I don't happen to know how many Ph.D.s are actually living and working in the United States at the moment. But I read that American universities have turned out no fewer than 30,000 per year since the 1960s; in 2003, the latest year for which official statistics are available, there were 46,024 newly-minted eggheads.

As a percentage of the total number of people living in this country, we're actually turning out slightly fewer Ph.D.s now than in 1960. But, no matter, that still means there's a whole lot of presumably very smart people running around thinking about things.

So, ever wonder how come all these presumably very smart people aren't in charge? How come the guy running the show barely managed to survive his bachelor's degree - and the ones in congressional seats and corporate boardrooms mostly aren't much better? Let me tell you a story. About lobsters.

Yes. Lobsters. Symbol of the great state of Maine. And about the last surviving income-generating occupation in that state, responsible for more than 70% of total fishing-industry production. The Maine lobster, more accurately the American Lobster, or, if you really must know, Homarus americanus, has been in the news lately. Nothing like a two-toned paint job, or a little bit of gender bending, to get a crustacean story picked up by the national wire services.

About seven years ago, lobsters hit the news for a different reason. Because, in the late summer and early fall of 1999, in the westernmost portion of Long Island Sound from about New Haven to Manhattan, all the lobsters died. This is a Big Deal. Imagine if all the Windows-based computers suddenly up and died, and no replacements were possible. Your livelihood depends on the computer? Sorry, pal. That's what happened here. Guys and gals with houses and kids and education expenses and big mortgages on boats and trucks and fishing gear, all of a sudden they've got no income. They want to know what happened. Now. Duh.

This is a job for the Ph.D. The experts on lobster biology, right? They should have the answers, right?

Not so fast ...

"What happened?"

"Don't know. Never saw anything like this before."

"Duh. Well, can't you narrow it down? Was it a disease?"

"Don't know. There's something in there, but we have no clue what it is or what it might be related to. And the nearest persons who are close to being experts on this are in the Czech Republic and Tasmania."

"Can't you do a blood test or something?"

"It took decades for us to work out proper blood tests for human illnesses. No one's ever gotten any money to even start figuring out what the blood of a lobster is like. Even a healthy one. Never mind one that's sick."

"Well, was it the hot summer?"

"Don't know. No one's figured out just how much heat a lobster can take."

"Was it pollution?"

"Define pollution. And no, no one knows what kind of pollution hurts lobsters, or whether pollution effects change with temperature, oxygen levels, food, or bugs."

"Jesus. Well, did somebody spray something?"

"Yes, in fact, the States around Long Island Sound were spraying for mosquitoes. But we don't ..."

"Oh shut the hell up for God's sake! Start finding out!"

"With what? We need money for equipment, supplies, people. And every time one of us asked before, we were told "No". So we're going to need time and funds to get rolling."

"Well, roll!"

"And what are we supposed to do about the jobs we do have money to do? Drop them? No can do. Those are contracts we've got to fulfill. Even if you have the money and equipment to give us, not many of us can shift out of our current obligations to deal with this."

And so it was. The lobsters died in 1999. The funds for the needed research were appropriated a year later. Research finally began two years later. And finally, the research began to answer the questions five years later.

Most of the fishermen were bankrupt within six months. They could no longer afford to wait.

Enter the politicians and the lawyers. They heard about the pesticide spraying. And launched legal actions and political campaigns against the sprayers. Who had been trying to eradicate the mosquitoes that were carrying the newly-introduced West Nile virus around southern New England and New York. An activity with humane purposes, conducted with the safest possible chemicals and practices, and it results in an ambush.

Too late came the scientific data from the Ph.D.s to demonstrate that the pesticide levels were always too low to effect a massive dieoff of adult lobsters. Too late came the data that suggested historically high temperatures in western Long Island Sound combined with a "perfect storm" of climate events to stress the animals and make them susceptible to an opportunistic infection - a different infection in a 2001 dieoff from the one that was present in 1999. A "perfect storm" that happened to coincide with the spraying dates, and had no other link with them.

The lawsuits were already in place. Some of them had already been settled. A bogus answer had been accepted because the truth could not be obtained in time. And it was that bogus answer that provided the only real relief that the lobster fishermen of western Long Island Sound ever saw.

Thereby hangs the tale pinned to the donkey's butt. The Ph.D., especially the Ph.D. in the sciences but I think the principle applies across the board, looks at a problem from all angles. By training and temperament, the Ph.D. tackles an inquiry in a step-by-step manner. One whose steps are directed by what is needed to understand the problem. Not by an outside agency who demands shortcuts in the desperate need to know what to do now.

The Ph.D. works best in advance. Conducting all sorts of investigations on things that, to the uninitiated, appear to be of no earthly good whatsoever. Like the composition and makeup of the blood cells of a lobster. Or the identity of the various bacteria and protozoa that may be found in or on a lobster and their possible relationships to bacteria and protozoa that may cause disease. Producing a set of answers that might well fit the crisis when it does arise.

There might be some Ph.D.s out there that are capable of acting decisively on the basis of imperfect information. Or none. But those that do usually cease to become inquirers, and instead become managers. Administrators. Politicians. The ones who succeed or fail on the basis of their being able to answer a question now. Whether that answer is "right" or not.

Because, for them, the only "right" answer is the one that puts food on the table of the bankrupt lobsterman. Or puts dollars onto the stock prices of the businesses of America. Or gives the order to blast a restaurant that might contain Saddam Hussein with cruise missiles. Now. By the time the Ph.D. has analyzed all the remote sensing data to determine who that beret-clad personage really is, it's seventeen days later and the beret is having breakfast in a bunker on the other side of Iraq.

Unless that Ph.D. had been granted the time and money to make those sensing tools as nearly foolproof as possible, so that at the crisis the politician and the general can get a right answer now.

   - O Ceallaigh

Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.

All opinions are mine as a private citizen.