Surendra Gadekar has an article in the latest Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in which he asserts that the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal won’t save India from energy problems. Even assuming that this fact holds, Dr. Gadekar seems to think that it logically implies that India should not pursue nuclear power or at the very least put it on the back burner.

The logic is a little messy and ignores some facts.

To be fair, the article has a lively history of India’s determined efforts to wisely go for CANDU heavy water rather than light water reactors (uranium enrichment is much more technologically demanding than heavy water production), and its continued commitment to nuclear research even in the face of worldwide sanctions imposed by the 1974 test. Dr. Gadekar then talks about the dismal state of India’s uranium resources with most regions containing extremely low-grade ore, making it expensive to mine. In many regions officials are unwilling to mine because of local pressure and the Maoist insurgency.

So far so good. One would think that it’s precisely these factors that would make the nuclear deal attractive. But then Dr. Gadekar goes in a different direction, claiming that France and the United States’s ‘moribund’ reactor industries would somehow force the Indian government to buy not just fuel but also reactors. I don’t think I have read a statement to the effect that the government wants to buy reactors by default along with fuel. In any case, if the government does it, Gadekar says that the price of nuclear power will go up.

The conclusion? The nuclear deal is bad for India and nuclear is not the way to go, according to Dr. Gadekar. If nuclear power is really going to become expensive, then wouldn’t we want to adopt the opposite position for now and lap up all the nuclear fuel that we can? Fear that uranium prices would go up in the future as more countries adopt nuclear power should just mean that India with its already well-developed nuclear capacity should embark on a crash program to generate more power with our existing reactors which are for years running at partial capacity.

But a more important development which Dr. Gadekar ignores is that in thorium processing. The Advanced Heavy Water Reactor is one of the most advanced nuclear reactors in the world and the result of years of doughty development by India’s nuclear scientists and engineers. We plan to start serial production of AHWRs by 2020. Here’s what Charles Barton, a veteran nuclear engineer who has retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (a vast industrial complex built for extracting the Manhattan Project’s uranium), has to say:

The Indians are engaged in a significant thorium fuel cycle. The Indians have already built and tested both thorium fuel cycle proof of concept and developmental thorium fuel cycle reactors and have built or are building prototype thorium fuel cycle reactors including the just completed AHWR, the soon to be completed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, and the more advanced , Fast Thorium Breeder Reactor (FTBR) underdevelopment at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai is the second thorium fuel cycle breeder. The Indians are in the last stage of a 3 stage developmental program for a complex Uranium/thorium reactor fuel system, that is many times more energy efficient than the Uranium/light water reactor fuel system.

The Indians plans to build thorium fuel cycle reactor capable of producing 20 GWy of electrical energy by 2020, and to produces 30% of their electricity from thorium cycle reactors by 2050. Indian scientists calculate that the assurred thorium reserve of India is large enough to provide it with electricity for 400 years.

More efficiency will mean dwindling cost of uranium as well as efficient exploitation of India’s vast thorium resources. But this can only happen if nuclear development is not impeded and more efficient ways of exploiting both uranium and thorium are investigated. Dr. Gadekar’s opinion seems to imply that the scenario for nuclear power based on uranium is so pessimistic that we should forgo the nuclear deal and nuclear development or at least not pursue them vigorously. Not so paradoxically, this very action will indeed hamper future development.

In the end, if Dr. Gadekar really thinks that nuclear is not the way to go, he should shed light on alternative efficient, plentiful and cheap sources of energy. The reader is unfortunately left groping in the dark when Dr. Gadekar sheds not light but darkness on any such analysis with a single concluding statement;

India’s true energy crisis lies in its inability to harness its sunlight and biomass, which would provide a truly useful resource for the majority of its people

This seems to contradict all of Gadekar’s beef with uranium prices. I would be very interested to know how exactly Dr. Gadekar thinks solar power or biomass will produce energy as cheaply as he thinks uranium won’t. Unlike Gadekar, I am not discounting the role that solar and biomass will play in India’s future energy needs. But the technology for their large-scale use is still expensive and far off; nuclear technology is already widely used and highly developed, and pound for pound, nuclear still provides the biggest bang for your buck. India with its power-hungry economy needs as much of this as possible. What it does not need are superficially plausible arguments based on incomplete data. Dr. Gadekar may be well-meaning, but I have a feeling that since he edits a magazine named Anumukti which as its name suggests is in favour of a non-nuclear India, he already is wedded to dogma. It’s sad when intelligent people like Dr. Gadekar try to pen reasonable arguments when they have long since already taken sides.

© Ashutosh Jogalekar

PSAC admirably served scientists till the 1970s, when Richard Nixon predictably abolished it, in the face of overblown concerns that the scientists were being partisan. Since then, objective and honest science has been more and more unwelcome in the White House, especially with the rise of religious fundamentalism.

Little needs to be said about George W. Bush’s treatment of science, perhaps the worst of any president in the last century. Not only has his administration ignored important results and findings about climate change, the environment and stem cell research, but Bush also appointed favoured, conservative officials to administrative positions in key government agencies such as the FDA. These officials twisted, cherry-picked and even blocked scientific results to make them fall in line with conservative and religious views. Bush’s suport for religion is well known, and he encouraged schools to teach the “debate” between evolution and “intelligent” design. Fuelled by corporate lobbies, Bush also deceptively advocated unpromising scientific ventures like ethanol and the hydrogen economy, when research showed that at the very least, there is no reason to assume that they will contribute substantially to the future energy crisis. John Marburger, the current presidential scientific advisor became more or less only a formal figurehead, obeying the dictates of the administration’s standard blinkered policies. It only needs to be said that such kind of behaviour is business as usual for the Bush administration.

