weaving with it, which is a story, the idea of the Scientific Community. And so in the book there is, in addition to a succession of of accounts of particular successful Scientific Collaborations is a fascinating kind of genealogy of the idea of what we would now call the Scientific Community that idea that you know, the Scientific Community came together in response to Climate Change, in response to covid. And so in the books three sections, theres a kind of wonderful account of of the succsion of these different kind of imagination different sort of imagined concepts about what the Scientific Community might look like. In the 18th century, it was the republic of letters in the 19th century, and the sort of late 19th century. It was this kind of model of the worldongress weve been discussing of of kind of people, sort of leaders, all nations coming together in one particular place and having nine course meals in the 20th century. That gave way to a different of sort of kind of trans governmental or almost sort of United Nations style kind of bureaucrat attic model of sort of the community. And so the book sort of does two things. And one hand it tells a story about the the about how successful collabotion hpens and then the other it tells us sort of intellectual history of how it came to be that the idea that there was such a thing as the Scientific Community was even plausible. And i mean, now we kind talk about the sort of the way the sort of the scientific rolls off e tongue is sort of remarkable. And one of the things the book does really usefully is show that thats not at all obvious. So its not at all obvious that scientists constitute a community that that community can get along and do things any way that that community could be international, that it can be enduring. So thats what really me. But the thing that ive been kind of turning in my head is like, what do these two stories have to do with one another . Right . Does the you know, theres a story about specific projects that worked, specific elaborations that worked, and then there is other idea that there is such thing called the Scientific Community that gets invoked to say, you know, the Scientific Community has a consensus on Climate Change, right . The Scientific Community has a particular stance on covid policy. Um, and i wonder if they kind of related they even sort of are what the really last kind of thing that really struck me in the book is theres a couple of times you mentioned that this the Scientific Community only comes into being in the face of opposition, right . That in some sense it kind of material the Scientific Community materializes in the face of threats right anti antivax movements, Climate Change, skepticism. But even in earlier is kind of National Threats to scientific like la cinco with■ some so im just i want to kind of put that question out there are these two sort of different histories and kind of how do they they relate to one another. So yeah, please, you know, so because im an intellectual history, i mean, you guys know me. I believe in the causal efficacy of think before there can be the will to collaborate. There has to be a conception about that collaboration in what your framework takes place. And so think that theres real work beingone by these very conceptions of of a scientific collective, lets call it neutrally. And these visions really different i mean will your right to say and the republic of letters is hobbesian in its conception. It is the war of all against all sharpened pencils, dipped in venom. So it is not a cozy place. And even no, i have a very hard time. I mean, Harriet Zuckerman is in the audience. I mean, she would be infinitely Better Qualified than i to try to characterize the scientific committee. But, you know, this is a bizarre form of a community. Nobody knows who belongs to it. Nobody knows who speaks for it. It consists of universities journals, institutions, government institutions like the National Science foundation, a Research Institutes which are, if very loosely, if it all with one another, if theres anything in some way supplies the glue for this community, it is the socialize and training that takes place in graduate school and also as alma suggested the worldwide traffic postdocs which is essential the transmission of knowledge of all kinds so i i think that its you have to have some you know i think about the people to the scale who at any moment british are about to go home theyre about to off and just tell the french, the germans and everybody else that you know they can take their refracting telescopes and stuff it and. What, what, what keeps them. There is partly national fervor. They dont want the british to be cut out of this. And also show a commitment to some idea of, a scientific collective. And i think without that idea, i really do think that they would have defected. Can i jump here . Because just because this is one of the questions i was going to ask. So its just about this. When i was reading the book, i kept thinking about the use the Word Community. And i did something that often do, which is i went back williams keyword. I mean, williams keyboard. And when he one of the things that he says there about community is that unlike im trying to i hope i do justice but unlike other forms of kind of social organization such as nation or society, its the only one Community Says that is always used in the positive that. It doesnt even in the contention thats argument that its always used positively. And even right now when you read this, its of