Science and the scientist in the marketplace

Science and the scientist in the marketplace

Rendra Suroso
Bandung

I must say that, in concurrence with Robert Shiller (The
Jakarta Post, May 27), there are two different faces of our
academia, the theoretical and the procedural. One is tied in
feedback loops to the other. Like the chicken and the egg
problem, if one fails, the overall will diminish or at least
degenerate.

The former concerns the whole idea behind our capability to
gather and develop knowledge that has been the subject of the
philosophy of science since ancient Greek essentialism to present
day Popperian refutationism. The latter, not surprisingly, is a
consequence of how science should grow and evolve if embedded in
modern society. In Shiller's view, not also surprising that the
latter finally will come up with spurious ideas that are far from
the content of science itself: peer review, grant, agency or
foundation, market-value and marketability, publication and
seminar, and even publicity in the media.

We can now ask the fundamental questions, "Is science supposed
to be marketable?" It appears not to be so.

A colleague once told me, "What you have done this far can
never attract people because what you do doesn't belong to the
marketable part of science." That statement immediately reminded
me of what used to happen in cognitive science back in the early
1980s. Back then cognitive science appeared to be a subject of
cynicism as observed by cognitive psychologist Philip Johnson-
Laird.

He strongly rejected the view that cognitive science was
merely a clever ruse dreamed up to gain research funds. And in
return, cognitive science we see today is panoply that has a
prominent role behind the architecture of highly-sophisticated
gadgets like Sony's Aibo, the explanation of mental and
behavioral deficiencies like autism and insomnia, and even to
some extent, the nature of cultural evolution as reflected by our
daily dose of pop culture.

Pop culture and other industrial commodities were born from
greed. Greed is natural. Greed is good. Individual greed is the
fuel of our enhanced capitalistic society. It may cast a moral
problem but it also moves civilization. But greed in non-
competitive climate will eventually lead to destruction or at the
minimal, a preserved oppression. Depending too much on
entrepreneurial society -- hence less relevant to the problems of
nationhood -- is merely isolating ideas and restraining novelty.
This statement might be hard or foolhardy. Yet, it is definitely
vague.

How much is much? Too much, in this sense, is almost all,
whereby all scientific endeavors must end up in every possible
but still marketable novelty.

Instead, what if governmental responsibility takes this role,
to foster advancement, as it is supposed to? A U.S. National
Science Foundation (NSF)-like agency might be a good model and it
works in many countries, but not most. When we dive a bit deeper
into the details, the model seems dubious and incomplete. And
Shiller does not seem to apply the peer review system to each and
every country. In Indonesia where peer review has not been a
standard for the procedural necessity of science, an NSF-like
agency is exactly the form of autarchy that Shiller brightly
portrays.

When cooperation with a foreign agency is the only choice
left, I am afraid that the spectacle of non-functioning NSF-like
local foundations can lead to a sort of stereotyping by agencies
from developed -- i.e.: grant-giving -- countries. The stereotype
is that researchers from the Third World country are by
themselves incompetent because they do not know how to do science
the right way despite the fact that it could be more a problem of
procedure rather than theorizing.

A recent study published by David Schmitt (2004) concerning
human sociosexual behavior indicates such a stereotyping mode.
Not the result of the study, which is remarkably precious for the
cognitive science society, but the way the data was gathered that
is striking for the Indonesian scientific community. The data for
the study was simultaneously gathered by experts from academic
backgrounds. Surprisingly, out of 48 countries, the expert from
Indonesia was a person from a reproduction clinic, the only one
not from the academia.

Even when the necessity of an NSF-like agency has been
surpassed by a hopeless fear of unbearable scientific autarchy,
and the procedural side of science is supported by foreign
agencies with an external solid peer review system behind them,
troubles may easily come. From outside it may come from the
stereotyping that always puts scientist from developing countries
in non-initiating position. From the inside, and this is more
frightening, it may come from the fact that there may be no
"real" scientists left at all.

Ironically, we cannot blame history for this in every
scenario. Unless the necessity of science for the society is no
longer relevant -- that I believe is counterintuitive -- then
what we can do is to construct the future, from scratch if we
have to. The common problem for a developing country like
Indonesia is that it currently has no advanced science center yet
in any university, and it is so unfair to compare the country to
those whose NSF-like foundations are well-established and
functioning.

We are far behind and immature indeed, but do we have choice?
For a change, it might be a relief to observe what and who a
scientist really is in an introspective way. In the preface of
the famous Six Degrees, network scientist Duncan Watts (2003)
gives a tribute to his father who was the first person to guide
him through the pleasures and pains of "original" research.
Absurd as it may seem, at least for the crowds, Immanuel Kant's
passage, Sapere aude! applies for the knowledge of knowledge
itself.

That, I believe, is the real call of the scientist. Not grant,
conference, or market.

The writer (rendra@rock.com) is a researcher of the Bandung Fe
Institute