With change looming on the horizon and the dark political skies possibly clearing up for the first time in many years with what seems like a breath of fresh air, it is a good question to ask how the next administration will treat science. The January 4 issue of Science magazine ran an article about the favourite presidential candidates’ views about science. It is heartening to read that, apart from Huckabee and Romney, all three of the current frontrunners for both parties hold reasonably favourable and objective views about scientific research, to differing degrees of course. Especially Barack Obama seems to be very open to objective and transparent scientific advice, and that is one very good reason why he should be president.

With a hopefully science-friendly administration in the future, who should be chosen as the next presidential scientific advisor? This man or woman may likely have the most important public role of any scientist in the last twenty years or so. He or she needs to not only be a great scientist, but also a responsible, effective, and reasonable public official. He or she should be highly regarded by members of the scientific community and should be known as a fair individual. In addition, he or she would need to have a flair for communicating science to the public and reaching out to them, something that’s going to be crucial in the coming years. He or she should be absolutely clear about the concerned science, and should be able to give opinions based on the best and most comprehensive available evidence. Ability to clearly delineate scientific issues without ruffling the feathers of religious fundamentalists too much could be an unfortunately required but nonetheless required quality. As presidential science advisor, tact would as important as fair scientific judgement.

Here are my personal few picks for the next science advisor:

1. Freeman Dyson: I would have actually picked this distinguished physicist if it weren’t for two reasons- his age, and his curious skepticism about global warming. Dyson also has a peculiar set of opinions about reconciling science and religious or supernatural faith, although I have to say that if he had been offered the post, he would not have let these interfere with objective advice. He has already been on many advisory committees. But I doubt whether, given his austere disposition, he would have liked to be at the center of public affairs (I have written about him here)

2. Edward O. Wilson: Since Dyson may not be an apt candidate, here’s my top favourite. Edward Wilson of Harvard is the quintessential example of the scientist-humanitarian-man of letters. His writings are many times poetry exemplified, and his autobiography along with Dyson’s is the best socio-scientific memoir I have ever read. Not only has he made seminal contributions to ecology and evolutionary biology and won the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor, he has also won the Pulitzer Prize twice, an astounding and unique combination of achievements. He is a deeply sensitive man who has his pulse on the state of the environment. One of the earliest advocates of conservation, Wilson is a tireless and eloquent advocate of attaining ecological harmony. When it comes to religion, Wilson interestingly contends that it should not be rejected, but investigated with scientific methods. With the environment almost indisputably the essential issue of our time, Wilson would be the perfect person to give the president gentle, unbiased and prudent scientific advice.

3. James Hansen: James Hansen is probably the leading and most knowledgable climate scientist in the United States and perhaps in the world. He was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, to sound alarm bells about global warming based on realistic computer modeling in the 1980s. To this end, he was also one of the first to testify before Congress on climate change. He has been a relentless spokesman for fighting climate change since before the IPCC began publishing comprehensive reports. Over the years, his predictions more than most others’ have been borne true. Hansen is also known for having faced censorship at NASA. He had a hard time getting his conclusions into print during the Bush regime, but he has persevered and prevailed. Again, with climate change being the central issue of our time, Hansen more than anyone else is poised to give advice about this crucial theme to the president.

4. David Baltimore: Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore has spearheaded biological science in America for thirty years. Baltimore along with Howard Temin discovered reverse transcriptase, the essential enzyme of retroviruses including HIV. His leadership of American science and of Caltech has been impressive. The catch? He was involved in an infamous case of plagiarism. Although Baltimore was exonerated, he argued against the plagiarism contentions. Naturally, this single thing should not disqualify him, but I would generally be more skeptical about Baltimore’s objectivity than of the others.

5. Richard Garwin: Richard Garwin worked on the hydrogen bomb as a protégé of Enrico Fermi, and then spent his life fighting to outlaw it. He has always been an unflagging participant in arms disarmament. In the last forty years, he has repeatedly written incisive articles arguing against missile defense and nuclear weapons. Like Dyson, he has also served on scores of important committees. A doyen of the nuclear era, Garwin also might be a little old to hold the post, but would not be a bad choice.

6. Roald Hoffmann and Carl Djerassi: Since I am a chemist, I thought I should put in a plug for two chemists whom I like. Both these gentlemen have very distinguished careers in science and science writing. Hoffmann won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Djerassi is the “father of the contraceptive pill” and unique for being awarded both the National Medals, for Science and for Technology. Both are also playwrights and better-than-amateur poets. Importantly, both of them are well aware of social issues and have insightful comments about them. I don’t know if they have a lot of government experience, but both of them seem to me like they would be good persons to take advice from.

So these are the few that come to my mind. Unfortunately there is no woman among them, but that’s only because I cannot really think of one. If there is one, I will be more than happy to include the name.

But since I have a list of people I like, it may be worth stating the name of someone I definitely would not be comfortable with as science advisor, but who curiously might get chosen.

That man is Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project. Collins has come under attack in the last few years for his belief in a Christian God. And this is not the kind of metaphysical God that Einstein believed in. Collins is a devout churchgoer who argues in strange ways for a scientific basis for believing in a personal God. Till date, I haven’t seen a single defense from him that would allow me to reconcile science and religion in my mind.

There is no doubt that Collins is a fine scientist who has made important contributions. I am not even saying that he would pander to religious fundamentalists. But with religious fundamentalists already having encroached in the White House, the last person we need is a man who would always see blurred boundaries between science and religion, who would not take a firm stand on science. Note that there is a difference between actually wanting to connect science and religion, and respecting people’s personal religion. The latter condition, whether we like it or not, seems to be a part of our time. But that is quite different from mingling science with religion. That is exactly the kind of approach that the advocates of intelligent design espouse, and Collins would only encourage them and scores of other religious people to bring religion even more into schools, universities and the halls of important public discourse, and cause confusion about what science is. Clearly I see Collins as the wrong person for the post.

