Benjamin Franklin, Civic Scientist

Guinnessy writes "Neal Lane, the ex-science advisor to President Clinton, has written an article in Physics Today magazine, that explains why he thinks Benjamin Franklin, was an early American prototype of a civic scientist, i.e. someone who would 'probably address many of today's concerns with wisdom, practicality, and a deep sense of civic responsibility.' Ironically the same issue has an example of a modern day civic scientist, a profile of Richard Meserve, a physicist who became a lawyer. Interesting stuff."

Comments

Science & Law a common mix down under

[Malfourmed]

Dual degrees in science and law is common in Australia where most universities force undergraduates to take a combined law degree, ie Science/Law, Arts/Law, Commerce (or Economics)/Law etc.

Re:Science & Law a common mix down under

[anagama]

Having passed through the law school experience, I am positive it has general value. The dusty cases and statutes are not really that important - they merely provide background and material for instruction/practice on thinking. Law school is not about being given answers and memorizing them - the Socratic method, in which an instructor teaches by asking questions of students until the students stumble on the answers themselves, is both intense and effective. And very painful/humiliating at times.

For the most part, law students don't learn much that is directly useful, but in truth, the most useless thing we could do is memorize the law as we would the names of capitol cities. We are taught instead, a set of analytical skills that we can use to analyze potential outcomes of current situations, based on current law. Of course, along the way we pick bits of the law here and there, but really, it is about learning a way to think and analyze. It isn't fun - ask just about anyone who did it, and chances are, they wouldn't want to go through it again. It is a sort of boot camp for the mind.

I'm not saying that one can't think unless without going to law school, it is but one method to teach people how to evaluate situations. I would wager that other disciplines, especially the hard sciences, put people through and even more rigorous boot camp than law school.

Autobiography

[daeley]

Franklin's autobiography makes for fascinating reading.

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing" - Ben Franklin

Re:Autobiography

[toxic666]

Interesting reading, indeed. But it should be taken (as any autobiography) in the context of the author writing about himself. The autobiography was started when his relationship with his son, William -- appointed Governor of New Jersey through his efforts -- was deteriorating and intended to remind William that people of humble beginnings can advance through hard work and good business relationships.

Perhaps Walter Isaacson -- author of the latest biography -- summed it up best when he suggested that Franklin's life and accomplishments are topics that should be revisited by biographers every ten years. If you haven't read a Franklin biography, pick one up. You will be surprised by how much his ideas about intellectual property would conform to the GNU while tolerating patents and copyrights.

Ben can save us

[ctour]

From the article he makes Ben Franlkin sound like some sort of savior who could come foreward from the past and save us all. Bringing the scientists in congress together in a bipartisan manner to discuss science and technology... How many scientists are there in congress? And how likely is it that they could actually sit down and work together on anything, especially technology (They would simply fight over which states got which grants for scientific study) Town hall meetings all across american to bring up important issues... Guess this guy never read "Bowling Alone" all about Americans lack of interest and involvement in all things ranging from bowling leagues to the PTA to politics, The author creates a way oversimplified view of politics and of Ben Franklin.

His Seven Great Virtues

[TekReggard]

Time covered Benjamin Franklin in this special issue of Time Magazine. The insights into one of the founding father's of the nation I call my homeland are very inspiring. I think every member of the current Administration could do good by learning a few lessons from this man. Not to mention, in its relation to the current article, he was a realistic inventor. Most everything I can recall him being responsible for inventing has an Important purpose, as opposed to some of the things we see nowadays, which do what, save you a little time? A little pain? There are far too many *Cosmetic* inventions in today's society than I can handle. I enjoy reading about stuff like synthetic diamonds, advances in alternative fuels, and a more modernized house. I do not enjoy reading about the next flat panel display ... only 500$ more, looks the EXACT same to me?! Well you probably get my point.

I'm just glad to be reading something about a great man instead of a criminal, for once.

Re:His Seven Great Virtues

[kfg]

Franklin understood something about politics, law, publishing, business and invention that most have forgotten:

It all comes down to a dietary issue in the end.

