Science and external social needs

One major analytical component of the thesis is the consideration of why scientists are a special group, within the larger set of expert practitioners (a category that includes snipers, surgeons, and sinologists). Usually, the explanation given relates to the scientific method: the norms according to which scientists engage with information. I was interested to see that Kuhn offers a different perspective:

In the sciences (though not in fields like medicine, technology, and law, of which the principal raison d’etre is an external social need), the formation of specialized journals, and the foundation of specialists’ societies, and the claim for a special place in the curriculum have usually been associated with a group’s first reception of a single paradigm. (SoSR 19, italics in original)

Two bits of this are interesting. The first is the idea of emergence in the unbracketed text. When Robert Keohane explained how new disciplines peeled away from philosophy as their practitioners became good enough to specialize in them, he was describing something similar. The ways in which new sub-disciplines within science emerge is clearly of interest. There are those that emerge primarily from the emergence and application of new paradigms (say, quantum chemistry). There are those that emerge because aspects of other sub-disciplines can be usefully combined (say, biochemistry). There may be others that emerge or endure on the basis of other characteristics.

To me, the assertion in the bracketed text is the more interesting part of this quotation. Glancing through the Science and Technology section of this week’s Economist, I see an article on the bacteria in the human digestive tract, and the relationship between obesity and the ratio of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes found therein. Another describes a study on hypoxia (low oxygen in the blood) being carried out by shipping volunteers to different altitudes on Mount Everest. Another is on the use of linear temporal logic to address privacy concerns in computing. The last is about how wonderful bats are, when it comes to eating bugs that eat crops and helping to pollinate Agave plants critical to the manufacture of tequila. All four articles relate quite directly to “external social need[s].”

This is not to say that Kuhn is wrong; rather, the situation sheds light on the relationship between science and society. There may be reasons for studying bacteria or subatomic physics that are concerned purely with the development of further understanding of these things. These are now, however, the reasons that are generally presented to or accepted by budget committees. While it is obviously true that ‘useful’ science is easier to motivate people to fund, there is also the issue of verifying the superiority of new truth claims. When you can say that understanding nuclear physics allows us to generate thousands of megawatts of power and incinerate our wicked enemies, you can provide qualitative evidence for the superiority of information based on a modern nuclear conception of physics over a previous view that treated atoms as indivisible, or a still previous view that rested on the idea that everything in the universe is composed of a combination of water, fire, earth, and air.

Perhaps this linkage between scientific progress and social need can be set aside just by saying that the scientific ideal is unconcerned with “external social need,” while real world science operates under other constraints. What this doesn’t take into account is the possibility that science is part of a broader project: the kind of Enlightenment dream so shamelessly categorized on The Economist’s contents page as: “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” Is science separable from the myriad assertions in that phrasing (most importantly, that there is the possibility of progress, and that it can be evaluated by contrasting ‘intelligence’ with ‘ignorance’) or is the bubble of exclusion from external social needs that exists in the ideal case durable enough to isolate science from the historical context in which it arose, and the kinds of tasks that scientists are generally called upon (and often personally driven) to engage in? If not, we are returned to the question of what distinguishes science.

L’emploi et moi

Vine and bark

Much of today has been spent digging around for jobs. The four final exams for the M.Phil will occur between the 11th and 16th of June (8th week of Trinity Term). Having written the qualifying exam last year, I am much less worried about the finals than about the thesis. Being able to write something cogent – on the basis of what I can recall about a subject and a limited amount of time – is enormously less challenging than reading a high proportion of everything academics have written about a subject, then contributing to that discussion somehow. After all, I do the former every single day and have never before done the latter. After the exam period ends, I am obligated to remain in Oxford for two weeks, in case they need to give me a viva exam (oral examination). Those are only given to people who end up on the cusp of pass/distinction or pass/fail.

As of the 30th of June, I will thus no longer be a student. It’s a thought to make a person shiver, and begin scanning through dozens of web pages looking for employment opportunities. I have already sent queries of one sort or another to the following organizations:

  1. The Economist and The Economist Intelligence Unit
  2. Environment Canada
  3. Google and Google Scholar
  4. The UBC Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability
  5. McKinsey (see post)

Most have not been formal applications for specific jobs. Mostly, I have been trying to assess what kinds of jobs are out there for someone with my credentials and experience. I can write well, do research, teach and lecture (though not with a huge amount of experience), take a decent photo, debate, do some semi-complex web stuff, and converse for at least fifteen minutes on most any subject that is not terrifically obscure. My CV is available online, in PDF or Word format. I am most interested in jobs that focus on international relations or the environment. I can certainly work anywhere in Canada, and can very probably get a work visa for the United Kingdom or the United States.