© Ashutosh S. Jogalekar

Read the rest of the entry on Excursions…

When Richard Nixon came to power, he dissolved PSAC under pressure from Congress that it was clouding judgment and imposing its opinions upon the president. This was one of the most regressive actions that a US president has taken in my opinion. With this action, Nixon essentially stonewalled any unbiased scientific advice that he could get from the nation’s top scientists. In their place came special-interest groups scientists and lobbyists. Now the scientists could never directly deliver their collective opinion on issues to the president without getting those opinions through White House personnel. Many of these personnel not only had scant background in science, but also were wedded to partisan pandering. They had the power to censor and manipulate scientific reports, and they did.

Since Nixon, unbiased scientific advice has become more and more unwelcome at the White House. In 1995, Congress dissolved the Office of Technology Assessment, the one remaining organization that could provide them with bipartisan advice on important scientific matters. This is especially ironic and ignominious considering the fact that only a handful of Congressmen have any significant background in science and are still routinely called upon to make prudent decisions on science policy. The administration of George Bush of course has carried this deliberate suppression and ignorance of scientific advice to great new levels. Bush’s appointee in the White House manipulated reports on climate change before presenting them to the public. When his shenanigans were discovered, he left the administration to become a lobbyist for an oil corporation. Directors of such crucial organizations as NASA, FDA and CDC (Centers for Disease Control) are also essentially Bush appointees. Scientists in these organizations have regularly complained about the suppression of sound scientific results by the administration. An employee of the FDA left because she thought that the FDA was pandering to religious groups and delaying the release of Plan B, a “morning after” contraceptive pill. Similarly employees in NASA were prohibited from talking to the press about climate change research. Bush’s appeasement of religious groups and his subsequent actions to ban stem-cell research is another bitter example of science suppression. As far as the deliberate stamping out of important scientific advice is concerned, this administration has set new records that may not be ever surpassed. 

But what is the price of all this suppression? Is it that the nation won’t see key rapid advances in stem-cell therapy leading to the potential saving of lives? Is is that the nation will have to bear the heavy costs of not curbing carbon emissions? Is it that the nation  will see whole-scale destruction of the environment perhaps beyond repair? It is of course all these things but it is something even more serious; the suppression of freedom itself.

Ever since the origins of science, scientific thinking and progress has gone hand in hand with skepticism, that quality which is the bedrock of all of science. But this quality is even more important in assessing politics, where politicians and the media are deliberately going to spin issues and build facades around key matters. Concomitant with this suppression of science by the government, we are seeing an even more pernicious phenomenon; an increasing lack of scientific knowledge and temper among the general public. And this will have devastating consequences that will become apparent all too late. Firstly, a citizenry ignorant of science will not be able to critically think about which issues need attention, and will fall for anything that the administration tells them is important. Secondly, it is the public’s dollars that fund science, and how will the public know which areas to let the government fund, if it does not know which areas should be funded in the first place? This attitude will, and it does, allow the administration to fund only those areas of science which are to their benefit, while a complicit public ignorant of science not only nods along but also lets its valuable tax dollars be diverted to these government-favored endeavors. A single example will suffice. Ever since 9/11, the administration has made bioterrorism a key research priority. Funding for bioterrorism research increased exponentially after 9/11. More importantly, the government did a very effective job in convincing the public through the media that the next great danger to their life is going to be from biological weapons. But the facts just don’t stand up to the rhetoric. Infectious and chronic diseases even after 9/11 pose a much greater harm to the health of the public than Ebola and anthrax. Antibiotic-resistant infections killed thousands last year. In spite of these simple facts, funding for basic microbiology research on infectious diseases has been choked and reduced, diverting all those funds toward preventing the next anthrax attack which has a much lesser possibility of happening than the next wave of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Again, a public ignorant of science has been a sucker for the fear-mongering tactics of the administration, and has allowed it to spend their dollars on its whims. It’s quite clear that similar strategies can be adopted by the administration to fund any other selective research, while a fearful public looks on and agrees.

Religious groups too now have more power than ever in influencing politics and certain kinds of research. A public ignorant of science and skepticism will fall for the rhetoric that it is immoral to kill a month old embryo for its cells. Skepticism entails the balancing of facts and then taking decisions based on the evidence. In this particular case, the facts indicate that stem-cell research will possibly lead to the saving of millions of lives of those stricken with diseases like diabetes, stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Clearly we can understand that it may be a moral travesty not to fund stem-cell research in the light of these promising advances. But again, a manipulative administration that panders to religious groups has the power to stop funding for such crucial research, and a public not well-versed in the true promise of stem-cell research believes them, or at the very least is indifferent to their actions. There are countless other examples of how the public, ignorant of true scientific facts, lets the administration spend its hard-earned money in areas of research which are not key to the progress of the nation but rather to the government’s partisan goals, and I can state only a few. What about missile defense, where billions of taxpayers dollars are being spent on the pretext that it will lead to a defense against some potential future threat from Iranian or North Korean missiles? What about politicians pushing for funding into new nuclear weapons under the pretext that they are needed for selectively destroying targets while “minimizing” casualties? All the research connected with these activities serves nothing else except the administration’s political motives. It does nothing to advance research that is truly important to the public’s welfare and future; stem-cells, infectious and chronic diseases, alternative energy, vaccines. And it is not opposed by the public because they cannot think skeptically enough to separate the scientific wheat from the chaff of rhetoric.

