[10284] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France, pt.3/3: Grandes Ecoles Symposium, May 27-30
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PACS-L Moderator)
Mon Jun 17 20:48:08 1996
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:47:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: PACS-L Moderator <libpacs@UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>From: kessler@well.com
>Subject: FYI France: Grandes Ecoles Symposium, May 27-30 -- part 3 of 3
>
>FYI France: Grandes Ecoles Symposium, May 27-30 -- part 3 of 3
>
>The next speaker, German Nobel prizewinner Rudolf Mossbauer, could not
>have been better - chosen as a foil to the subdued and generalist monk
>who preceded him: one senses at least an idea of drama in the design of
>the session, on the part perhaps of Krause, or others. Mossbauer's
>message was as simple as was that of Dom Hugues, but the German was far
>more direct: "No more humanities, no more social science, no more
>applied science, forget 'business and management'... laboratories need
>less generalism and better hard training and quality!"
>
>There is a "noblesse oblige" which accompanies the receipt of a Nobel.
>At Berkeley this takes the form of mundane things: one Nobelist there
>joked that, "At last I can get a central - campus car parking permit!"
>But all Nobelists have been known to speak their minds, openly and
>freely and on any occasion and on nearly any subject: and with impunity
>-- there are a few heights reached which are beyond reproach for almost
>anything.
>
>I tackled Mossbauer later, as a few others did immediately during the
>session (including one student - observer, who pointed out to the
>professor that in today's economy a student needs training for "more
>than just one job"). To my great surprise, as austere and forbidding as
>he seems on the platform, Mossbauer is very cordial and accommodating
>and enthusiastic in person.
>
>Yes, he does think that science needs more rigor, Mossbauer says, and
>no he would not modify what he had said on the stand. German education
>offers a "technology - hostile" environment today, Mossbauer asserts,
>because it has too many interfering rules, regulations, bureaucrats,
>and lawyers. "You in the US cannot imagine", he insists, "what we in
>German education have had to put up with since 1968 -- quality is
>dropping, enrollment is dropping, we have more professors than
>students". Krause tried to get him to concede, during the session, that
>German universities' arcane and restrictive admission procedures have
>something to do with it, but Mossbauer demurred: "The basic problem,"
>he insists, "is that there is too much politics".
>
>Francesco di Castri, of the CNRS and UNESCO, differed with Mossbauer.
>There is not a single, ie. economic, globalization, he says, but a very
>complex one occurring in several spheres: technical, information -
>oriented, even biological -- consider the problems of evolving gene
>pools for the latter, he suggests. Di Castri feels that not only is a
>more broad - based humanistic education needed, but some inclusion of
>Asia now must be made in discussions, and some consideration of any who
>will be left out of an information - based society.
>
>Introducing the morning's second panel, moderator Krause said that he
>believes there has been a demise of old global trading patterns and the
>emergence of a singular global technology: "What is it?" he wondered,
>"And who will finance it?"
>
>Former French Minister of Research Pierre Aigrand gave very
>entertaining and illuminating answers. With a nod to Dom Hugues, he
>noted Santayana's comment that, "a man who has forgotten his ends and
>redoubles his efforts has become a fanatic". The question of what / who
>will determine these ends is paramount, Aigrand contends:
>administration, rules, and laws do this, he reminded us.
>
>Stephen Cohen put the question on a very practical level. "Companies
>don't finance 'R&D'," he said, "Companies finance 'D'. Someone else has
>to do the 'R'." This "someone else" used to be the national
>governments. Now this financing has become diffuse, and certainly
>unregulated. One certain thing remains, though, according to Cohen: "If
>left solely to a competitive market, there will be no 'R' / research".
>Cohen paraphrased Schumpeter: "We put brakes on a car so that it can go
>faster, not slower": we must re - think support and regulation. Krause
>commented that an historical change has contributed much to support
>Cohen's idea: the 70's and 80's were eras of high prosperity, he
>reminded us, but the 90's are an era of unemployment, and of outright
>recession in places such as Germany -- changed approaches, such as
>those advocated by Cohen, are mandated by a changed reality.
>
>Josef Rembser called for, "free, non - directed, non - technology -
>specific research", observing that, after all, "today's technology will
>change". His German - American Academic Council is designed to foster
>cooperation in such a direction, he says. Krause also commented, at
>this point, that "Asia" really should be included to contribute to such
>efforts.
>
>UC Berkeley's Charles Shank said that he thinks that "governments do a
>poor job of creating wealth, although a good job of redistributing it",
>Krause pointing out that this represents a distinctly - American point
>of view. Kenneth Keller of the US Council on Foreign Relations
>identified, 1) financial support of science and technology, 2) defining
>the global technical system, and, 3) redefining the role of government
>in all this, as being primary challenges. Since the demise of the
>unifying Cold War, differing national values have emerged, Keller
>observes, on issues such as the environment, hormones, tuna / dolphin
>hunting, nuclear power, and drug approval. "Protectionism grows from
>differences," Keller warns: he believes that the scientific community
>must push for standards, themselves an international unifying force.
>
>Bertrand Schneider, current Secretary - General of the Club of Rome --
>they published the highly - influential "The Limits to Growth" in the
>early 70's -- noted that "3/4 of the world is absent from this
>Symposium". Of this recurring issue see more below. He wonders when
>technology globalization really will become a reality, and, when it
>does, whether both the rich and the poor will be included?
>
>5.0 Conclusions?
>
>Conclusions which might be drawn from such a wide - ranging and
>international Symposium are many. There was much which was very
>technical. These people all were specialists, some of them world -
>famous in their particular arcane specialty, and none of the attendees
>shied from debate about technical details. I sat through several
>fascinating fights in which I was much out of my personal depth.