The dozens of lectures and pamphlets I have been given in the last decade or so about finding jobs, generally stress how most people find jobs through the people who they know, rather than though the kind of listings I have been trawling. So far, my efforts to identify such opportunities through people who I know have met with only moderate success. This is probably the product of mostly knowing people who are (a) career academics or (b) students who probably work for minimum wage a few days a week. That said, anyone who has any leads that they think would be appropriate for me is very much encouraged to let me know (milan.ilnyckyj@politics.ox.ac.uk).

PS. I have written previously about the job search, about why I am not going straight into a PhD program.

Outward flowing data

Every time I run iTunes, gigabyte after gigabyte starts flowing out from my computer. In the last two hours, I have send 4.11GB worth of data, and I don’t use any kind of file sharing service. The hard drive gets hot. It clicks, when I am not even using the computer. The only plausible explanation is that people are using software, such as OurTunes, to download my music library. Normally, I would be flattered that they want my music. Unfortunately, two factors complicate things. Firstly, if all the drive activity makes my HD go kaput, I am left with no working computer at a time when having one is critical. Secondly, as a non-St. Antony’s student, I am on their network on a fairly provisional basis.

As such, you now need a password to access my shared music. If you’ve gone to the trouble to find this message and read it, send me an email.

Long walks, moral complexity, pirates

Angor Wat grafitti

Today involved some good reading, four more iced shots of espresso, two important meetings, and a long and social walk with Margaret. In the manner of debt collectors everywhere, I have learned that you can get a long way with people who are not being responsive to emails by simply showing up at their doorstep. In half an hour, you can get further than two weeks worth of messages would ever take you.

I have decided, for my paper on ‘failed states,’ to argue that the term is more trouble than it is worth. It conflates a number of different circumstances in which states might find themselves in ways that make it a hopeless muddle, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. This should make the paper much more interesting to write; there is great pleasure to be taken in choosing an argument and defending it. The only trouble, it seems, is that the more education you go through, the less thoroughly you can believe that anything you are saying is really true.

That is one reason for which it is so satisfying to write about gay marriage or Guantanamo Bay. These are circumstances where I can stand four-square behind a moral position.

PS. One piece of truly essential thesis reading did get fished today: the copy of The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists that Josiah lent me last night. Gideon Defoe has made a valuable contribution to the study of pirate-scientist dynamics. One particularly useful fact for someone leaving academia: Charles Darwin was working as an unpaid naturalist on the Beagle. It seems that it really is possible to learn a great deal from such work.

Human security

Keble College

This evening, I have been thinking about ‘human security.’ This is the idea – very hot right now in international policy circles – that the object of security should be the individual, rather than states (which are arbitrary) or governments (which can be selfish or non-representative). “Protect the Human,” as the Amnesty International campaign asserts. Given the atrocities committed against individuals in the quest to assert higher ideals, a moral system based around preventing such abuses has intuitive appeal.

What I am wondering about is the basis upon which the claim can be made that human security is the important sort. There is the possibility that the realities of human life make human security a valid perspective in a deep way that transcends trends in thinking and the present character of the international system. At the other extreme is the idea that this is just a concept cooked up in some reports and boardrooms that is being applied universally by those groups who have accepted it, despite it not having any fundamental validity. The third and most sensible possibility is that the idea of human security has emerged as the product of a lengthy deliberation among states.

That said, the state consensus view has problems of its own. In particular, the manner in which transgressors are dealt with becomes important. When African states and regional organizations fail to condemn Zimbabwe and Sudan for egregious violations of human rights, are they doing so because the think continued integration is the best way to forward a human security ideal they have already internalized (this would be akin to the supposed ‘sunshine policy’ of South Korea in dealing with the North), or do they remain wary of outside impositions, having been at the sharp end of too many in the past?

The present American administration has, in some ways, made this whole debate more difficult. On the one hand, they assert certain moral values as though they have absolute validity: democracy is good, tyranny is evil. At the same time, they are willing to compromise on fundamental moral questions, ostensibly to serve higher ends. Guantanamo Bay is one embodiment of this attitude. To champion both moral absolutes and a huge level of moral flexibility is enormously problematic. Taking a universal stance and then acting in a way that seems hypocritical leads people to question whether there are moral truths with a strong claim to validity. It also profoundly diminishes the ability to that particular moral actor to act as a model to others, or exert moral pressure. Arguably, situations like the inaction of the international community tars all other states that champion a human security agenda with a similar brush.