As I have noted, in the end skepticism is key not just for scientific progress but for electing those in power. Those in power on the other hand are in varying extents always going to be against the spirit of science, because it enables people to think for themselves and make informed decisions through the inherent skepticism and open-mindedness of science. The essence of political power is to keep people fearful, subdued and unable to think for themselves. Much is rightly made these days about the suppression of individual freedoms, including airport profiling and wiretaps. Although not all of this is connected with scientific research, it is doubtless connected to a lack of skepticism in the public. Trust the administration’s rhetoric about Saddam Hussein having WMDs. Trust their rhetoric about putting numbers on the high probability of a terrorist attack on US soil in the next two years. Trust their rhetoric about how dangerous Iran has become. In each one of these cases, a balanced examination of the evidence and skeptical thought would have led many to be more distrustful of the government’s motives, and scientific thinking can surely inspire such analysis. Therefore political power is also going to be against inculcating skepticism and true scientific thinking among the general populace. Religion and its intimate alliance with politics will further and more absolutely discourage such skepticism because of its inherent insistence on faith. Science is not just about discoveries and betterment of life. It is first and foremost about trusting the evidence and not taking anything at face value. It is about accepting that the world is not what it seems to be, a lesson that has been constant throughout scientific history. Scientific education, through skepticism and honest debate, promises the kind of bottom-up revolutions that have marked the origins of the most free societies in world history. Skepticism can give great power to the common people. And the lack of honest debate and questioning has also led to untold enslavement and suffering in history.

The other day I was watching a Carl Sagan interview from the year when he died (1996). There was one statement the great scientist and science popularizer made which sent a shiver down my spine. He said, “The real value of science is in teaching skepticism. If people are not skeptical, then they will fall for any charlatan or religious leader who becomes president”. It was a remarkably accurate assessment of the future. If Sagan were alive today, he would be profoundly disturbed at the tactics of an administration who wants to suppress free thought and unbiased scientific facts. But he would be even more disturbed and in fact horrified at the lack of scientific understanding and skepticism among a public who lets the administration tell them what’s important and lets their money be used any way the administration wants because they cannot make honest assessments of what the real issues are. Concomitant with scientific ignorance, lack of skepticism and the confusion caused by them, will be servility and obedience to a manipulative government. In the end, the price we may pay for scientific ignorance would not just be a poor standard of living and stunted technological growth, but liberty and freedom themselves, and we are already seeing the beginnings of that.© Ashutosh Jogalekar

A single incident changed all that. During this period of political turmoil in the world, sulfa drugs had become the rage, the first true antibiotics that served as frontline defenses against a variety of bacterial infections, infections spread through simple cuts and bruises against which people could do nothing before, simply waiting and praying for the patient to get well…or to die. In the mid 1930s, a bright red formulation of a sulfa drug made its appearance in the US market. Touted as an excellent remedy against throat strep infections and other similar maladies, it was rapidly taken up by the population and administered generously to children and adults. But within a few days, disturbing reports began to come in, and people started dying. The chief pharmacist in the company responsible for the formulation committed suicide, and the FDA was given complete charge of stopping the spread of the poison as it made its way through ten states and into the shops and the bodies of unsuspecting pharmacists and customers. Within a couple of weeks, a horrible wave of death spread across the country, claiming more than a hundred lives before all shipments of the drug were located and confiscated. It was a sobering lesson for the entire nation, congress reacted with unusual efficiency and speed, and thus was born the modern FDA; an all-encompassing agency that has spread its jurisdiction meticulously over almost every medicinal substance manufactured in the US. Drug laws were revamped and made stricter than ever before, necessitating the extensive testing for side-effects of every component that is a mainstay of the drug industry today.

But what was the cuplrit that had wrought this social disaster and reform? A single simple substance that was used only as a solvent to dissolve the beneficient sulfa drug- ethylene glycol; a colourless, syrupy sweet liquid used for decades as an industrial solvent, air-conditioner fluid and deicer for window panes. The ethylene glycol used for the sulfa drug formulation coursed through its victims’ bodies, rapidly generating toxic substances that attacked cells, proteins and DNA. Death usually came slowly and painfully. Since then, ethylene glycol has been listed as a highly toxic substance that needs to be kept away from all consumables.

But more patients’ lives could perhaps have been saved by a curious treatment; sweeping their system by an IV drip of ethanol, or as many human beings call it, “saturday night fun”. More simply, one could have saved their lives by getting them drunk. Even a drip of wine would technically have helped. Ethanol prevents the body from accumulating ethylene glycol and interacts more favourably with the enzyme that is responsible for metabolising ethylene glycol into toxic substances. Ethanol, the vice that has tempted humanity for centuries and that has been proscribed (mostly hypocritically) in almost all religious texts, can be a life saviour in such situations.

As ethanol can save the life of the stricken, so can it save those of the stupid. About only 10 ml of methanol, a close cousin of ethanol that is used extensively in academic and industrial laboratories of all kinds, can cause blindness. As less as 30 ml can and will kill you. It does so by two means. First, by again reacting with the enzyme that usually metabolises ethanol, it produces substances far more toxic than those produced by metabolising ethanol. One of the metabolities, formaldehyde, is a reactive substance par excellence, attacking almost every biomolecule it sets sight on. Secondly, methanol depresses the central nervous system, again similar to what ethanol does, finally depressing it enough to gag the respiratory center in the brain. If not anything else, this should indicate the dangers of ethanol, whose effects are so similar if not as exacerbated as those of methanol. But the cretinous persist. In their desperate throes to search out ethanol, a fine taste for which they have acquired through many evenings of gaiety, they can sometimes imbibe methanol in the hope that it will satisfy their ethanolic urges. Alas, what for a chemist is a difference of only one carbon translates to a difference of life versus death for these intrepid seekers of satiation.