Food, clothing and shelter.

Everything else is frills and frippery when it comes right down to it.

Now he was hardly a man who eschewed frills and frippery, but he always knew they were frills and frippery and kept things in some sort of perspective.

I'm not sure I would have found him likeable, although he was one of the most sought after dinner guests on more than one continent, but was clearly a remarkable man. In more modern times he would have been a candidate for multiple Nobels in science (electricity, the Gulf Stream and other discoveries) as well as the Peace Prize and multiple Pulitzers (Just for Poor Richard's alone, let alone his other writings) and lord knows what all awards.

And yet among his greatest accomplishments as an inventor in his own mind was a warm stove and a comfortable chair to put by it.

Add a table, bowl of fruit and a violin and you're set.

KFG

Where are they now?

[be-fan]

At one time, we had high-minded intellectuals running this country. Ones with vision and foresight and knowledge and education. Where are they today? We've got a president who is, at best, of averge intelligence, and whose greatest strength is something as plebian as business. I doubt that people like the founding fathers aren't around today --- I don't think this world has gone that far done the shit-hole just yet. But where are they hiding? Are they staying out of public service just because they're so damn disgusted by the whole system? Are we as a society doing something that are actively keeping these people out?

Re:Where are they now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Condoleeza Rice is very intelligent and was a child prodigy.

Re:Where are they now?

[toxic666]

Ben barely finished schooling (failing mathematics), was apprenticed to a brother and ran away to Philadelphia, discarding his apprentice obligation. He was educated, but not well even by colonial Boston standards.

He was, thus, condemned to become:

"the most ingenious scientist of his era rather than transcending into the pantheon of truly profound theorists such as Newton."

(Isaacson, "Benjamin Franklin, An American Life", Simon and Schuster, 2003)

Re:Where are they now?

[Dhalka226]

Are they staying out of public service just because they're so damn disgusted by the whole system? Are we as a society doing something that are actively keeping these people out? I think that the truly intelligent and civic-minded people would generally be more likely to do things like vote or run for public office. But yes, we as a society are doing something to keep them out. Maybe not as a society, that may be poor wording. The problem, as I see it, is money. In order to become elected to office, you generally need gobs of money. At the very least, you need to be very good at raising gobs of money if you're not rolling in your own. The average person is not going to be good at either making or raising huge sums of money and I can't imagine that intelligence alone would be enough to change that. Many of our most intelligent people have often been rather shy and withdrawn in their own ways. But assuming Ben Genius does get enough money to compete in national elections, money enters into play again. Because either: 1) He spent his own money, in which case the man essentially spent, let's say, two million dollars (a low estimate) on a campaign that won him a job that pays $400,000 a year. Do the math; he loses $400,000 over the term of a presidency--according to the math. Logically, one may assume that there are other perks that can very much make up for that money. And I'm not talking about power alone, but rather what power can get you. 2) If he didn't spend his own money, he raised funds and it will, at least in some part, make him beholden to their interests. Let's face it: Companies give the biggest sums and they only do so if they feel a candidate is going to advance their own goals. I don't think I need to go much further than that for people to agree politicians are, to some extent, held by the balls by their contributors. On the flip side of the coin, money also keeps people out of the race. A high proportion of truly brilliant people are successful in the private sector. Why should I give up my simple office job raking it $120,000 a year to become the president, get my brains beat in on national television for every "wrong" (a subjective term) move I make and make only slightly more money? Or if $120k is low, maybe even less money than I could otherwise. And as I intimated, one thing we SURELY are doing as a society are accepting the political smears. I'm not only talking about the "attack ads" run around elections, but the entire atmosphere on Capital Hill. Think about it. Congress is little more than two charged, polar opposite masses of people. Sometimes one side or another has so many more members that they can steam-roll their agendas through; sometimes it is so even that there must be compromise. But it's disgusting to see how often votes go straight down party lines. I would like to believe there are some free-thinkers in Congress but they don't seem to show themselves. And any time one party gets its way over the objection of the other, there will be harsh comments back and forth for further political gain. Why get in the middle of that? Can independents win? I believe there are five independents currently in the whole of Congress. One senator, who was a Republican but switch parties after he was re-elected: Could he have won reelection as an independent? That leaves four members of the House who I assume were all elected as independents. Four out of 400+ is still a heck of a minority. And yeah, there are a handful of independent governors and state legislatures around. I hope they are part of a trend and not simply an exception, but I don't suppose I'm holding my breath about it. All of these things keep civic-minded people away from politics in one form or another. Frankly, in my estimation, the people who would make the best politicans are the ones who lay aside their political affiliations and simply think and act and vote out of pure logical deduction. Sure, it will still produce disagreements, but at least we can be sure that a vote is truly what a candidate believes in and not simply what his party told him to vote. Can we say that is true today?