One of the more stirring things Michael Ignatieff ever wrote relates to just this issue of universal assertions and hypocritical failures to act:

The liberal virtues – tolerance, compromise, reason – remain as valuable as ever, but they cannot be preached by those who are mad with fear or mad with vengeance. In any case, preaching always rings hollow. We must be prepared to defend them by force, and the failures of the sated, cosmopolitan nations to do so has left the hungry nations sick with contempt for us.

That possibility – that the states of the developing world reject ‘human security’ and similar concepts because of the manifest lack of commitment from the developing world – is another potential solution to the puzzle of the status of such concepts in the world today.

Citable citation

Tree and blue sky

My congratulations go out to my friend Lindi Cassel: the first person who I know personally (as in ‘used to make stick figures out of kneadable eraser while in biology class with’) to get cited on Google Scholar:

Cassel, Lindi and Peter Suedfeld. “Salutogenesis and autobiographical disclosure among Holocaust survivors.” The Journal of Positive Psychology. Volume 1, Number 4 / October 2006. p.212-225.

While the subject matter is certainly sobering, the publication is extremely impressive, like so much else about Lindi. Bravo.

Defining state failure

Empty garden

From writing about foreign aid, I have moved on to failed states. I am meant to discuss who defines states as ‘failed’ and what consequences it has for sovereignty. It seems to me that there are three general ways in which a state can be considered to have failed:

  1. States can lose their integrity, as viewed from the security perspective by outsiders.
  2. Alternatively, they can fail to maintain other characteristics that are considered essential in a modern state, such as a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
  3. Finally, they can fall below some moral threshold, below which their government or leadership is no longer seen as legitimate.

Of course, the relevance of a state being ‘failed’ or not failed lies primarily with how this changes the behaviour of other states and non-state groups towards it. If being a failed state suspends the traditional rights afforded to states – from territorial integrity to diplomatic immunity – being thus categorized could very significantly affect the treatment of both individuals and territory by outsiders.

In the first instance, a ‘failed’ state might be one that has lost control of what passes in and out of its territory, to the point where it endangers neighbouring states. This is a situation very specifically addressed in the United Nations Charter. Chapter VII specifically empowers the Security Council to “to maintain or restore international peace and security.” Generally, serious measures such as sanctions or interventions need to be justified as responses to such a threat. While the issue is sometimes fudged – for instance, by saying that possible refugee flows from an internal conflict threaten international peace and security – this is still quite generous amount of space to give states, in which to manage their own affairs.

There is a problem here, when it comes to states that have strong governments, and possibly even democratic legitimacy, but nonetheless either passively submit to or actively encourage activities that threaten international peace and security. Supplying weapons to illegal groups, for instance, is an activity that a very great many states have engaged in. It may be possible to be a criminal state without being a ‘failed’ state. If so, the difference in terms of treatment is worthy of consideration.

A definition of state failure based on the maintenance of certain characteristics by the state under consideration necessitates a setting out of what the essential characteristics of statehood are. In The Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, Montague Bernard explained it thusly:

a Community or number of persons permanently organised under a Sovereign Government of their own, and by a Sovereign Government we mean a Government, however constituted, which exercises the power of making and enforcing law within a Community, and is not itself subject to any superior Government. These two factors, the one positive, the other negative, the exercise of power and the absence of superior control, compose the notion of Sovereignty and are essential to it.

Here, non-failed states need to do more than control their borders; they also need to maintain the capacity to enact and enforce laws. Probably, this requires more resources than just maintaining territorial integrity, though it is hard to imagine a state with impeccably policed borders and a largely lawless interior. The bigger issue with this expanded definition is that it begins to subject the internal structures of a state to external scrutiny, in a way closely tied to the ability of that state to maintain international legitimacy and recognition.

(I know we discussed a formal definition of statehood in international law, in the class I took at UBC on that subject. I can’t remember which specific document was involved, however. Anyone who does is very much encouraged to comment. All my notes and textbooks from the course are back in Vancouver.)

The definition of state failure with the widest scope is some kind of affirmation of moral codes that non-failed states must obey, even in the conduct of their internal operations. This is, of course, a conception that arises hand in hand with the idea of human security. The idea that governments that either actively engage in crimes against humanity or allow them to take place unchecked have foregone their sovereignty is one that can be easily justified within a liberal tradition of political theory. Of course, it is a step beyond that to affirm the right of other states, or of the international community, to intervene in such circumstances.

Other problems arise when the above criteria are considered in combination. Take the example of Pakistan. By many measures, it is a strong state. There is an organized central government with a clear structure. There is an organized military and police forces. The state is externally recognized by the international community. At the same time, Pakistan either cannot or does not control the flow of materials and individuals across its northern border with Afghanistan, despite a recent and bloody effort on the part of the army to take control. Also, Pakistan has been shown to be involved in international illicit trade in nuclear materials and information on making nuclear weapons. While few would call Pakistan a failed state, it does demonstrate characteristics associated with state failure.