As much as we may frown upon these trouble makers who shoot themselves in the foot, we have responsibilities to save them. The same drip of ethanol that can save ethylene glycol-ridden victims can do that same for the methanol-afflicted. The next time you suspect somone of having consumed methanol, thrust a bottle of your finest wine down his or her throat. Fortunately for us, the enzyme that metabolises both methanol and ethanol has a much greater affinity for ethanol. Fortunately too methanol is more volatile and water-soluble than ethanol, so while ethanol keeps the enzyme busy, methanol is gotten rid of through the kidneys. In fact, many people have a close call unknowingly when they consume liquors and other spirits; all these liquids have methanol from their natural distillation process, and it is only the more abundant ethanol that keeps the methanol from doing its damage.

In the case of these foolish yet unfortunate members of society, ironically the thing which almost killed them now can save their lives and flows through their arteries as life-giving elixir. Such are the tragic and sometimes happy circumstances that nature and chemistry thrusts upon us.

© Ashutosh Jogalekar

However, it does bother me when someone who seems to be educated in the sciences actually believes any creationist presumptions. And not just because he wants to “respect their opinion” but because he truly and actually wants to justify what they are saying. When I hear something like this coming from a scientifically trained mind, I can’t help but become extremely uncomfortable because there is a genuine problem here; people groomed in the scientific method (or not…) trusting beliefs that fly in the face of every piece of scientific evidence, not to mention rational logic. How can this happen? It is at times like this that I kiss my precious time goodbye, roll up my sleeves and submit myself to the learned opinions of such good folks to hear them out.

So it was with two gentlemen, good friends of mine, whom I will call X and Y to respect their identities. Two days ago, I got into an almost three hour debate with them on creationism. But perhaps not suprisingly, it then came to defining science itself, belief and the limits of our knowledge. While their arguments later appeared to me to be well-known, at the time the form in which they were presented seemed novel and clever, and to be honest I was a little taken aback at the time. Referring to what I said before, these days I avoid any arguments about creationism because the situation seems to be pretty much clear to me and this is likely the last time I argue with them on the matter. But that day, this debate that we had that began with creationism turned into one about the nature of science itself.

Their backgrounds don’t give any inkling that they would believe such things…or at least the background of one of them. X has a master’s degree in microbiology from a well-known US university and now works at the cutting edge of molecular biology and genetics at a well-known medical school. He is known for his hard logic and ingrained skepticism; a set of tools extremely valuable in science. Y on the other hand puzzles me; he is a emphathetic medical doctor with many years of experience in medicine and public health. His religious views have been something of a quandry to me until now. He certainly does not seem to be overtly religious, but neither does he seem to think there is any problem with people’s religious faiths. He seems to think that people’s beliefs justify their actions. That sounds logical, but if anything it calls for empathy but not necessarily sympathy for people who harbour potentially violent religious beliefs. X lives an ascetic life and I wonder how he seems to survive on such a meager subsistence, while Y is inordinately wedded to the idea of pasta.

In any case, the debate started when Y contended that people are free to believe whatever they want to. I think that’s fair, but I pointed out the important distinction between belief and truth to him, a central point that was going to underline everything we said from then on, although its presentation came in many disguises. This is when the fun started, when Y said:

“Look, until science can prove otherwise, we must believe in the status quo, the null hypothesis (note that this sounds “scientific”). When people believed that the earth was flat, science had to come along and prove that it was not. That meant that until science proved it wrong, the existing belief was the truth”

I should actually have challenged him right then and there. There were many things fundamentally wrong with this statement. First of all, there is again the unholy conflation of belief and truth. This by the way also assumes that one thinks that truth in fact is defined by belief, perhaps a perfectly acceptable proposition to armchair postmodernists, but completely unacceptable to almost all of us who don’t equate the two and who don’t consider the two to be the same in daily life. Secondly, we have to be careful what to call the “status quo” in the absence of evidence. For example, how did the universe come into being? Science has a fair idea but admittedly does not know the answer to the ultimate question. So what is the status quo in this case? That the universe was created by the Christian God? The myriad Hindu gods? The fiery breath of the Hottentot God from which it came from? Are all of these status quos? Surely there cannot be multiple realities out there, some even contradicting each other, all of which are true? In addition to these problems is the disarmingly simple and biggest damning argument against the “first cause argument”. If any God created the universe, who created God? So the status quo, assuming it has been defined, does not even simplify the question one bit but pushes it into infinite regress.

So, in the absence of evidence, what is the status quo? I have an answer here which rhymes with the phrase and it is “I don’t know”. And this goes to the heart of religious belief, where religious people don’t want to admit that they don’t know something. They would rather have a well-articulated fantasy-based explanation that has no evidence than no explanation at all, no matter that that explanation is little more than the figment of their imagination (and that of countless others). Scientists and most rational people have no problem admitting they don’t know something, but while scientists are uncomfortable with this ignorance and constantly try to shed light on it, for religion ignorance manifested through faith seems to almost be a holy object to be worshipped unto itself. Ignorance by its very definition will never change until efforts are made to dispel it, but religious people gain great comfort from this unchanging state of affairs. The “status quo” indeed stays so because nobody takes a step to go beyond it.

