Intro- Who am I and why Substack
In digesting content available on the Internet and elsewhere two things strike me-
Our country is deeply divided and those of us in the middle appear to be outnumbered by those who seem to be entrenched in one “echo chamber” or the other. Media tend to cater to one tribe or the other and with busy lives, few of us have time to delve into issues in detail, so media generally only give an abbreviated version that leaves out half of the story. Increasing polarization isn’t healthy, and concerning assessments of recent examples of media bias on current issues as detailed in the Columbia Journal Review report and the book “Uncovered” don’t get as much attention as I think they deserve.
Too often complex issues are distilled down to binary statements like either of the extremes "the vaccine is ineffective" or "the vaccine will prevent you from catching COVID-19" and another example is "facemasks are ineffective" when the reality is often somewhere in between. Facemasks reduce the probability of being infected by somewhere around 5% with cloth masks not well fitted and perhaps 90% for N-95 masks well-fitted and worn all the time coupled with rigorous and frequent hand washing. That's a very wide range which is hard to convey in a 288-character Tweet or short news story. In short, it depends…
My hope is to more completely yet concisely describe some of the key issues we all face. My expertise is looking at things from orthogonal angles in order to more accurately reveal the subject (including nuances that are important), and that comes from using diverse information and opinion sources ranging from "left" to "right" and may even include some sources that have been considered fake (like those that claimed Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was overly alarmist, and others that first claimed the SARS-CoV-2 virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology).
Why Substack? I was introduced by reading Bari Weiss’ essays that showed remarkable clarity, and also bravery in the face of resistance from others trying to control the narrative. Following Weiss, others with worldly experiences and good judgment also published refreshing pieces on Substack and now I find an enlightening concentration of good content on The Free Press. Upon learning others can publish on Substack I decided to participate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (working backward)-
Recently retired from a 35 year career providing technical support for a biopharmaceutical plant in Kalamazoo Michigan. Three main phases of that time were first developing and scaling-up mammalian cell culture processes to produce therapeutic proteins including tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) analogs and monoclonal antibodies (mAb), then fermentation/bioconversion of sterols to steroids including next-generation processes to make androstenedione and “greener” progesterone, and finally isolation and crystallization of a variety of steroids and other biochemicals from the bioconversion soup or fermentation beer. During that period my wife of over 35 years and I raised three kids who've each given us multiple reasons to be proud of them every day, and we're also the proud grandparents of three.
Before my time in Kalamazoo, I spent 10 years at the Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering (LORRE) at Purdue where the mission was and still is to produce chemical feedstocks and liquid fuels from renewable resources, notably from lignocellulosic residues like corn stover and sugar cane bagasse. Following the first Earth Day while I was in high school, I became committed to the "Spaceship Earth" concept, although considerations of the unintended consequences of various policies should be part of the decision-making equation.
For graduate school in Chemical Engineering, I chose Purdue over Penn, Minnesota, and Iowa State because I wanted to specialize in Biochemical Engineering under Prof George Tsao (and because the school had a cool name and Rick Mount was a sharpshooter basketball player). As an undergraduate I worked all four years as a computer programmer and my bosses both spoke highly of Prof Tsao's work. I was awarded a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship so had more freedom in choosing my thesis topic, and my major professor could allocate my tuition and stipend to other students, although he had plenty of funding from government and industry sources. Prof Tsao turned out to be an excellent educator, advisor, and mentor. My Ph.D. took nearly six years rather than the "standard" four because our labs were moved to a new building that had just been constructed, and set-up & expansion of a massive effort in all our labs on using renewable resources to supply our economy (including ethanol as a liquid fuel) was time-consuming though an interesting experience. My dissertation described modeling the microbial metabolism of a facultative anaerobe to improve production of a chemical feedstock (2,3-butanediol) derived from renewable resources, and the professors on my committee all emphasized the importance of developing a mechanistic model since empirical models that can simulate anything when there are enough parameters to fit the data have limited value.
For college I chose to major in “Engineering Science” at Colorado State University over Cornell because it was less expensive (and at that point in my life as a socially awkward geek, closer to home). I’ll never know whether I was accepted to Cornell as a Legacy (my dad earned his BS and PhD at Cornell in biochemistry) or on my own merit, and that's one of the disadvantages of preference programs. My GPA and an SAT math score of 770 put me in the game back then, yet my verbal was considerably lower. At CSU I had an economics minor and was surprised to see how many business and economics students struggled with math.
In high school I wanted to be a weatherman but didn't want to stand in front of a camera and didn't yet appreciate how many opportunities there were otherwise. I've had a lifelong interest in weather and climate that started in 2nd grade, and I went on to be the founder and CEO of the Scotch Plains Meteorological Association (SPMA) in 6th grade with membership of four (I have three agreeable younger sisters). I was lucky to be able to fit in an elective atmospheric science course at CSU and another at Purdue (a highlight at CSU was meeting Prof Bill Gray). Physical chemistry, physics itself, and chemical engineering fundamentals including heat and momentum transfer all relate to atmospheric science.
One of the lessons from a career supporting a manufacturing plant is that intelligence and creativity aren't all that well correlated with success in school (although going to school does help!). Continuous learning and open inquiry per the scientific method is also expertly practiced by many creative people who didn't go to college. Sometimes those not as close to the issue can see important things the specialists don’t see. Listening and teamwork are often undervalued attributes when it comes to problem solving.