Re:Where are they now?

[Corgha]

What if Arnold knows exactly what his weaknesses is? What if Arnold surrounds himself with smart advisors that he agrees with and listens too?

[Sorry this is long, but it's late and I'm too tired to edit.]

People always bring up this "smart advisor" theory when discussing not-so-bright candidates, but I'm not sure I buy it.

Here's the flaw I see in it: incompetent people have been shown to be less capable not only of judging their own performance, but also of judging the performance of others.

You see this all the time when it comes to technical advisement. Some non-technical manager will think some consultant "really knows his stuff" when that consultant is really just spouting buzzwords or telling the manager what he wants to hear, and the consultant actually performs like a train wreck.

How is the incompetent candidate supposed to be able to judge who is competent among his potential advisors?

Maybe surrounding yourself with advisors that you agree with is not the best sign. And maybe you have to have a certain foundation of competence and be both willing and able to do the sort of critical thinking and analysis that distinguishes the truly competent advisors from the advisors that are just buttering you up.

Another interesting thing about the study linked above is that while the best performers tend to accurately judge how well they did in an absolute sense, they tend humbly to underestimate their own performance relative to everyone else.

Perhaps that is because part of becoming competent is learning from your mistakes and pushing against your limits, which probably imparts a healthy sense of your own failings. In fact, some of the most impressively competent people I have met were, while confident, at the same time oddly humble -- perhaps because, while it seemed to me that they could do just about anything, they were more keenly aware of the vast depths of their field that they had yet to plumb.

At the same time, lots of the less-guruish but merely competent technical folks I see complaining bombastically on IRC or /. and acting condescending to users turn out not to be so hot after all when it comes down to it.

Of course, the problem is that the blowhards are a lot more fun to listen to than the real gurus. Where's the fun in someone saying "emacs and vi are equally viable alternatives, and here are the cases in which each is best used"? We like people who make bold statements and who "stick to their ideals", even if it's only because they're too arrogant to consider that they might be wrong. We laugh today at "640k should be enough for anybody," but no one remembers what the other guy said.

If there were more geeks, and there such a thing as nationally-syndicated geek talk radio, those guys who hang out, start editor/distribution wars, and flame the newbies would probably get pretty high ratings, and people would probably call in and agree with them and take their turn to flame the newbies.

They'd be pretty popular, but they wouldn't necessarily be more competent. (Take /. for instance ;)

Maybe the problem isn't the spotlight or the low pay. Maybe the problem is that the world is really complicated, but we are attracted to people who see things in black-and-white. Maybe nobody wants to listen to the people who really understand things, because it's too complicated and they don't have the time. We like quick, pithy sound bites, even if they're totally off-base. Arnold is not popular because he has a firm grasp of the issues or because he's a loyal representative of his party, but because he's got some quick one-liners, and he's famous. We don't even care if some of the one-liners contradict the other ones, as long as they are funny.

When you look at it that way, coming back to the topic at hand, I can't imagine anything that would prepare you worse

Re:Where are they now?

[crawling_chaos]

Here's the flaw I see in it: incompetent people have been shown [apa.org] to be less capable not only of judging their own performance, but also of judging the performance of others.