It was here that my friend X stepped in and went a step further, supporting Y because according to him, scientific knowledge itself is so uncertain that it’s quite all right that both creationism and science should be valid “explanations” in their own way. Apparently his healthy skepticism in scientific matters went so far as to question everything and doubt its existence. As much as I try to stay calm during such arguments, this really made me bristle with indignation. Both of them apparently did not understand the difference between various levels of certainty. They also did not seem to understand that while scientific knowledge is indeed getting revised, it is also getting more and more firmly rooted and validated with every discovery. Debating details does not invalidate the entire enterprise. My doctor friend Y jumped in at this point and gave me an example; when doctors earlier thought that they could explain hepatitis invoking just one strain, it ultimately turned out to be wrong and there turned out to be three strains (A, B, C). Surely that means that scientific knowledge is eternally unchanging?? Of course, I said, but that surely does not overturn, say, the whole germ theory of disease? Just because scientists argue about details does not mean they revise the whole foundations of science. When Einstein discovered profound modifications to the Newtonian view of the universe, that did not suddenly topple over Newtonian gravity, which still is perfectly adequate for most things in life.

To throw what he thought would be more light on this aspect of the discussion, X gave me an example of a glass half-filled with water. He said that if we approach it from a kilometer away, we see nothing and there is only speculation about what’s there. Come a little closer and the certainty about the object increases. Thus, the decreasing distance between ourselves and the glass depicts the change in scientific beliefs. Actually this is a marvelous example, but in fact indicates the exact opposite of what X was saying, the gradually enabling character of science, and not an argument that science changes so much that nothing is certain. In this case, sure, I cannot make out anything at one kilometer. But when I get to 100 meters, I can make out a glass. At 50 meters I can make out a glass but I may not be sure if it’s full or empty. I may even be wrong in my conclusion at this point. But then I get to 10 meters and I confirm that it is a glass that is half-full. Note now that coming closer to 5 meters does not change this perception. I may get a better idea of what the liquid in the glass is (I see bubbles….it must be soda) but the basic perception does not change. Coming even closer enables me to make out the microscopic details of the glass and liquid, but it still does not change my belief that the glass is half-full. Also note that at every point, I have independent tests that can prove this belief and it holds true at every point as well as becomes more certain. This is in fact a great example that while details of scientific perceptions keep on changing, there are much higher levels of certainty for basic assumptions. X’s example in fact demonstrates exactly the opposite of what he says.

To be honest, it was at this time that I started feeling that the whole discussion was rather bizzare, because my friends had suddenly started starting using one of the favourite tools of creationists; to find gaps in our understanding of science, point to how our understanding of the world was improved upon by future discoveries, and thus then tout how the whole framework of science is so uncertain that creationism surely cannot be more uncertain. This is sheer nonsense, and if we were not arguing about creationism, I am sure my learned friends would have known the difference between various degrees of understanding. I say this again; just because scientists argue about details does not mean they doubt the entire enterprise. Just because you don’t know how exactly genetic information is transmitted does not make you doubt the very existence of genes. Evolutionary details are also hotly debated but not a single biologist doubts the fundamental premise of evolution and natural selection and if someone does, the burden of proof is on him for negating the monumental body of evidence gathered in support of both.

I was even more galled when X the biologist said that his mortal mind cannot grasp the fact of human evolution until he sees more “direct” evidence, which is perhaps the wire-cage year long transformation of a primate into a human. You know what, neither can I grasp how that exactly happened. That’s why I depend on indirect exhaustively gathered evidence from the fossil record, from anthropology and from biochemistry and genetics corroborating each other. I agree that evolution is not as directly observable a process as say the photolysis of water. But it seemed strange to me to say the least that X, a biologist who uses indirect techniques to verify data all the time in his lab, is not trusting such carefully tabulated indirect evidence. This was exasperating and I frankly could not believe that Y, the same Y who in the past had dispassionately debated with me and applied the most stringent skepticism to his scientific arguments, was saying this.

To cut a very long story short, this debate went on for almost three hours; for once I had decided that this was a cause not just for arguing against creationism but for defending science. It was only after a long time that I caught the basic thread of the argument, their constant tendency to mix up belief and truth. And when I raised this objection, Y would go back to his old arguments and question the nature of “truth”, trying to convince me that everything is uncertain and that all degrees of certainty are equivalent. Basically all their arguments revolved around these two axioms, which to me clearly seemed to be fundamentally flawed premises.

What is the most fascinating aspect about these points is an almost clinical psychological characteristic; two people trained in the biological and medical sciences who in their daily life routinely draw conclusions based on indirect but firm evidence, who don’t accept facts without justification, who won’t write a single report or prescribe a treatment unless they have repeated their experiments and observations, and yet who when it comes to religious faith will dump this rigor out of the window, conflate belief with truth and proclaim that all degress of certainty are equivalent and therefore admissible. Going back to X’s insistence of more direct evidence, it is almost a trite truism to say that he deals with objects that he cannot directly perceive with this eyes; genes, DNA and antibodies, and yet he believes that they are there only because of some validated if indirect methods. I have said this before; I find such a severing of thinking from reality an almost schizophrenic process. As Sam Harris says, this is a peculiarity that only religion possesses; tell a man that his wife is having an affair and he won’t believe it without justification and evidence, but tell him that there was a prophet born of a virgin mother, who miraculously healed the sick and rose from the dead and he will believe it as if it were an irrefutable fact. A fact which I am sure is of endlessly fascinating value to psychologists and neuroscientists, which is also a cause of much pain and suffering in our world.

Our learned debate ended with Y storming off in exasperation, and X gradually changing the subject when he realised that I had more time to waste and was ready to argue all night. The above description of the debate may give the impression of an entertaining evening, but frankly I was quite disturbed by it and to this day it bothers me. I don’t expect creationists entombed in their dogmatic beliefs to change them. But if rational men and women of science, men and women supposedly of learning and reason too don’t understand the nature and value of scientific inquiry, then to put it bluntly in the words of magicians Penn and Teller, we are screwed. Just we. Science will continue to progress.

