Category: Books

Solution to Problems of Retirement: Don’t Retire

(p. A13) Unsurprisingly, one response to the retirement challenge is: Don’t do it. Not, at least, until you really must. As Mr. Farrell argues (with plenty of supporting evidence), there is no magic element of personal doom attached to one’s 65th birthday or whatever age is believed to separate honest labor from a twilight of idleness. If you like what you do well enough, can perform your tasks competently and could use the income, why not keep working? The satisfactions of work are too often unrecognized in the popular imagination. Without it, a lot people wouldn’t know what to do.
And the longer you work, of course, the more money you will have when you eventually do retire, a strategy that works to the good of society too, since your paychecks will be contributing to FICA and will help keep the system running.

For the full review, see:
GEOFFREY NORMAN. “BOOKSHELF; Second Acts After 65; People who could be playing golf and doting on their grandchildren are starting businesses. One senior launched a coffee house in Detroit.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Sept. 24, 2014): A13.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 23, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Unretirement’ by Chris Farrell; People who could be playing golf and doting on their grandchildren are starting businesses. One senior launched a coffee house in Detroit.”)

The book under review is:
Farrell, Chris. Unretirement: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014.

Inequality Much Less If You Count Government Transfers as Part of Income

Despite the gratuitous jab contained in the “fanciful assumptions” phrase, what is notable about the passages quoted below is that Porter is mainly, though grudgingly, granting Burkhauser’s main point: including government transfers reduces allegedly high inequality.

(p. B1) Washington already redistributes income from the rich to the poor. Richard Burkhauser and Philip Armour from Cornell and Jeff Larrimore from the Joint Committee on Taxation have become heroes to the right by trying to establish that government redistribution has, in fact, erased the trend of increasing inequality.

While these claims rest on fanciful assumptions about what counts as income, their analysis of taxes and government programs does support the argument that the government does more than it has in a long time to protect lower-income Americans from the blows of the market economy.
. . .
(p. B5) “Substantial changes in tax and transfer policies during the Bush and Obama administrations have increased dramatically the resources available at the middle of the distribution and at the bottom more so,” Professor Burkhauser told me.
. . .
Research by Leslie McCall of Northwestern University finds that . . . American voters remain lukewarm about government interventions to reduce income inequality, . . .

For the full commentary, see:
Eduardo Porter. “Seeking New Tools to Address a Wage Gap.” The New York Times (Weds., NOV. 5, 2014): B1 & B5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date NOV. 4, 2014.)

The Burkhauser co-authored paper summarized above, is:
Armour, Philip, Richard V. Burkhauser, and Jeff Larrimore. “Levels and Trends in U.S. Income and Its Distribution: A Crosswalk from Market Income Towards a Comprehensive Haig-Simons Income Approach.” Southern Economic Journal 81, no. 2 (Oct. 2014): 271-93.

I believe that the research being to referred to by McCall is in her book:
McCall, Leslie. The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs About Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

With Targeted Research, Scientists Not Allowed to Pursue Serendipitous Discoveries

(p. 303) When scientists were allowed to pursue whatever they found, serendipitous discovery flourished.
Today, targeted research is pretty much all there is. Yet, as Richard Feynman put it in his typical rough-hewn but insightful manner, giving more money “just increases the number of guys following the comet head.”2 Money doesn’t foster new ideas, ideas that drive science; it only fosters applications of old ideas, most often enabling improvements but not discoveries.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

Pentagon Bureaucracy “Hindered Progress” on Drones

(p. A13) Compared with, say, a B-2 Bomber, drones are simple things. An empty B-2 weighs 158,000 pounds. The largest version of the Predator–the unmanned aerial vehicle now playing a critical role in every theater where the American military is engaged–weighs just under 5,000. Yet these small aircraft are revolutionizing warfare. Given the simplicity of drones, why did it take so long to put them into operation?
. . .
The most alarming take-away from Mr. Whittle’s history is the persistent opposition of officials in the Pentagon who, for bureaucratic reasons, hindered progress at every step of the way.
A case in point: Two months after 9/11, the Predator was employed to incinerate one of al Qaeda’s senior operatives, Mohammed Atef. The same blast also incinerated–metaphorically–a study released two weeks earlier by the Pentagon’s office of operational testing and evaluation. The study had declared Predator “not operationally effective or suitable” for combat. If one seeks to understand why the drone revolution was late in coming–too late to help avert 9/11–the hidebound mentality behind that Pentagon document is one place to start.