interesting because when you were asking the question, you used the word collective, right . And we which which kind of have a different. You know, sense for what we mean when you talk, when we say scientific collective as opposed to a Scientific Community. So i wonder what it is about, you know, specifically the kind of the use of a Scientific Community which itself of brings in some kind of a imaginative give. Again if you if you buy the the williams idea of the something that its its really is a positive know and it has a real sociological pedigree of that kind of domain versus gesellschaft. You know the idea this is more village like cozier more neighborly. I mean this of course will bring smiles to the face of people who have ever looked at correspondence of scientists and ■]mathematicians and, you know, the terrible things they say to and about each other. But but it think i think its a really interesting point, which is this theres a rosy glow cast over this by the Word Community and it starts to be used in the 19th century its used in a kind of just as well say, to kind of circle the wagons way, which is why isnt the british paying attention to views of the Scientific Community . So it just as says its adversarial in that way, but it is a sense that we are constituted as community by the fact that others are ignoring us in some other, you know, form of neglect or all of opposition and i wonder whether or not i mean, this is a story i know enough about to be able to narrate, but i think it would be extremely interesting to look at the fortunes of the world community, especially in late 19th and early 20th century sociology. And i think you can still hear echoes of that in edward shultzs account, the Scientific Community, which is you sort of hear mine occur in the background. Certain germans theorists of the early 20th century and his fierce opposition polanyis free market. Michael polanyi is a hungarian an american physical camus, but also philosopher of science and sociology of science who puts forth in the 1950s a view■m of Scientific Community as basically the free market, which is so free market that even hayek rejects it. And edward shills. Edward, his colleague actually of a sociologist at the university of chicago, says, no, no, no, this is like a religious community. You know, it has certain traditions and values that unite it. And i think thats the moment which exactly that positive is crystallized. So i want to sort of push back little against what this where this has been going from a journalist respect of. So i wander into a university as a middle aged man from a field that has no structure. Its structured as businesses, right. And we dont have any credentialing. So it was really striking to me academic disciplines which are not rich or powerful in the convention sense they dont have big headquarters buildings and billions of dollars in the bank. They sort of control universities because, you know, if you dont have the disciplinary associations approved training and credential you cant get a job if you try to get a job in a Physics Department at columbia and say, you know, no one in physics respects me, but im a really great guy, theyll say, well, that youre out of luck. So so i one way to ask the question would be, whats the relationship between these disciplines structures, the idea of community, which is sort of softer edged and the other would be to sort of disabuse me of my idea that this all works because it has these hardened systems and structures making it work so the issue insofar as real takes place in the especially the scientific world now it takes place at the disciplinary level. So the book describes the last great attempt to have kind of pan disciplinary internally Scientific Organization, which is wrecked upon the shores of world war one and now the international interNational Science is organized at the disciplinary level. That just simply confirms your point about the power, the disciplines and the the the real question. And it goes back to wills point, i think, is at what point do the astrophysicists who belong to a particular discipline . A particularly suddenly Start Talking in grandiose about we, the members of the Scientific Community embrace the meteorologists and the canons and god forbid the evolutionary biologist, etc. , etc. And that i think is really a situation which is almost socially staged. Its always a situation in which some body which does not understand the disciplinary organization of scholarship and science sees it simply as, you know, the university. Science to. And thats theent at which this crystallizes as a of a banner which all can march. But but i think i hear all of you saying if somehow these disciplinary structures didnt exist would still be Scientific Community. I hearing that correctly. Well, not for me, but i defer to the my colleagues. No, i mean, i no, i think thats right. I mean, i think that the i should say i think that the disciplinary structures are absolutely necessary are is kind of the bedrock on which the idea of community exists. One of the big points i took from the the book is that scientific that of these kind of scientific collectives going back to the republic of in the 18th century, we could go back to the 17th ntury and Royal Society of london kind of famously and even sort of earlier examples that any Scientific Community needs a kind of well constituted structure, exclusion, right. That essentially to have some way of determining who gets in and who gets out and the nature of those structures has changed, what