Detailed Abstractions

What are the odds that a government agency tasked with identifying research priorities, research performance management, and reviewing the impact of completed research will come up with a solution that doesn’t involve the government?

Today & tomorrow the EPA are meeting for just this reason (@eScienceNews):

…The goal of the meeting is to develop a collaborative framework to ensure future research and development dollars are spent wisely and in a coordinated manner….

Of course it doesn’t really matter what the answer is, because “spent wisely in a coordinated manner” is almost mutually exclusive to good R&D.  As should be expected by now, the EPA is wasting money on answering a question for which recent literature already exists.

Back in 2001, a Jack Welch underling, W. James (Jim) McNerney, Jr was hired as 3M’s CEO.  In the fanfare associated with being a protege of Mr. Welch, when Mr. McNerney joined 3M, investors had high expectations of pushing some of the GE magic onto the 3M culture.

One of the first and most prominent of these culture changes Mr. Mcnerney instituted was a heavy does of SixSigma.  From the beginning, leading business thinkers were asking whether pushing a very creative culture into the narrow focus of SixSigma might not work.  Or at least, it should not include the whole company.  Sure, use SixSigma for accounting procedures, but leave out R&D.

Of course proponents of SixSigma disagreed.  If it can help manufacturing and then be translated to service related products, why not R&D?

Regardless of the writing public, 3M went forward with implementing a SixSigma policy that included training all workers to a Green-belt level and use SixSigma methodology for every department, including R&D.  How’d it fare?

As you’d expect, the results are mixed.  But asking former 3M scientists, engineers, and the like?  Overwhelmingly they tend to agree it wen too far (@DesignNews):

…While 3M emerged financially stronger from the McNerney era, many long-time 3M researchers, engineers and scientists chafed under the strictures of Six Sigma. Critics argue that excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma’s intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled. Proponents contend such methodologies’ rules keep researchers on track and accountable for producing. Striking the right balance between the application of Six Sigma and unencumbered research is often seen as key….

In fact, a then board member and the former 3M scientist who developed Post-It Notes stated that he believes that in the SixSigma environment, Post-It Notes would simply never have been developed.

History is also rife with examples.  In the book, Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money,  written by Terence Kealey (review @ Reason.com):

…Kealey shows in nearly every case the crucial inventions of the past two and half centuries were called forth by markets, not invented by scientists working from ivory towers. These include the steam engine, cotton gin, textile mills, railroad engines, the revolver, the electric motor, telegraph, telephone, incandescent light bulb, radio, the airplane—the list is nearly endless…

In fact, a government-funded research paper showed public money can hurt innovation.  Mr Kealey writing about it(@AllBusiness.Com):

…n fact, the evidence shows otherwise. In 2003, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published The Sources of Economic Growth in OECD Countries, reporting on a comprehensive regression analysis of the factors that might explain the different growth rates of the world’s 21 leading economies between 1971 and 1998. This indicated that only privately funded R&D led to economic growth, and that publicly funded R&D did not. Worse, the public funding of R&D crowded out private funding, and thus slowed economic growth…

No worries though, I’m sure the government will tell you, that this time is different.   Just ask them.  They completely understand it’s failed many times before, but what you (read: citizens) are too ignorant to understand, is that those failures were under other people and not the worldly, brilliant, omniscient, and yes, even death-defying leaders of today.

& if that doesn’t work for you, remember that it’s “Green”, which we all know are now established unqualified goods.  As such, regardless of how much money taxpayers have to spend to subsidize “green” stuff, the end results are worth it.

Last, but certainly not least, if both of these arguments don’t work to mitigate your concerns, welcome to the club: Disgruntled Americans Against Government Stupidity (DAAG)

Unless you were lucky enough to be traveling or otherwise unavailable on Sunday, you were likely deluged with Mr. Obama’s media storm to sell not only health care, but apparently many other items as well.

First, it should be noted that this WH is above all, extremely insecure.  The President could be seen on 5 Sunday news shows: NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Univision.   But he didn’t have time for Fox, the number one rated Sunday news show…

Regardless of the WH being extremely petty and worrying more about perceived injustices than an honest discussion with those who might disagree, what he actually said is far more serious.

When asked if a health care mandate was a tax increase on ABC’s this week, the President responded:

…”I absolutely reject that notion,” the president said….

“What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore,” said Obama. “Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance . Nobody considers that a tax increase.”…

Using flawed logic is nothing new for Presidents, but this one isn’t even close.  Hhe’s analogizing the privilege of driving with the “privilege” of being a citizen.

The difference of course as that by my very birth, I have a “right” to be a citizen, whereas driving has always remained a privilege with constraints.  You see, I can forgo auto insurance, so long as I don’t drive.  There are many ways around without a car in this day and age, but if I “choose” to drive, then constraints can be placed on me.

Health care on the other hand would be required simply because I existed and no other reason.  & If the government says, “You have to buy this” – it is a tax increase as not paying it can land you in very serious legal troubles.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, with an omnipotent sense of when health care, our fearless leader goes further:

…Obama put his support behind the idea of taxing employers that offer high-cost insurance plans.

“I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don’t make people healthier is part of the way that we’re going to bring down health care costs for everybody over the long term,” Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”…

Even ignoring the fact that this goes against his basic premise that more people need more health care, one wonders if there is anything our President doesn’t know.  So far, he’s taken over banks, car companies, told car companies with whom to merge, who to hire, who to fire, what to build… and now we find out he knows how much health care is too much.

But let’s not stop there.  Not only is our community organizer one of the smartest men in America when it comes to economics and health care, he’s also a brilliant strategist with respects to Afghanistan:

…”What I’m not also gonna do, though, is put the resource question before the strategy question,” Obama told NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.” “Until I’m satisfied that we’ve got the right strategy I’m not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there- beyond what we already have.”…

I’m not sure exactly what happens to man to think he has the answers to every single last question. Maybe it’s just arrogance and ignorance, as Hayek stated:

If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this.

Whatever the reason he believes so strongly in his ability to decide what’s best for our own good, history shows us without question where this inevitably leads.  Hayek again:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.

Let’s hope we begin to understand the value of humility before we do too much damage.