In my mind, this finding doesn't just invalidate the "comptetent advisors" theory, it also neatly answers the original poster's question as well. In a universal sufferage system, the incompetent are allowed to vote and they far outnumber the competent people and end up choosing a weaker candidate.

The problem of course, is extending the sufferage only to the competent. There's no good test to find these individuals, so we're sort of stuck with what we have. As Churchill once remarked: "Democracy is the worst form of government known to man, with the exception of all of the others."

Why

[Timesprout]

Why should there be an American prototype of a civic scientist. Surely many of the Greek thinkers, (Aristotle and Plato in particular) paved the way for this sort of thinking. Franklin was undoubtly a brilliant man but I would hardly call him a prototype.

Its an interesting article though I would consider it somewhat naive. The majority of people dont care about science. Once the inventions and breakthroughs keep coming and their lives are made easier, safer etc. they will just say isn't science wonderful and carry on with their daily lives.

As for the political aspects I think (conspiracy theory here) that the political and legal systems are deliberately being made as obtuse as possible to prevent access by the public. Supposedly we get transparent government which basically means they might hold the odd, ultimately meaningless inquiry every now and then. Witness the current WMD fiasco for a classic example of political spin, distortion of facts and politicians doing as they please. The legal system in particular has been made ridiculously complex to the detriment of justice and the embellishment of lawyers.

It would be good if we could get more scientists, or engineers for that matter into political positions. They would bring a more balanced and rational perspective to many of the issues facing society today. Unfortunately politics is the art of compromise and we are all well aware what happens when we start to compromise on engineering and scientific projects (recent shuttle furore anyone). Scientists and Engineers are no more immune from this than politicians.

Again I think its an interesting article but naive to think that a visionary scientist, or even a bunch of scientists would somehow radically change our political and social landscape. Our current systems are a little bit too entrenched.

What only could have been...

[JackpotMonkey]

I would love to be living in a society that was led by our greatest artisons and scientists such as Franklin, such a society would bring peace and fulfillment just by being in the environment created by it. Look at how the people in power influence us now, The front page of the newspapper never shows good news, prime-time news stories are never about a fireman saving a cat from a tree or anything else good and heart warming. We are born and raised into depressive and supressive thinking, if we try to think "outside of the box" we are thought of as insane or disturbed, even those people who are thinking beyond the norm of what we are today probably could not begin to conceive what would have been if polotics werent running this country.

Imagine a society where rather than a political agenda (is it re-election time? etc..), we are working towards the embetterment of human kind, thinking of our fellow humans rather than our pocketbooks becoming fatter...

I'm sure that this system would never work though. Who would handle the politicians from the rest of the world, it's a nice vision to have though, if ever we could get over our petty differences and live in this society it would truely be a great step forward for all of us.

Question

[Newcastle22]

Where are the modern civic scientists? How come they are not important government officials any more?

Re:Question

[bedessen]

They all traded up to Accords or Camrys.

And for today...

[mcrbids]

Perhaps one of the most likely modern-day candidates might be Linus Torvalds....

He's helped create a marvel of technology and engineering, entirely for the public benefit...

The great people of yesteryear still exist today... they just aren't in public office.

Remember that Ben F was a rebel - the "powers that be" at the time was the British govt.

Not Ironic

[Marlor]

Ironically the same issue has an example of a modern day civic scientist, a profile of Richard Meserve, a physicist who became a lawyer.

I don't think this is irony (or even a coincidence), I think it was planned, magazines generally have two or three themes for each issue, and this one had the theme of "civic scientists".

And no, it's not ironic that the poster used the word "ironically" incorrectly either.

Re:EXCUSE ME....

[fucksl4shd0t]

I realize this is a troll, but I'm getting sick of the slashdot stereotype.

....but what the fuck are all you assholes doing reading and posting comments to Slashdot this late on a Friday night? Do you really have nothing better to do than sit in your dorm rooms and play Wolfenstein with your Internet friends? Get out and fucking do something with your lives, losers.