>Arguments about whether or not to bio - engineer milk production. A
>slide which purported to show both the beginning and end of the
>universe, and even, "where we are now".
>
>There were dramatic confrontations -- I gather that these are long -
>standing, but they still spark wonderfully -- between the "big science"
>espoused by a theoretical physicist, and the "small science" called for
>by an optometrist. "On behalf of human eyes everywhere", I practically
>could hear the latter saying, "who needs physics when we can't see?"
>"...But who knows what breakthroughs in sight and other things may one
>day stem from 'big' physics?", came through clearly as the message of
>the other. I could hear the funding pies being sliced up, in Paris and
>Washington D.C., as the two of them argued.
>
>There was a wonderful moment in the computer lab when the French
>technical staff surprised one of the Americans who had "hacked" their
>elaborate ATM setup so that he could read his email. "But it was just
>sitting there, and the other machines are not working," he insisted;
>"But that is not what this one is for!", the technicians protested.
>
>There even was some tough talk about tomatoes. It seems that we in the
>US "bio - engineer" ours, and that the Europeans don't theirs. A
>leading Berkeley researcher defended the US meddling with nature. She
>said that California tomatos had been bred to bounce off the back of a
>truck and back in again without being hurt, but had lost their flavor
>in the process, and that the engineering simply had put a little taste
>back in. Outraged Europeans felt that they were on "Nature's" side.
>
>All this tomato problem frankly was news to me. The old international
>trader in me sensed a financial / import - export issue lurking in here
>somewhere. Having eaten California tomatoes myself for many decades, I
>confess that I have been blissfully unaware of the issue: I will view
>all tomatoes -- Californian and European -- a little more suspiciously,
>if a little more knowledgeably, from now on.
>
>But the many fascinating details were not what have made this Symposium
>significant, the generalities have:
>
>1) The European questions and presentations, even in technical areas,
>nearly always have concerned decision - making structure and
>authority. Those of the Americans nearly never. Krause alluded to this
>in his reaction to Charles Shank: Europeans look to -- perhaps have
>been forced by historical circumstance to look to -- their governments
>for far more than Americans do.
>
>2) The unease with which the Europeans eye one another -- the French
>the Germans, the Germans the British, the British the Spaniards, all of
>these the Czech and the Hungarian and they in turn the rest -- has been
>palpable and striking, to this US observer. Some of the best floor
>fights have taken place between Americans themselves. But these have
>been over technical issues, or the results of fun rivalries: such as
>MIT and Berkeley occasionally teasing one another -- or the UC Berkeley
>Chancellor's easy reference, at one point, to the little rival school
>at a place called "Stanford" which just might, he allowed, know a bit
>about these things.
>
>The more serious issue, surfacing occasionally in formal presentations
>and more frequently after hours and in the "corridor chat", was whether
>certain Europeans trust other Europeans -- qua Europeans -- even in
>these scientific and technical areas. A point made forcefully several
>times -- Berkeley student Rose - Marie Haas said in her Day 3
>presentation that it is supported by research -- was that while
>cooperative research across disciplines works, cooperation between
>academic researchers and commercial firms works poorly if at all. This
>appears to be particularly true in Europe. How much more difficult is
>cooperation made if national suspicions intrude as well.
>
>One clearly has the impression -- even after decades of work on this --
>of national unity on the US side but of persistent international
>fragmentation among the Europeans. I am a great admirer of European
>variety. But I also feel privileged to have been admitted to their
>Symposium's effort to, among other things, bridge this basic gap.
>
>3) "Shouldn't We Invite the Asians Next Time?"
>
>The speaker from the Club of Rome made the point forthrightly that he
>saw no representatives of Japan or the rest of Asia in the audience or
>on the podium, and that they really should be present now in any
>discussion of "global" society and technology. Several other speakers
>alluded to this Asian absence, throughout the three days. Even in
>highly technical areas, the subject of Asian advances was raised. MIT's
>Litster says that physics work in India which he has seen personally is
>not only interesting but is being pursued at world - class research
>levels, and really ought to be considered.
>
>UC Berkeley's Tien offered the Europeans a toast at the final day's
>luncheon. He has a personal interest in all three, he says -- his own
>background in Asia, his own interest in Europe, and his work in the US
>-- and he long has dreamed of providing links which would draw all
>three more together. If it truly is of interest to the Europeans, he
>says, he would be happy to assist in including the Asians in future
>discussions. The world is a shrinking place, as even the current
>Symposium's success proves, and we all would do well to learn more and
>more about each other, Tien concludes.
>
>
>It was Robert Louis Stevenson, I think, who called the Pacific Ocean,
>"The Eye of the Earth." My wife and I have children in California
>public schools, and can attest from personal experience to the
>increasing importance of Asia at least in our little local San
>Francisco world: our children's schoolmates are Asian immigrants, Asian
>business is becoming a bigger and bigger factor in the San Francisco
>economy, the languages which one hears spoken on the streets throughout
>California increasingly are Asian.
>
>This Symposium has provided a wonderful microcosm of much that is
>happening in US - European cooperation. If the French and the Europeans
>now are interested in seeing a microcosm of what is happening
>internationally with regard to Asia, they might do well to consider the
>US West Coast, as the Chancellor suggests. Such a multi - cultural
>occasion might be a mutually - beneficial undertaking for all parties:
>Vaclav Havel recently mused, "If Europe wishes... it can become a model
>for how different people can work together in peace without sacrificing
>any of their identity."
>
>XXX
>
>FYIFrance (sm)(tm) e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916
>
> *
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>(path: 3. Electronic Journals (Library-Oriented)/ 6. FYIFrance/ or
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>
> Copyright 1992 by Jack Kessler, all rights reserved.
>
>XXX
>
>end
>