it made it, what made it possible to be a member of the republic of letters in the 18th century would have been different than certainly now, would it . You know, makes it how one becomes a member of the Scientific Community constituted in the 21st century. But thats but but i think that one of the really interesting in the book is is precisely that the Scientific Community kind of depends in some sense, the idea that it is open to kind of everyone and yet only open to the right kinds of people. And i think you leave the book in precisely on this interesting kind of tension around around inclusivity and exclusivity, the kind of in the future of the sort of Scientific Community. Its either if you want to respond to i mean, i want to say i dont think i mean, its an interesting question i think that if you start to i mean, if you stop the physicist today, you know, well cross the street and well stop a physicist. And i assume potentially theyll say that they belong most of them might say they belong to a kind of international physicists community. Likely it would be even more narrow. They will be. Im i belong to a Kind International astrophysics, international condensed matter, physics, you know, community. I dont know that theyll say im part of the International Scientific community. Can i ask i, i mean, i wonder if they really i mean, if youll au really feel like youre part of an International Scientific community, i would if i had to guess, i dont think thats the case. So today that i think the only time would say that if there were, for example, a politician for example, who began to attack, as you can see, what happened with the attacks on, for example, virologist during pandemic, at which point, you know, the physicist did rally round and then the fall back would on the Scientific Method some kind of a version of i mean im trying to think about what would be the know its a good question to push because its not clear to me it would certainly be some sense of, if not the Scientific Method of of certain evidentiary economies of, you know, how how things are done. But, you know, i think that also the disciplines its not just that the disciplines credential they surely do credential they socialize. And a lot of you have either been to graduate school in this room or are in graduate school in room. And, you know, were of i speak its astonishing to me the degree to which a very relatively short period in someones life, lets say i should have five years these an deep imprint in terms of values social networks and a sense who is once and i think that in itself is you next to perhaps besides the military and medical school this is an extra ordinary achievement of group which was invented in the 19th century seminar are and then imported to laboratory in especially the the universities. And that i think is as much part of the discipline as having the credentials you know thats. So let me ask you a question that must be asked it all Panel Discussions in any field days but sort of into it at the end of your book on objects levity, what i prefer to see you probably wouldnt as theres this tell theological progress where you could train judgment. And then at the very end of the book your misstating. Well, maybe, but what if completely mechanical ways of measuring can so sophisticated that they replaced judgment. So were going with this. But yeah yeah, you know where im going with this or just generally of quantifying scientific research, to the extent that the scientists might begin to, if thats fair and i detect a little hint of that in the book rivals. But tell me if im wrong or id just like to know you think you know id be really interested. What will alma think about this as well because i am no expert cbt so lets take an example, which perhaps more mundane but better established, which is using Machine Learning programs to read mammograms, which is a kind classical trained judgment kind of task or, or electrocardiograms and it seems to be that theres been some success in this but it to have been achieved in a very different way than lets say young doctors are taught young radiologists are taught to read mammograms or even a young child taught how to identify. A zebra or a lion. The Machine Learning program require tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of examples and a group at m. I. T. Which specialize pieces in tricking up Machine Learning programs would be are thrown off by things which we not even notice, you know, a pixel out place in terms of its and this is not to say it cannot achieve a high level of accuracy its simply that it clearly does so by processes are not the same as human processes. And the question is, given that were extremely good things like trained judgment, why do we want to spend a great deal money and time and effort to train a machine which might be at things were not good at to do at. But this is a very you pushing list of questions to endure, making it argument to me. But do you know when i address this activity . Yeah. It doesnt have to be objective, obviously specifically, but kind ■dof slightly adjacent. But i one of the things the book takes on that i thought was really interesting is, a kind of broader process, the sort of mechanization in some ways of the kind of apparatus of the socialization of scientists, some so i think one of the really theres a wonderfully kind of tantalizing section at the end of the book about how basically increasingly the sort of the place that science can community its not even the right word, but sort of scientific