The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach has just completed a book on the gulf oil spill, BP, and the Obama administration’s response to the disaster: A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher.
The excerpt in today’s Post suggests that the country is, indeed, in the very best of hands:
On May 10, President Obama ordered his Nobel Prize-winning secretary of energy, Steven Chu, to dive into the response. Two days later, Chu showed up at BP headquarters with a hand-picked team of advisers, most of whom had limited experience with petroleum engineering. (Chu, a physicist, had won his Nobel for figuring out how to freeze atoms with lasers.)
BP executives were not thrilled to see the scientists march through the door. It looked to the company as though the administration had said, “Where are our experts?” and then rounded up anyone who did not flinch at the sight of a differential equation. Science, engineering, it was all the same. The Obama folks were obviously in love with the idea of Chu — this notion of having an in-house Nobel Prize winner who could be dispatched, superhero-like, to solve intractable problems with the power of his giant brain.
Everyone knows they needed experts on PARTIAL diff. eq.s and not regular ones. No wonder it took so long!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is so perfect. So absolutely perfect.
It is an ideal encapsulation of the role of science in America today. The politicians that run our country (virtually all of whom are lawyers and dropped out of doing math after matrix multiplication) and the journalists who work along side them (and dropped out of math after long division) think that every scientist is like the Professor on Gilligan's Island.
And modern scientists are so addicted to grant money that they won't correct that impression. Getting funding in science is like getting funding for alchemy in the middle ages. If you promise to turn lead into gold, you get funded. If you can keep stringing the bureaucrats along with your promises, you get funded for life.
There are so many layers here, I don't know where to start.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am reminded of the cartoon "Pinky and the Brain".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor most of our law-school graduate politicians, all scientists are the Professor from Gilligan's Island.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was too impatient, I guess. Wanted to highlight the pullquote.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusefunny thing is that most engineers have more schooling that many who are labeled "scientists" ... they certainly have more real world experience and don't work with "theories" ... they can't afford to guess on how big to make a steel beam or an airplane wing ...
Edison may have been considered a "scientist" but he was an engineer first ... remember he experimented with over 2,000 filaments before making the first successful lightbulb ...
an engineer thinks in terms of "what works", all too often todays "sceintists" think in terms of "what sounds like it will work and will attract grant money" ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYa know, the Department of Energy just doesn't have any petroleum engineers or experts on staff, or the Nobel-prize winning Secretary doesn't know how to find them. Brilliant (or is it change?)!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseyes, but did Chu have any role in sealing the leak as asserted by Barry? I guess that's the $64 question.
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