In the end, it isn’t clear to me that the failed / non-failed dynamic has much usefulness, when it comes to states. It is too simple to allege that a right to intervene arises from failure to comply with one or another set of requirements. Some kind of more sophisticated moral and legal conversation is necessary, making this binary distinction just one point of discussion in a broader dialogue.

GMail security hole

Path to Marston

As people who read techie news pages like Engadget and Slashdot already know, a somewhat serious security flaw in GMail has recently been uncovered. Specifically, when you are logged into GMail in one browser window or tab, any other site you visit can grab your entire contact list. Whether that is a serious leak or not is a matter of perspective. Certainly, it exposes all of your friends of even more spam than they already receive.

Read the following carefully before you click anything. If you want to see the script that grabs contact lists at work, follow this link. Engadget says it’s “non-malicious,” but the risk is yours. The bug arises from the way in which GMail stores your contacts as a JavaScript file that can be requested by other websites. Google claims they have fixed the bug but, as the link above will prove, they have not.

Plausible attacks

A site that wanted to be really sneaky could exploit this information in many ways. At the very least, it could be used to very easily identify many of the people who are visiting. Knowing someone’s contact list might help in the launching of phishing attacks. It could, for example, make it easier to work out what company someone works for. You could then find out who does their information technology and send spoofed emails that seem to come from the IT department, asking for passwords or other sensitive information.

If it is a site that contains content that many people would not want others to know that they view, it could grab the email addresses for people with the same last name as you and threaten to send them information on your surfing history. A less complicated ploy would be to use emails that seem to come from people who you know to get through spam filters. Because of email spoofing, it is very easy to make messages seem to be coming from someone else.

Implications

As someone with 1037 MB of data in my main GMail account – including 14,410 emails and more than 1500 instant message conversations – I am naturally very concerned about GMail security. There is tons of stuff in there that I would be profoundly opposed to seeing on a public search engine, as has already happened in at least one case with private GMail data.

Contrary to their own assertions, Google had analysed and indexed all e-mails processed through their mail service. Due to a mistake made by an administrator, a database of the highly secret project was mirrored onto the external index servers, and as a result, the private mails of thousands of GMail users could be accessed via the search front-end for at least one hour.

Source

Clearly, it would be preferable if GMail started using durable encryption on their archived messages. This would both protect the messages from hostile outsiders and keep Google from doing anything undesirable with them. Even a passphrase based symmetric-key encryption system (perhaps based on AES) would be an improvement. I bet all the students at Arizona State University, which had turned to GMail to provide all their email services would feel likewise, if they knew.

[Update: 8:30pm] This article by Brad Templeton, the Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, makes some good general points about GMail and privacy.

[Update: 11:00pm] According to Engadget, this hole has been fixed. It’s good that it was dealt with so quickly, but there are still reasons to be concerned about GMail security in general.

[Update: 2 January 2007] The mainstream media has caught up with the story. CBC News: Teen exposes Google security flaw.

[Update: 18 July 2008] GMail just added a very useful ‘Activity on this account’ feature. It tells you (a) whether any other computers are logged into account and (b) when and where the last five logins took place from. This is excellent.

Poetry in high school

I didn’t want any phase of my life to be gone forever, to be over and done with. I preferred beginnings to endings in books, as well – it was exciting not to know what was lying in store for me on the unread pages – but, perversely, I couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the final chapter of any book I was reading.

“My Last Duchess,” a story in Margaret Atwood‘s Moral Disorder, strikes me as an unusually successful discussion between literary Canadians. Reading a story about the classroom contemplation of Robert Browning‘s poem is an odd experience, for someone who has had exactly the same sorts of classroom discussions about poems by the author of the story. I am pretty sure “Disembarking at Quebec” was even tested on my grade 12 literature exam, though the memory of that test is almost entirely overshadowed by that of the far more challenging advanced placement literature test. (I remember the sight reading passage was the description of a wolfish Satan jumping into paradise (PL: IV, 172-192))

For those who are not Canadian, it is worth mentioning that Atwood is a kind of national literary representative. Along with Timothy Findley, she is probably the person who first comes to mind for most people, when they consider the content of Canadian literature. As such, it is interesting to see the author humanized: taking on the form of a young Canadian as they probably first experience her work, writing down lists of contrasting elements in a poem to rattle off for ten or twelve marks on a governmental exam sheet.