happens in so many different sciences is through the journals, but not only journals. Citation counts anonymous peer review portals, online goes through a set of kind of high kind of increasingly mechanized and increasingly quantified tools that sort of determine what is good at, what is not, who gets credit and who gets rewarded. And who does not. And and theres a kind of there is there is a really there is a kind of ominous story in this book about basically in some ways how a form of scientific ptosis that had been based out on inperson interaction, on humans interacting with one another and forming relationships and learning certain norms has been replaced by a kind of very utility and very anonymous, very set of mechanisms. And i wanted do a sort of how how ominous did you feel when that section of the book . Because i felt ominous to me, really ominous. I i think that i mean, i think thats what i meant. I said that this is a system which is extremely precarious, jerryig be destabilized. I think were at a moment of real destabilization and it it starts, you know,at the incredie scientist, the number of scientific researchers expands. And, you know, many of many people will feel this way, that they are just deluged with requests to review articles posf they are to do the rest of their job. So you can see how this come to pass. On the other, the science citation index, which was the beginning of this trend when it was first being bruited, Robert Merton wrote an absolutely prophetic article saying, this is going to introduce all of perverse incentives. And he was unfortunately proved right in every every particular. So it wasnt if it wasnt foreseeable, but the advantages, i think particularly for the government funding were irresistib and you know, i hardly need say to anyone in an Academic Community that, quantitative indicators proxy indicators are now far more powerfully weighed in any kind evaluation process than the judgment of peers. So im a bit you know, i was going to ask a very similar question to will about that. I mean, i also got stuck on that kind end. But i was you know, i was trying to be optimistic. I dont know why, but i was trying to be optimistic. And i was thinking i mean, is there a way, the personal judgment, i dont i mean, you can you can all of those metrics, right . Those indicators. But would somebody hired would somebody get a prize solely on that in the Scientific Community . In other words,ously the literae industry of science about the importance of to face interaction and of people moving, you know, the kind of close knit, its going to use to a Close Knit Community that will it . I mean, its not that its not that, of course we know that indicators are becoming more and more important. But i dont know. I mean, im trying i dont think that we are going to get to the point that theyre going to completely over the place of of yeah. I wonder i mean i really wonder i mean i guess is as long as letters are still being solicited and their tenure and promotion that that that perhaps is the case but perhaps i mean this is anecdotal so you know really i dont weighted accordingly but because in the german system where i spend most of my time vincent shaft covers the waterfront. So if you have an if a big prize you have social scientists, humanists and, scientists all in the same committee, you can see just how the scientists argueth. Simply say, well, the x counted it has published so many articles with a hersch factor, why, etc. And that is the end of their argument. So and that that strikes me as the way in which the wind is blowing. If in journalism we encounter sort of the opposite problem, which is a sense. Well, i teach a class every fall in this room and you know, this number of people and i always start the class by saying, how many people here . So off identify as an objective journalist . And no one ever raises their hand. This ive given them your book to read and and so theres this sense of, you know, whats as long as were saying theres a person in there and its not just mechanical, whats wrong with being completely utterly personal i how respond to things . I dont think this would get far in science, but it gets pretty far in journalism these days and you know what i say to my students is imagine youre a doctor and you are you go to the doctor are wearing a white coat, but look very warm does it so what the doctor is doing is signaling in my doctor self and myself or to different people or slightly different people. But i worry about losing that distinction an thats kind of the other side of the worry. You know, everything quantified, you know, i mean this is a really important point, which is theres an enormous difference between the exercise of judgment and subjectivity. So. I take it that what youre describing your worry is of a form of subjectivity which is absolutely and openly personal. Yes, it is about my perspective from my background and my aspirations etc. That is not what disciplinary judgment about disciplinary judgment on the basis a reasoned weighing many different factors and because its a multivariate weighing of these factors by someone of experience with a large class of comparisons. Its very to mechanize, but it is not simply personal experience refracted through the prism of disciplinary jargon. And thats eloquent. And on that note, mode. If if youre so inclined now the only thing my guess is you have to go to the mike sorry sorry. Thats okay somebody bring you a mike or ali . No, you to go to the mike. Hi. This discussion. I havent read the