For the full review, see:
Gabriel Schoenfeld. “BOOKSHELF; Building Birds of Prey; Red tape at the Pentagon prevented the development of a drone that could have helped avert the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Sept. 16, 2014): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 15, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Predator’ by Richard Whittle; Red tape at the Pentagon prevented the development of a drone that could have helped avert the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”)

The book under review is:
Whittle, Richard. Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2014.

Government Funding Rewards Conformity

(p. 302) Inherent in the system is a mindset of conformity: one will tend to submit only proposals that are likely to be approved, which is to say, those that conform to the beliefs of most members on the committee of experts. Because of the intense competition for limited money, investigators are reluctant to submit novel or maverick proposals. Needless to say, this environment stifles the spirit of innovation. Taking risks, pioneering new paths, thwarting conventional wisdom–the very things one associates with the wild-eyed, wild-haired scientists of the past–don’t much enter into the picture nowadays.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

When Asked What He Took in College, Tackle Frank Hanley Replied: “Baths!”

(p. A9) College football fans have a tendency to view the unsavory aspects of the game as a modern phenomenon. Dave Revsine’s “The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation” knocks this myth flat in its first few pages. The book is a stirring survey of malfeasance, meticulously documented and brought to life by Mr. Revsine, a former ESPN anchor who is now a host for the Big Ten Network. Excessive violence? Yup. Eligibility scams? Sure. Wanton profiteering? You bet.
. . .
In the fervent pursuit of ticket sales and publicity, schools routinely recruited players whom they made little pretense about educating. The hulking Notre Dame tackle Frank Hanley, asked by Harper’s Weekly what he took at college, offered this cheerful rejoinder: “Baths!”
. . .
Yet for the devoted fan “The Opening Kickoff” is a first-class account of football’s turbulent origins, one that helps explain how a collision sport became the most conspicuous part of American higher education and a de facto developmental league for the pros in which unpaid “student-athletes” generate billions of dollars of revenue.
The marriage of academics and athletics, Mr. Revsine ruefully reminds us, was never going to be especially innocent. As Harvard President Charles Eliot put it back in 1905, “Deaths and injuries are not the strongest argument against football. That cheating and brutality are profitable is the main evil.”

For the full review, see:
STEVE ALMOND. “BOOKSHELF; Collegiate Collisions; The hulking Notre Dame tackle Frank Hanley, asked what he took at college, offered this cheerful rejoinder: ‘Baths!’.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Aug. 27, 2014): C5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 26, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Bookshelf: ‘The Opening Kickoff’ by Dave Revsine; The hulking Notre Dame tackle Frank Hanley, asked what he took at college, offered this cheerful rejoinder: ‘Baths!’.”)

The book under review is:
Revsine, Dave. The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2014.

Government Funding Not Conducive to Serendipity

(p. 301) Even in the early twentieth century, the climate was more conducive to serendipitous discovery. In the United States, for example, scientific research was funded by private foundations, notably the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York (established 1901) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). The Rockefeller Institute modeled itself on prestigious European organizations such as the Pasteur Institute in France and the Koch Institute in Germany, recruiting the world’s best scientists and providing them with comfortable stipends, well-equipped laboratories, and freedom from teaching obligations and university politics, so that they could devote their energies to research. The Rockefeller Foundation, which was the most expansive supporter of basic research, especially in biology, between the two world wars, relied on successful programs to seek promising scientists to identify and accelerate burgeoning fields of interest. In Britain, too, the Medical Research Council believed in “picking the man, not the project,” and nurturing successful results with progressive grants.
After World War II, everything about scientific research changed. The U.S. government–which previously had had little to do with funding research except for some agricultural projects–took on a major role. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) grew out of feeble beginnings in 1930 but became foremost among the granting agencies in the early 1940s at around the time they moved to Bethesda, Maryland. The government then established the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1950 to promote progress in science and engineering. Research in the United States became centralized and therefore suffused with bureaucracy. The lone scientist working independently was now a rarity. Research came to be characterized by large teams drawing upon multiple scientific disciplines and using highly technical methods in an environment that promoted the not-very-creative phenomenon known as “groupthink.” Under this new regime, the competition (p. 302) among researchers for grant approvals fostered a kind of conformity with existing dogma. As the bureaucracy of granting agencies expanded, planning and justification became the order of the day, thwarting the climate in which imaginative thought and creative ideas flourish.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

