What Should We Be Worried About?

ARE WE BECOMING TOO CONNECTED?

GINO SEGRE

Professor of physics, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania; author, Ordinary Geniuses

Last year marked the twentieth anniversary of the World Wide Web coming into full existence. It was created at CERN, home of the world’s largest particle accelerator, in response to the needs of large groups of experimenters scattered around the globe. They wanted a way to quickly and efficiently share data and analyses. WWW provided them with the tool. That model has been replicated over and over again. Our understanding of genetics, bolstered by international consortia of sequencers, is yet another example of this phenomenon.

The benefits of increased technological connectivity are so clear and appreciated that I need make no further effort to describe the gains. Rather let me consider what might be the negative effects of being so well connected.

I do so at the risk of sounding like one of those crotchety old guys whose every other pronouncement starts with In my day, we used to do things differently. Let me therefore make the disclaimer that I am not trying to vent my irritation at seeing the young texting their friends while I impart my so-called wisdom to them, or at the disconcerting effect of all too often being surrounded by individuals continually checking their iPhones for messages. Those are trivial annoyances and in any case have nothing to do with the argument at hand.

The issue of the threat of increased technological connectivity is not inconsequential. Potential losses that follow from it can be seen in the broader context of the lack of diversity following from homogenization of world culture and the dangers this poses for human evolution. But although sweeping syntheses of this sort can be drawn, I will limit myself to a few speculations regarding progress in science. In doing so, I almost entirely ask questions rather than, unfortunately, provide answers.

At a basic level, the threat shows up in academics in the matter of junior faculty appointments. A postdoctoral fellow now needs to publish frequently, and since the number of times he or she has been cited is part of the dossier, this requirement is hard to resist. But is it productive of thoughtful or even innovative science? In attempts to join the club, these efforts may be compromised. How likely are you to be promoted if you have not proceeded in lockstep along the golden path to more publications, more citations, and the all-too-precious grants? If you quit the mainstream and take the less trodden path, aren’t you more likely to come to a career dead-end?

I am by no means advocating isolation, but it is overwhelming to see on my computer every morning the list, with synopses, of all the high-energy physics preprints submitted the day before. They appear complete with routing for access in PDF and alternative formats. Does this run the risk of producing a herd mentality? Submit now before you are scooped and it becomes too late! Can we imagine incidents when such pressure is unproductive? Does it encourage groupthink?

A comparison may be made to the way a budding scientist currently acquires information. The computer is the quick, easy, and efficient way of doing so, but the earlier stumbling through science journals in the library had its advantages. Though it led down many blind alleys, it was also a way of picking up and storing odd bits of information that might stimulate the wanderer in unforeseen ways.

Are we discouraging the oddball, the maverick, or the individual who wants to let a wild idea rumble around in the mind for a while? Let’s not evoke yet again the image of Einstein toiling away unknown in a patent office but consider the less celebrated case of Max Delbrück. He was the son of a Berlin professor, earned his physics doctorate under Max Born, and was a postdoctoral fellow in Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen Institute at a time when this was the straight and narrow path to success as a theoretical physicist. But at age twenty-six he opted to begin studying connections to biology. This eventually led to his investigating how viruses replicate. His first faculty appointment did not come until he was thirty-four. It was an instructorship at Vanderbilt University, hardly one’s dream of a rapid rise through the ranks. But the work he had already done would earn him the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine almost thirty years later.

It was never easy, but is it harder nowadays for a Delbrück to survive?

I believe the desire to make an unforeseen offbeat discovery is an integral part of what draws anyone to become a scientist and to persist in the quest. As is true in other walks of life, demands to conform intervene. It would be naïve to discount the struggle to obtain funds and the increasingly weighty burden that struggle imposes as research grows more expensive; that is yet another facet of the scientific life. But returning to my original message, isn’t it possible that increased technological connectivity has subtle negative effects that should be considered as we praise the gains it offers us? As the march of science goes forward, perhaps we should heed a few warning signs along the road.