book. Im sorry. Im looking forward to doing it. And you mayussion reminds me ofe moment i think it was around 1980 when the u. S. Pulled out of unescos. And i think the problem was, oddly enough, a journalistic judgment about the free press here and the free press there. But the people who made, at leas t the biggest outcry were the scientists and they said, this is were in the cold war for another nine years. They didnt know that, but it the cold war and this the way we get to sit down with people on the other side and make important decisions that are both scientific and political. So i wonder, you mentioned, i think the u. N. And you mentioned the word bureaucracy with it, which, you know, its quite acceptable, but i wonder if youd care to on what influence unescos had when it was trying to get these people together. I mean, i could Say Something about the u. N. More generally. Im not sure i can Say Something about unescos in particular. So the the u. N. In its early stages. So this is the early 1950s. Now tries very much to get a number of key Scientific Organizations under its egis. And they succeed with the world organization. They dont succeed with most others. Although the unescos framework provides a venue for scientists, especially during the cold war, to with their behind the iron curtain. And there its a real trade off because on the one hand its tempting you have the prestige, the institution, you have funding. I dont know whether youve ever seen the meteorological organizations headquarters, geneva, amongst all of the other United Nations building. These are gleaming glass skies, etc. No other Scientific Organization has such a building, but on the other hand, you get up in the United Nations politics. So one of the first things, the first resolutions thats 6published is to exclude old fascist spain for. As long as franco is in power, which means that the spanish meteorologists are from this organization, so that suddenly you have a huge gaping hole in your data set for the mediterranean. And thats a kind kind of faustian pact, which the sciences are constantly playing with both their individual governments, but also with these international organizations. And i could imagine its the same with unescos, which is it provides a venue for scientists to be able meet each other and communicate. I guess. Unescos headquarters are in paris. So in paris, which they wouldnt have been able to do otherwise, but it comes with so many Strings Attached to it. Okay. Okay. Thank you, bernard. So my my question kind of follows up, i think, although its less pointed, it has to do the relationship between science and, governments, politics, power. And i have a i, i had a sense in the book that you maintain the two spheres. You try to maintain the two spheres somewhat separate the sense that you have this idea that its the you talk about the selfconception of the scientists as being autonomous and trying to avoid kind of Government Intervention and, and you and you write about that a lot in a in a way in which two kind of can be kept apart. And there are moments when its clear that theyre deeply pregnater the 1955, i think it was in hamburg, the science and freedom conference, right . Yeah, in hamburg, yeah. Which was which was a real of free market, kind of a cia supported in project. And so the question if we if we think if we think that actually the two are much more empirical weighted and cant be as easily separated, how, how then do we think about these questions about Scientific Community etc. And in other words if if if the knowledge is deeply implicated with the power, which has to be the case, given all of the funding that comes from governments for science right then that cast a different light or shadow on these notions of the Scientific Community does it actually maybe as you were suggesting about what the purely positive aspect of community does it become a little bit less clean in a way. Well yeah, i mean i would i, i would almost kind of push the question a degree further or just sort of say a kind of a a strong kind of counter hypothesis. Right. Which is maybe that could you say that the succession of models of scientists of sort, of International Scientific them are sort of an underlying sort of the of geopolitical changes or political changes. And so it strikes me that the in the 19th entry the model of the World Congress is at a time great power politics of you know, a particular emergence of nation states in certain configuration in the 20th century. The the kind of Scientific Community model kind of modeled on the u. N. Is so driven by cold war dynamics and then into the kind of the of fourth phase, which isnt quite a phase in the book, but the one weve been talking about, about the kind of hyper mechanized, sort of anonymous, quantified structures of science, as you say, are so are so driven by responses. Government funding agencies essentially to to starting in the eighties, the thatcherism, the sort of need for accountability. So theres a almost a version of this that one mightgiod trace we each of these successive stages sort of follows on kind of underlying changes, the structure of political power. I dont think thats right. But i think that you know, i dont think thats the story. But i do think that could be a kind of possible provocative gloss on something where get ready and buckle your seatbelt because, you know, youre seeing and you may see in a year in the us, a truman, this hostility to all these structures of expertise and funding mechanisms. And so on and how that will