“Bad Ideas Die Hard, Especially Those that Flatter Our Vanity”

(p. C5) Mütter was one of the first plastic surgeons in America.
. . .
Mütter was also a pioneer of burn surgery.
. . .
Every hero needs a good antagonist and Mütter had a great one, a professor and blowhard named Charles D. Meigs who was as contrary as a Missouri mule. Meigs was a highly regarded obstetrician and one of Mütter’s colleagues at Jefferson. He rejected Mütter’s namby-pamby notions by reflex. Anesthesia? Pshaw! Men and women are put on earth to suffer. Handwashing? Humbug! The very idea that physicians could spread disease was preposterous. As Meigs wrote, “a gentleman’s hands are clean.” Unfortunately, bad ideas die hard, especially those that flatter our vanity. The fight to make medicine as humane as possible continues long after Mütter’s premature death from tuberculosis in 1859.

For the full review, see:
JOHN ROSS. “The Doctor Will See You Now.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Aug. 30, 2014): C5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 29, 2014, and has the title “Book Review: ‘Dr. Mütter’s Marvels’ by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.”)

The book under review is:
Aptowicz, Cristin O’Keefe. Dr. Müt­ters Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.

Eisenhower Warned that “a Government Contract Becomes Virtually a Substitute for Intellectual Curiosity”

(p. 300) In his farewell address on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower famously cautioned the nation about the influence of the “military-industrial complex,” coining a phrase that became part of the political vernacular. However, in the same speech, he presciently warned that scientific and academic research might become too dependent on, and thus shaped by, government grants. He foresaw a situation in which “a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

How “the Credentials Arms-Race” Now “Defines Young Adulthood”

(p. A11) . . . “Excellent Sheep” is a cri de coeur against the credentials arms-race that now defines young adulthood–and even childhood–for many Americans. But you don’t have to take his word for it: The book features interviews and correspondence with students and recent graduates of elite institutions. Beyond their glowing transcripts and the fact that they have become “accomplished adult-wranglers,” these students are anxious, depressed and searching for some deeper meaning in their lives. “For many students, rising to the absolute top means being consumed by the system. I’ve seen my peers sacrifice health, relationships, exploration, activities that can’t be quantified and are essential for developing souls and hearts, for grades and resume building,” one Stanford student told the author. A Yalie put it more succinctly: “I might be miserable, but were I not miserable, I wouldn’t be at Yale.”

For the full review, see:
EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH. “BOOKSHELF; The Credentials Arms-Race; Students sacrifice all to grades and resume building–‘I might be miserable,’ a Yalie noted, ‘but were I not miserable, I wouldn’t be at Yale.’.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Aug. 21, 2014): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 20, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite’ by William Deresiewicz; Students sacrifice all to grades and resume building–‘I might be miserable,’ a Yalie noted, ‘but were I not miserable, I wouldn’t be at Yale.’.”)

The book under review is:
Deresiewicz, William. Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. New York, NY: Free Press, 2014.

Loewi Proved a Slow Hunch after 17 Years

(p. 243) Loewi had long been interested in the problem of neurotransmission and believed that the agent was likely a chemical substance and not an electrical impulse, as previously thought, but he was unable to find a way to test the idea. It lay dormant in his mind for seventeen years. In a dream in 1921, on the night before Easter Sunday, he envisioned an experiment to prove this. Loewi awoke from the dream and, by his own account, “jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of thin paper.” Upon awakening in the morning, he was terribly distressed: “I was unable to decipher the scrawl.”
The next night, at three o’clock, the idea returned. This time he got up, dressed, and started a laboratory experiment.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.