That point concerns nuclear weapons for deterrence. One of the key purposes of the nuclear deal would be to gain access to international uranium stocks, so that our own rather tighly constrained uranium stocks would be free for generating power. This is a sound proposition. However, many experts including some in the Indian atomic energy establishment have admitted that the freed up domestic uranium stocks could be diverted in weapons research and development. Since India is keeping some reactors off limits from IAEA inspection, this possibility seems to be very real. The question naturally arises; do we need more nuclear weapons? Based on what I have read until now, the answer seems to be no, or at the very most, a few.

Even though the exact number is not known, it is safe to assume that India has around 50 nuclear weapons of the fission and fusion type. A report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) did an analysis based on known Indian reactor operating capacities as well as possible amounts of material used by India in its two nuclear tests. The report concludes that India has about 500 kg of weapons-grade plutonium in reserve. This is a huge quantitiy, enough to construct about 100 fission bombs. The bombs could be made even more powerful if they were of the “boosted type” in which a mixture of deuterium and tritium is added to increase the yield through fusion.

Any such number of bombs are more than enough for deterrence in my opinion. Assume a conservative total lower limit of bombs of 100. Further assume conservatively that the average yield of the bombs is 10 kilotons each (for comparison purposes, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed about 100,000 people instantly were 20 kT each). The question is, are these weapons enough for deterrence? There are many factors which we have to consider in this context, but unless I hear a good argument against it, to me the answer currently seems to be yes. Some comparisons reinforce this conclusion in my mind. At the end of World War 2, when some belligerent and hard-hitting officials in the US administration and military were already thinking about knocking out the Soviets in a possible atomic strike, General Leslie Groves who was head of the Manhattan Project commisioned a study to find out the size of arsenal of bombs necessary to destroy 90% of Russia’s biggest cities and perhaps half of their industrial capability. Even considering the crude Hiroshima type bombs then under construction, experts reached a figure of 200. In the face of this fact, it seems absurd beyond reason that at the end of the Cold War, the US ended up with a legacy of around 10,000 weapons.

Other countries have exercised more caution in the building up of nuclear arsenals. Britain has had a fleet of 200 atomic bombs. It was much closer to the European and Russian mainland, yet it never saw a need for a larger arsenal for deterrence. Who would dare attack them when faced with a retaliation with 200 thermonuclear weapons? It took the French a little more to feel secure; about 400. China probably has 100-200. Israel perhaps has 100. All these countries have felt that these arsenal sizes coupled with efficient delivery vehicles are enough for deterrence, and they are. Even five of these weapons reaching “enemy” soil would have a horrendous effect killing millions. These arsenals were fashioned for deterrence against the Soviet Union and China, countries with huge land areas. Surely a fleet of 100 bombs should serve as a detterent against the much smaller Pakistan for us? Possibly much less will do, say around 50. For China, it will take a little more, but given the statistics quoted above for other countries even during the Cold War, there is no reason to think that any number bigger than 200 would be considered woefully insufficient for deterrence. With an average yield of 10-20kT, these weapons would wreak havoc on any highly populated city, and nobody in their right mind would invite such destruction.

India also has efficient delivery systems. Our latest ICBM Agni 2 has a range of around 2500 km, enough to reach some but not deeper targets in China. The missile can easily carry a 20 kT warhead. Development also continues for the Agni 3, which will have similar delivery capabilities with longer ranges reaching deeper into China.

With such a weapons and delivery capability, there seems no expedient reason for India to divert its precious uranium reserves into weapons even with access to foreign reserves. We need all the uranium and plutonium (and perhaps thorium) to generate electricity. As noted above, we have ample plutonium for weapons. In addition, we also have considerable stocks of reactor-grade plutonium to build a bomb or two per year. Reactor grade plutonium has a much higher percentage of an unfavourable plutonium isotope that causes spontaneous fission. Due to this problem, more of it needs to be used in order to make an efficient weapon, but nevertheless it can be used. This extra source of plutonium for weapons seems to make arguments for diverting uranium into weapons-building even more tenuous.

We don’t know for sure whether the Indo-US nuclear deal will be dead in the face of lack of political will. But even if it is dead, does it mean that nuclear power generation in India should stop? Not for the near future it seems. We are in the process of constructing three to four new reactors including a fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam. Currently it has been estimated by the IPFM panel that our annual production of uranium is around 300 tons. Annual needs of uranium for power production are 450 tons, so clearly we have been having a deficit and this has been considered a key lacuna in our power generation capability. However, two new mines in Andhra Pradesh will produce about 100-200 tons of extra uranium. There is opposition to the opening of the mines that centers mainly around the legitimate issues of pollution and environmental depletion, but this opposition can be overcome by political will and prudent action. The IPFM report makes it clear that if all eight of India’s unsafeguarded reactors are used for generating power instead of weapons material, the uranium requirement will be about 340 tons, only a little more than what is produced currently, and certainly much less that what we could produce if the two Andhra Pradesh mines would be opened up.

So it seems to me that if we don’t divert uranium for weapons building and if we open up the two new mines, India will have enough uranium for power generation for the next decade or so. As noted above, we already have plutonium for an ample nuclear deterrent. Plutonium from the spent fuel rods generated in the power generation from uranium can also be used for weapons. Given our stocks of plutonium, delivery systems and current arsenal, we seem to already possess the minimum credible deterrent against both Pakistan and China. On the other hand, building more nuclear weapons will clearly send out the wrong message to Pakistan, China and the rest of the world and undermine security in South-Asia for no justifiable reason. They will also unnecessarily sap taxpayers’ money, a point that should not be lost on libertarians. In view of this fact, I believe that if we decide to open new mines and use all the uranium that we can without weapons building, we should have enough nuclear material to increase power generation for at least a few years.