play out and maybe it will be packed in 18th century or 19th century science with with no funding but i mean one of the things thats quite i mean, if you look at the 1950s and 1960s and, you know, what is the one of the things thats quite incredible if you look at the archives is that despite the fact the scientists are very well aware that theyre being funded by the government and that theyre basically dependent on government funding and military funding, theyre insistent on their autonomy, this notion that, yes, were the money. I mean and you can say its false consciousness and a of historians of science have said that i think its like you can end there. I mean there is something about the there insistence on the notion that, yes, were getting the funding, but science is not somehow the the science. Right. That this idea of some further there is some kind of part of the scientific knowledge thats being produced, that itshere te money comes from. And thats been something thats been a hobby for of science, of trying to trying to show to what degree that the who pays the money actually makes difference to what the science that thats being made. But i would say that for the science system scientists themselves very insistent that and they see you know im thinking about, you know, of the mathematicians that i was looking at during cold war. They are believing that the only way is because mathematics is not somehow apolitical. This is what its going to bring. Thats international collaboration, is whats going to mean, you know, thats what theyre saying. And i think that there is theres something there to kind of content it. I think theres some i dont know that many mathematician will still hold to this today. But i think theres still some resistance to this notion. The scientific the scientific whats the science is being produced is a completely determined by the funding. Yeah i mean its undeniable that each that the political structures of power in each of epochs that i treat in theook casts a long on the kind of thats being done or or can be done. But it is science, its ideal view. Its a take the money and run situation, which is i say lovely, you know, whether theyre or are speaking to you know the president of france or they are basic idea is, we know what were doing. Just give us the money and. Come back in five years, okay. And this may be, as alma says, false consciousness. But that is i think theyre sincere. And i think its very important for their notion, a Scientific Community, that there is this distinction between their pursuits and the larger structures in those pursuits take place. We have time for a couple more question so someone please. Thank you. If anybody. Yeah, first of all, professor dyson, if you would like to add to the things that i thought i couldnt find in the book rivals, namely first scale, very much scientific fiction contribution to collaboration and to myppens on a much lower level than. What you discussed, you discussed the biggest, the highest scale collaborations. If you would like, add Something Like what happened to the Research Groups and and, and the collaboration is growing. I think for example, the typical Research Article used to be to mentor mentee. Now if i look at the magazine science, it averages probably at least five author and every Research Article. The second thing that i was found your motivations basically in sort of external to science to my understanding my experiences. So thats just anecdotal evidence that people very much scientists very much like to talk about science itself and they motivated, they learn from each other and that stimulates collaboration and so a positive one rather than working in survival, more motivation leads away and the third thing that i would like, and you may want to have might want to comment, is the whats happening now. We are at a school which to my mind is one of the leadi universities in inter and transdisciplinary de. Ill just mention the recently School Climate school. Uh so, what happens to the disciplinary uh, in this uh, i think growing, yes thank you for all three of those comments. Let me address the second one first. I absolutely with you. And i think that in the book, the model for all of these Successful International cooperations is the ability. First of all,the field to get td talk shop and that without that, there is no impetus to get these cooperations going. To the first of your points about the lower corporations, its very interesting. I was just having a conversation with philip cuccia about this a few hours ago. I think i think this has been on for a very long time, but its very hard for us as historians to detect it, although it is possible, we just have to try harder. The patterns of publication are such that the the coauthor ship, which is essential, you know, the essential elaboration does not take the form of coauthor ship as it now does. So im thinking, for example, of the family as a model for a scientific cooperative you know, certainly the case for darwins family many is astronomical. Families work on this basis because very hard to do astronomical observations by yourself. So there is also the laboratory cases know about the german case for a very long period. They are very much cooperative ventures. But is the professors name, which goes on the publication, so it somewhat masks the kind of phenomenon that you are describing. But i think thats a Research Topic and i think its a really Research Topic. Thank you for for drawing our attention to it in terms of the third i im really curious