End of a Scientific Legend?

pacopico writes to mention the sorry state of the well-known Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sixty years ago, it was at the forefront of the race for the Atomic bomb. Nowadays, "smugness can breed complacency, and complacency carelessness. In recent years the laboratory has been in the news not for its successes but its failures.The result is a change of management, which the story goes on to discuss in great detail. It begs the question - can Los Alamos hang on as a prestigious place or is it too late for the supercomputing powerhouse and weapons lab?"

Comments

and...

[preppypoof]

smugness can also breed the urge to smell your own farts!

It didn't jump; it was pushed

[RobertB-DC]

Just last Monday, NPR's Fresh Air program featured investigative reporter Sharon Weinberger, who has just written a book titled Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld. In the interview, Weinberger breaks down how the US Military has gone from bad to worse in terms of science, rejecting even its own internal peer-review system (including the JASONs) in favor of administration-pleasing junk science and "imaginary weapons".

Of course, the problem isn't new -- she points out in the interview that the Clinton administration was just as quick as anyone else to slam the door on global warming results that didn't match their polices. And in fact, the first two-thirds of the interview are studiously neutral in tone. But by the end, after host Terri Gross and Weinberger have laid the factual foundation, the Bush administration comes out looking pretty pathetic. With the current administration's secrecy, paranoia (the Wen Ho Lee fiasco at Los Alamos gets particular attention), and general disregard for the scientific method, it's pretty clear that if Los Alamos falls, it didn't jump -- it was pushed.

Re:It didn't jump; it was pushed

[jd]

The Wen Ho Lee fiasco was stupid, bt (sadly) can be blamed on the Clinton administration. Ultimately, paranoia (regardless of which party is being paranoid) is going to produce stupid, if not insane, consequences.

Los Alamos did an excellent job with LAMPI (their high-performance, highly reliable MPI implementation) and are doing OK with OpenMPI (the multi-vendor replacement), but let's face it, MPI is hardly on the same level as other products they've worked on. I was fairly impressed by their demo of high-performance collective operations at SC|05, but again this is where the LOW-END of an organization like Los Alamos needs to be. The high-end should be solving stuff the rest of humanity hasn't even realized IS a problem.

Re:It didn't jump; it was pushed

[demachina]

It is impossible to tell just how bad the labs under the control of the University of California are or aren't. Its murky since its hard for anyone to peer inside high security facilities because thats what security clearance are for. Also much of the information coming out of them in recent years may be the Bush administration intentionally trying to make them look bad because they want to transfer their control to Republican friendly contractors or the University of Texas to pump billions of dollars in to his home state.

"administration-pleasing junk science and "imaginary weapons""

Unfortunately this is what you get out of governments whose top priority is delivering pork to contractors who happen to be big political supporters of the people in power (like Bechtel and Lockheed Martin). This is a disease that predates the Bush administration by a long ways, but the current administration has just taken it to new and breathtaking levels. Not sure the Bush administration really cares if it gets anything for the money, they are just delivering large quantities of our tax dollars or borrowed dollars(our deficit) in to the pockets of their friends. It has an important added political benefit of creating artificial stimulus in the economy and jobs by pumping large amounts of money and profit in to the private sector, and it makes the U.S. economy look a lot better than it is. The U.S. economy is becoming massively dependent on government spending since its one of the few parts of the U.S. economy that isn't being crated up and shipped to China and India. This massive government intervention in the economy used to be referred to as either Socialism (under FDR) or more like Fascism today. Its sad to see how the Republican's have tarnished the name Conservative. There is nothing conservative about them any more unless you qualify it with Social Conservative. Political and fiscal conservatives are for limiting government power, size and spending and that is the antithesis of today's Republican party so they are aghast at today's Republican party. Someone should make them, Limbaugh and Colter stop claiming the title, Fascist is a lot more accurate term its just a taboo term since World War II. Conservative != Fascist so stop claiming to be conservatives, you aren't.

The national labs, DOD weapons programs and satellite manufacturing are GREAT places to pump money in to the pockets of your friends because you can use the high security clearance, and "state secret privilege" to crush any oversight that might catch some of the fraud, waste, abuse and incompetence. A subset of Congress is the only body that can provide oversight but.....

There is an intereting article on the Christian Science Monitor today about Congress's feeble efforts to restore legal and financial oversight on the Bush administration and the DOD. I didn't realize it till this article but when the Republican's gained power in 1995 one of the first things they did in the House Armed Services Committee was disband the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. This subcommittee's role was to reign in the fraud, waste and abuse in the Pentagon. It was like they fired the last cop in town, and created open season for thieves. It is now quite clear why there is such rampant corruption in the DOD now. There is NO real Congressional oversight to stop it.