I don’t mean to imply that we will be as better off without the deal as with it, at the least because in addition to material we would have also acquired valuable equipment and technology through it. Eventually uranium deposits will be depleted and any access to foreign uranium stocks will always be beneficial. But just because the nuclear deal is currently flailing does not mean that our nuclear power program should also start instantly failing.

Read the rest of the entry on Excursions…

Read the rest of the entry on Excursions…

It’s not everyday that you get to have a relaxed, inspirational and informal almost one-on-one chat for an hour with a Nobel Prize winner. Yet that was what it was today morning, when me and just three other students in a small room spent an hour talking about everything under the sun with Peter Agre, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr. Agre was here as part of the “Luminaries in Science” series organised by Emory University, which earlier also saw Andrew Fire, the 2006 Medicine laureate.

Dr. Agre’s visit was marked by three events; first, a talk by him about his prize-winning work, then an evening banquet with him, other students and faculty members, and finally today, a one hour student discussion forum. I was fortunate to be invited to attend all three events.

Dr. Agre received the prize for his discovery of aquaporins, important proteins in the human body and other organisms that facilitate the flow of water molecules. Water is so prevalent around us that we often take it for granted and cease to think of it as a wondrous substance. But wondrous it is, and one of its most important functions is in detoxifying the body through urine produced in the kidneys, which are marvels of purification systems. The human kidneys pass the equivalent of 180 liters of water everyday and filter and purify it, and much of the action is made possible by these highly efficient and unique water channel proteins called aquaporins which Dr. Agre’s group discovered. Aquaporins are also involved in general fluid balance and preventing dehydration, lubrications of body parts and tissues, and are increasingly implicated in diseases like malaria and in aging.

Peter Agre is a fabulous guy; warm, funny, extremely laid back and friendly, and exuding modesty without being falsely modest. During his talk, he made it a point to acknowledge at every step the contributions of his co-workers which made his discovery and its implications possible. It takes courage and humility to say that someone else was responsible for a key part of a prize-winning idea, yet that is the way science works and Dr. Agre was very forthcoming in highlighting the contributions of others.

But it was really the one hour “forum” today morning that was unforgettable for me. Only four of us showed up. While I felt this was a little embarrassing, it also meant that we had Dr. Agre to ourselves for one hour and that was exactly how it would turn out to be; a quiet, entertaining, rare and intimate exchange with a fine mind and person. A few minutes later, Dr. Agre arrived alone and sheepishly admitted that even he was not sure what exactly we were supposed to do. That informal beginning set the tone for the next hour’s discussion.

The discussion was extremely informal, and Dr. Agre is such a friendly and “normal” person that after a while I forgot that I was talking to a Nobel laureate. For the next hour, we talked about ourselves, he talked about himself and his life and all of us talked about science and joked around in an incredibly casual and easy-going conversation spiced with anecdotes and humour. It was as if we were discussing sports or current affairs at a friend’s place, and the extremely small group in the small room greatly facilitated the intimacy of the exchange. He asked us all about our background, what brought us to the US and our aspirations. He himself talked about his background, and how it was a lucky break that he got to investigate aquaporins; the proteins actually showed up as contaminants in another study that he was doing, and he actually had to convince the grant agency that this side-direction was worth pursuing. Dr. Agre had Alexander Fleming’s “prepared mind” and perseverance to investigate this phenomenon. In 1992, he identified the long-sought after water channel proteins and jubilation rang throughout his group. Dr. Agre also talked about his personal background, about how his parents had grown up impecunious in trying depression times, about how he was infused with the love of science in the past-Sputnik age. He is also an outdoor enthusiast, and in fact I was pleased to hear that he has been to Pune, to Mumbai, and other parts of India and Asia.

During the next hour we traded thoughts about a variety of things. We discussed the grim funding scenarios in science and the constant politicization of science in the US and lamented the lack of scientific training and therefore comprehension in almost all politicians (read his article here). He said that in this scenario, scientists have even more of a responsibility to objectively discuss scienctific issues without oversimplifying them. I told him about my blog and my simultaneous interest in communicating science, and the talk inevitably turned towards the role that the media plays in the process- almost always an unfavourable one. Dr. Agre said he is happy to talk to journalists about science and said that it is extremely important for them to report scientific facts without hyping them, a fact seldom observed. Dr. Agre asked me what I thought about Sanjay Gupta, the CNN medical correspondent who happens to be a doctor at Emory. He seemed to be very amused with Gupta, and why not! I told him candidly what I think of him; I always have thought that while he is a smart guy, he is called upon by CNN to give expert advice on every topic remotely connected to science. Surely he could not be an expert on everything?! Needless to say, Dr. Agre agreed. Almost none of the mainstream channels here do a good job of communicating science, and even now most of the science writers who do a fine job have a scientific background.

On the other hand, some of the most honest and fair reporters in the US are comedians! Jon Stewart does a much better job of reporting news than other channels. And it turned out that Dr. Agre had appeared on the Colbert Report, where Colbert had flipped his Nobel Prize medal to decide between science and religion! You can watch his interview here.

As the hour progressed, we also talked about the need for young people to go into science and about expectations of “instant gratification” that deter people from studying science. Clearly when this happens, we all lose. Dr. Agre who spent the bulk of his career at Johns Hopkins talked about the inner city youths in Baltimore who get instant gratification from heroin use without thinking about the consequences. You cannot help but get inspired by a Nobel laureate, but Dr. Agre was even more inspiring when he candidly said that as much as he likes to think of himself as the present of science, he is actually the past, and it’s the students sitting in front of him and others, who are the real future of science. When it comes to research, teaching as well as communicating science, it’s up to us.

Before we knew it, the hour was up and we had had a fantastic time. All in all, an unforgettable, immensely satisfying and extremely informal exchange with someone who is not just a great scientist, but a wonderful person.