as to what will in alma think i dont think i have any any insight about whats going to happen. I wish i you well in the Climate School but i you know i want to add a word the third question. Yeah ive been involved for some years in efforts like that. Columbia sam samsa, my colleague whos over there, has been also and i would just say one its hard it doesnt happen naturally and to if you think about a vertical axis in a horizontal axis so the horizontal axis, what im calling it, would be interdisciplinary already. And then the vertical axis would be implementation, you know, taking the work of pure science out into the field. And that axis is, i think, even harder to motivate people to participate in than introduce linearity, although theyre both hard know. You know, i, i to you guys can think of oh examples where aside from Something Like alamos for example, where its really well. I mean even if you think but even if you think it its probably not the best example. But even with such a big collaboration, lego like that, the competition. There gravitational other its i mean, the astronomers are really singular this respect there theres so much better anything but they have to have the engineers right they have to theres so many expertise that goes into such a bigabout othere like the Event Horizon telescope its more the astronomers exactly yeah. So you had a question and still have the question or no i want to do one more question and then were getting to the. So i think i am imprecision. So in things we have things lets say the standard of care that we follow the standard care, but the standard of care is not written anywhere right . We follow the literature the literature is written by your Scientific Community, but when we say literature. What part of the literature you talking . So we have a very influential medical activities that. I started with with doctors in training, lets say the h. Pylori everyone talks about the h. Pylori. Well its a rivalry game with that idea. Credentials have very little value. Im not too much value academies more social institutions. So there is no authority. So there is no authority besides dogen, other general entities. My is a professor. What is what do you have in mind when you wrote it over and over in your in your book about governance or that which is like the opposite of this kind of free market that we have in medicine, right. Yes. So i think first and foremost, the establishment of standard procedures. Let me give you some concrete. So the thing that these interNational Congresses is to establish for example chemical rules of chemical nomenclature, how do you name new synthesized . How do you name a newly discovered botanical or zoology species who what are the rules were giving credit for it so you know that the the prior summary form of governance in, these international disciplinary organizations is to standardize these procedures and and protocols. They are notable, i must say, mute until very recently on exactly the kinds of things you might expect them to be more valuable about, namely scientific, scientific ethics, etc. These are considered to not the business of the governance at the highest international, nor just into plenary levels, but at the level i think, of advanced graduate and postgraduate training. So its a kind pincer movement. The very top level, the International Botanical Congress will decide about how and that will be promulgated throughout the profession at the much more microscale topic level of the train ing of graduate students and is where in fact of all of the things that we think about as governance, which is the internalization of standards of behavior as standards of proof, standards of argumentation taking place. At least that would be my answer i dont know. So i think its time to wind up, but ill ask all of you any final words from any or all. You look like you have since another question. Okay. I mean, i hope its a question that its my its my personal question, but hopefully it will be interesting for the audience as well, which is you have described your work in the past. Your work is kind of the the history of the self evident. And i mean, ive interviewed you. I mean it comes to your work on probability. You you worked on objectivity your work on observation most recently your work rules and as you say in the introduction to this book there is nothing selfevident about the Scientific Community. So this a departure. I mean, is this book kind of a departure or am i missing something . If we think about it, is there is kind of is this actually a continuing continuation of the health of your work . You know, i, i mean, the honest answer is i really know. But the the right i think about it. Its what will said about the way in which the word Scientific Community rose trippingly off the tongue so it is it has a kind of self in the way its usage which the moment you put under the magnifying glass dissolves but thats something of a stretch i admit. Yeah. So but okay well this is a good a good time to wind. I just want to thank everyone for coming thank you all for coming. Thank you. Most of all, the rain for writing this wonderful book and it know a dream come true for us at columbia Global Reports to be able sort of be in this space between they and and have things that are usually only discussed in these expert communities weve been talking about discussable and discussed in the wider world. Thats were here to do. So thanks a lot thanks to all of you. And thats it. ■dtonight. Going to have an opportunity to hear fromey oji