Harry Truman rose to prominence with the "Truman Committee" which basically performed this role during World War II and saved the country billions in fraud, waste and abuse.

Its a basic problem in the current government that the Bush administration and DOD is running amuck using 9/11 as an excuse and since they have control of all branches of the government there is NO oversight of anything going on. Congress has abdicated so much power to the Executive branch we really are teetering on the edge of a term limited dictatorship.

As a result we get Duke Cunningham, satellite programs billions

Still prestigious...

[gardyloo]

... and very well known for doing some very good, advanced scientific work, NOT just for making, designing, or computer-modeling nuclear weapons. It's amazing how many other things they do (and I might, too, as a post-doc. I have an interest, therefore, in keeping Los Alamos around and doing good work in important, but maybe less--ahem--explosive areas).

begs the question?

[John Harrison]

It does not beg the question. It raises the question. Begging the question is something else entirely and if you aren't 100% sure that you know exactly what it means you should probably never use the term.

Re:begs the question?

[Umbral Blot]

I am probably one of the few people left who agrees with you, and this raises the question: isn't the meaning of a phrase determined in large part by its usage. If the majority of people use "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" then who are we to say it doesn't mean that. We don't need the phrase "it begs the question" anyways; you can always say "the argument is circular".

Re:begs the question?

[Jhon]

Well, the New Oxford Dictionary of English says it's "widely accepted in modern standard English" to be used as "raising the question".

See, we speak English. It's a rapidly evolving living language. Word usage has changed enormously over the centuries. If you want to use words that don't change their meaning, try latin. Here's a phrase for you in particular: "Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare"

Unless you aren't 100% that you know exactly what you are talking about you should probably never speak.

Then again, there is a side to every issue. As a one-time Phil major, I don't like the new usage. I just dont try to clobber my linquistic preferences over the heads of others. Your comment to the GP was way out of line.

Re:begs the question?

[egomaniac]

It does not beg the question. It raises the question. Begging the question is something else entirely and if you aren't 100% sure that you know exactly what it means you should probably never use the term.

You are, of course, incorrect. "Begs the question" used to refer to a specific kind of logical fallacy. But the usage of this idiom has changed, and it is now a synonym for "raises the question", which can also in some (very rare) contexts refer to a specific kind of logical fallacy.

Arguing that you are right and common usage is wrong is like arguing that LASER, RADAR, and SCUBA should be written in all caps (they're acronyms, after all!), "e-mail" should be hyphenated, and a "computer" is a person who performs calculations by hand. The usage of these words, along with the phrase "begs the question", have changed, and it's time to accept that and move on. You might as well argue that we should all go back to speaking Old English -- it's simply not going to happen.

Yoda sez

[ch-chuck]

smugness can breed complacency, complacency leads to carelessness. Carelessness leads to ... suffering

It's more Management /Researcher IQ divide

[Banner]

Remember, several of the labs (and I think Los Alamos falls into this group) are managed by Universities. And I just don't think those university administrators are really equiped to deal with managing a bunch of scientists whose IQ's are often very far above theirs, and who are sometimes willing to break rules and do end runs around them.

The college I went to many of the professors were famous in their fields and the admins were all just typical people. The things the profs would do to them (and while some were funny, some were pretty darn cruel) were often amazing. Yeah you might be a brilliant admin with an IQ of 110 or 120. But that 180 IQ professor is going dazzle you like you've never seen in your life and high end research is not a pursuit for the faint of heart! They're not just smart, they're often tough too!

I've heard some rather shocking stories from friends who work at two of the National labs that seems to bear this theory out.

Re:It's more Management /Researcher IQ divide

[DingerX]

Well, not quite.

LANL and LLNL are run by the University of California, but our buddies at Lockheed MArtin have been eyeing their TIAA/CREF funds for a while (corporate spinoff runs the thing, goes bankrupt, raids the pension fund as the US Govt. takes it over).

The real problem isn't Academic Management vs. Scientific Researcher, it's the fact that the labs are funded by the Department of Energy. And the Secretary of Energy is a Cabinet-level appointment. Since about the mid-80s, the Secretary of Energy has been open season for the opposition party. The National Labs are big, and mission-critical to the US.

So the Democrats hit them for environmental issues -- even though, environmentally, the labs are not only excellent (LLNL was a Superfund site because of the paint remover used when it was a Naval Training Base), they're doing some of the most important research on the future of our planet.

