Michael Giberson

Actually, the Jamie Whyte interview in the New Scientist had triggered an old idea of mine.

You know how it is when you’ve been bested in a debate by some idiot who hits you with a remark that leaves you stuttering for a response, and days later while you lie in bed thinking why why why why why the response comes to you. You think “Aha, now I have got you!” But, of course, the moment is long past, and all you have is a bad memory and an untimely, unused retort.

Years ago I worked on energy and environmental policy issues for a market-oriented public policy group. On a radio show, I think it was, an associate of mine was hit with a “you guys aren’t environmental scientists, so why should anyone listen to your environmental policy recommendations.” It was true – most of use were schooled in either economics or political science – and none of us were, say, wetlands biologists.

Much later it occured to me that while we weren’t experts in wetlands science, we did know a thing or two about human social interaction in the form of governments, regulatory processes, and economic activity. Since we weren’t arguing about environmental science, but about environmental regulation, it seemed to me that we had a reasonable basis upon which to contribute to the debate.

In the New Scientist interview, Whyte blasts the British Medical Association:

Take the British Medical Association, which is always making policy recommendations. A recent example was that the government should tax the fat content of food. Why does the BMA think it knows anything about how we should live? It may know that if I live a particular way I’ll become unhealthy, but why does it think that it can tell me that I should value my health more than my chosen way of life? What makes its members think that they are in any privileged position to answer questions like that?

Also, how do they know what the effects of a tax on fatty food would be? They’re not specialists in the way that prices affect consumption and the way the economy will be affected by redistribution of spending from one part to another. They can’t even anticipate the health effects of these things. They should shut up.

Thanks again to Max Borders on The Commons for noting the interview.

Michael Giberson

A posting by Max Borders on The Commons mentioned this interview with Jamie Whyte in the New Scientist. I found Whyte’s comments both incisive and amusing, so Googled his book Bad Thoughts and eventually ended up at Amazon’s U.S. website.

On Amazon I was (again) amused to see, under the heading “Customers interested in Bad Thoughts may also be interested in,” a listing for a text called The Power of the Mind which was described with the tagline: “Science has proven you can use your mind to create anything you wish!”

I followed the link to a website (thegreatestsecret.com) promoting the text to learn more about how science has proven I could use my mind to create anything I want. There I read that:

During a recent study involving research analysts, metaphysicians, scientists, as well as a diverse group of religious advocates, all members came to the same conclusion: “For the first time in our history, we can now agree, there seems to be just one ‘secret’ which can actually create what we desire.”

Unlike most scientists, who usually are quite anxious to have their names attached to major scientific discoveries, the scientists involved in this project want to remain anonymous. In fact, the only actual name cited in a so-called news article about the “secret” was Daniel Daybre, described as a researcher in metaphysics. I was astounded by the audacity of the fallacious reasoning on display at this website, and then I imagined an interview between Jamie Whyte and Daniel Daybre and amused myself for the third time.

Read the New Scientist interview, then visit thegreatestsecret.com, then imagine the interview. Are you amused? Good.

Lynne Kiesling

This Baseline Magazine article from late June describes how Trek, a bicycle manufacturer in Wisconsin, uses sophisticated technology and data analysis to improve the quality of its bikes, particularly its high-end bikes that elite athletes use.

It’s 1997. Paul Andrews is taking a 20-minute spin on a Trek Y-Foil road bike. The bike is black, revealing its unpainted carbon fiber tubing. Attached at three strategic spots are sensors. These sensors, affixed to the bottom bracket, the head tube and the chain stay, are wired to a small “data acquisition unit,” a black box attached to the frame.

In effect, Andrews that day was taking an electrocardiogram of the bounces and stresses his route took up and down the hills of this farming country.

Their objective is to make the bike as light as possible while still absorbing as much road shock as possible, and at the same time making the bike more durable by reducing torque and pressure from the road and the rider. Sounds like a complicated dynamic programming and design program, and it sure is.

Trek has years worth of such data in its database, which it can mine for regularities. This use of technology and attention to empirical data has paid off: Trek’s bikes have consistently improved in quality over the past decade (my husband loves his Trek mountain bike!), and they are the bikes of choice for several professional riders, including one very famous one who recently won his sixth Tour de France. For more casual athletes the attention to design and time is not a big deal, but it is for Lance Armstrong:

But the vehicle he rides does matter. Saving the 32-year-old Armstrong as little as 10 watts of energy over the course of a 120-mile stage of the Tour will speed his trip by one minute. Not much? Last year, in his record-tying fifth Tour win, he edged German rival Jan Ullrich by 61 seconds after 2,125 miles of racing.

Trek uses their data gathering and analysis to put in lighter carbon fiber sheets in places on the bike where the additional weight was not necessary. The article describes the design software they use, how it incorporates the data from their trial rides, and how these tools enabled them to build better bikes to power Lance Armstrong to victory.

I’m not just mentioning this because I’m a cyclist and a technology weenie; there is interesting economics here. Trek has been using its combination of data analysis and design for almost a decade, and as their designs and materials progress, the older ones filter into their retail products. In fact, if you are so inclined you can buy an exact duplicate of the Trek Madone bike that Armstrong rode to victory in the 2003 Tour, for between $5000 and $7000. Compare that to the $2000 that Trek used to be able to charge for the top end of its range. But even the $2000 bikes in 2004 are significantly better than they were a decade ago, as a result of this technology and design filtration from the requirements of elite athletes into the standard retail range.

I consider this yet another manifestation of how improvements in technology, design, and materials that are driven by “super-users” improve our quality of life and how much bang for the buck we can get through technological change. It’s like so many other manifestations of this — sure, your typical bicycle consumer isn’t buying a fancy schmancy Lance Armstrong bike, and probably can’t afford one. But s/he still benefits from the market meeting the technological and design demands that such intense consumers possess.