After spending all week working hard at a business I've started with a partner, and all week (evenings) playing with my 3 kids and flirting with my wife (after 3 kids you don't have sex anymore, you just flirt), I'm relaxing. I'm looking forward to cleaning up the yard tomorrow hoping to chase off the field mouse that has recently arrived, and to prepare the yard for winter. It's going to be a long, hard weekend, and I'm happy to relax on a Friday night and read slashdot.

Franklin built himself on aphorisms, not science

[ahfoo]

The almanac is the legacy of Franklin and it was nothing but a collection of sayings directed towards simple-minded, conservative, church going farmers that were often misleading and which he himself did not follow by any means.
The one that particularly pisses me off is "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, welathy and wise."
It is a fact that this is completely contrary to the sleep requirements of human beings. Here was can see a good example of where Franklin was not a scientist at all, his primary focus was on coining, or borrowing and touching up, aphorisms that would appeal the lifestyle of a gullible, poorly educated rural audiance.
Researchers who actually study sleep cycles rather than just making up sayings for the popular press have found that the human sleep cycle tends towards adding an hour or so of time to each day so that the time a person becomes tired and is properly prepared to sleep is constantly changing relative to the previous night's sleep.
Early to bed and early to rise most likely leads to a kind of mental depression from inadequate sleep that infects the majority of nine to fivers and no doubt may partly account for American's political apathy, obsesity and need to buy products like viagra. And for what? So this shady book publisher can be remembered as an icon of American scientific prowess?

Re:Franklin built himself on aphorisms, not scienc

[Pig Bodine]

This seems to be flamebait. The almanac was not his scientific legacy and wasn't even written with any pretence of contributing to science. Judging Franklin as a scientist on the basis of the almanac is like judging Newton on the basis of his theological writings.

The scientific legacy of Franklin was the "single fluid" theory of electricity. He was the first to hypothesize that electricity was a single conserved "fluid" instead of two fluids (corresponding to + and -). In fact, it was this hypothesis that gave us + (an excess of fluid) and - (a lack of fluid). After learning about electrons, we now know that he got the signs wrong. But it's hard to see how an 18th century experiment could have determined that. It seems to me that this is a pretty enormous scientific contribution. He wasn't Faraday or Maxwell, but this is probably the single most important contribution to understanding electricity made in the 18th century.

Ben..

[lanalyst]

I work in Philadelphia.. in the historial area. Reminders and memorials of Franklin are everywhere. Sometime ago, I found myself interested in this man who seemed facinated and involved with seemingly every aspect of his time. He always had an opinion and as the article pointed out, was willing to change his mind. He was truly beloved by his contemporaries - when he died in 1790, his funeral was a testament to the regard he was held - in all diciplines of his day.

Of course we can focus on a single aspect of his interests and be impressed (they are after all of his time), but things like he was a prolific, practical inventor but never sought a patent.. he argued (unsucessfully) for an anti-slavery clause to the constitution.. he was a nerd with great social skills.. he was first and foremost a printer and communicator; I'm sure he would be quite pleased with OSS and the internet.

In the political/civic arena, his wisdom and participation was sought after. Yes, everyone loves to quote "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." but his contribution to the design of the great seal of the US included the motto "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." Go figure. His son was Governor of New Jersey and a loyalist to King George.

The liberty bell is being moved on Oct 9th!

wrong wrong wrong.

[Tangurena]

Franklin's experiment with electricity is what is called a "critical experiment." One that can only be explained by one system of hypotheses and cannot be explained in another. What the kite experiment was set to determine: was electricity a fluid or was it a particle? Quantum mechanics states it is both, but at the time of the experiment, duality was not allowed (its that Aristotelean myth of the Law of the Excluded Middle).

Re:As neat as Ben may have been...

[anagama]

As the present administration demonstrates, we need more alcoholic womanizers in office - hell, I can respect a womanizer. It's coke heads who fail to womanize who are dangerous to America.

Bush needs an intern ... BAD.