Then, when Slick Willy is in power, the Republicans hit them for "security" breaches -- even though, security wise, the place is locked down, and foreign intelligence agencies (as well as the relevant congressional committees) already know that "industry partners" are the weak link.

What destroys agencies like this is politics and over-regulation. Incidentally, that's the same recipe to destroy Microsoft.

Re:Pet peeve: "Beg the question"

[Lisandro]

For example, you could say "Only idiots would go to Wal-Mart," and "prove" it by saying "Everyone in Wal-Mart is an idiot".

    Both statements are true. I don't know where you're going with this...

Nothing new

[Jason1729]

The US has already fallen way behind in scientific research.

America scrapped its supercollider while the Europeans built their LHC at CERN, so Europe will lead nuclear research for at least the next 20 years. Europe and Japan are doing advanced medical research while the US cuts funding and asks if its ethical to use stem cells.

The US has decided to abandon the Hubble telescope and allow it to burn up in the atmosphere, virtually abandon manned space travel, and divert most of the space research budget to militarizing space. Meanwhile the ESA is doing most of the space research and even China is launching manned missions.

Los Alamos losing its shine is such a minor thing compared to the rest of the US scientific community, it's barely worth noticing. The sad thing is by the time enough people notice the US is falling behind, it will be too late.

Many "failures" were overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I am staff scientist at another DOE lab and spent time at Los Alamos as a graduate fellow a few years ago. From the coverage in the media and from the comments of many politicians (many of whom stood to gain much if UC were to lose out in favor of universities/companies from their home state in the LANL bidding wars), one would think that Los Alamos was full of nothing but incompetence, dishonesty, and arrogance. That simply was not the case -- Los Alamos has had a very similar track record when compared to both other government labs and industry. This was pointed out in a very informative and insightful opinion piece that appeared in Physics Today:

http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-57/iss-12/p60.html

While Los Alamos has certainly had its share of fiascos, I think a lot of bad press they received was because 1) They are the most visible government lab, and 2) Many politicians hoped that if they could humiliate the lab management enough, someone from their state could end up with the (now extremely lucrative) management contract.

(Posted anonymously out of fear of DOE muckety-mucks)

Los Alamos folks are definitely... odd...

[brian0918]

I worked at Sandia Natl Labs the last 3 summers, and heard lots of weird stories about people from Los Alamos. There was the guy who wore a cape everywhere, of course. There was also an individual who transferred from Los Alamos to Sandia (rarely do people transfer the other way), who could not get along with anyone, and did not last long. One of the researchers even initially worked at Sandia, transferred to Los Alamos, and then transferred back, saying the whole environment is just... off. Los Alamos is basically surviving on their history now. Their museum hasn't had much to add this last half a century; they mainly focus on the history of designing and testing the atomic bomb.

There's much more drama at these national labs than the general public might think...

Science, War, and Profit

[Soong]

I grew up in Los Alamos. My dad worked there over twenty years until he retired. He retired because the culture there had gotten sufficiently unbearable and it wasn't worth putting up with because he could no longer do the kind of science he loved. He wasn't alone among experienced senior researchers there who were fed up and leaving. When the braniest town in the world has a brain drain, there's trouble.

Management by the University of California is possibly the best thing that ever happened to LANL. Whatever the mission given to LANL by DOE, it would be carried out in an academic culture. People were rewarded professionally and looked up to informally for doing good science and good research. Ok, it wasn't all utopia, there was also the petty politicking that goes along with academia and grant groveling. I still think it was good and a lot of good work was done there.

When I moved to California I discovered that some people here objected to the UC management of LANL. They didn't want to be associated with a nuclear weapons lab. I think that's wrong and that they were foolish if they thought that the UC disowning LANL would make it go away. LANL needs the UC because the alternative is too horrible. That has come to pass and now LANL is under joint management of UC and defense contractors. I've heard rumors that the mission changed from far out theoretical, pure and semi-pure research and shifted towards more immediate engineering of new weapons. The new regime is pushing security and secrecy to the point of paranoia and counterproductivity. For many scientists, it isn't fun anymore.

I don't expect LANL to evaporate within the next 5 years. There is still plenty there that doesn't suck. I do expect they'll have trouble replacing talent in some areas. I think it's not yet too late to restore the soul of the place and bring it back and do some world class science.

Well, that's kinda interesting.

[rjoseph]

I was just chatting tonight with a manager in one of the larger divisions at LANL who said that, all in all, not much has changed with the recent change in management. And speaking from personal experience (three years, on and off), the people at LANL today are doing science that is just as amazing - if not more so - as they at the Lab in it's "hey-day."

It turns out that, for government labs, any PR really isn't always good PR.