From Watching Birdwatchers to Watching Birds

July 16, 2009 at 12:00 am (Current Affairs, Guest Writer, Science & Technology)

An article by guest writer Wee Yeow Chin. Refer to “About the Writer” at the end of the post.

Introduction

Trained as a botanist, I have always been involved in plants before getting interested in birds about fours years back. But I have been watching birdwatchers watching birds far longer that that. At a vulnerable stage of my working career, I was conscripted to fill the post of Hon. Secretary of the then Malayan Nature Society (Singapore Branch). I was then a newly recruited junior teaching staff of the then Department of Botany, National University of Singapore. As secretary, I had the opportunity of associating closely with the birdwatching members of the society. More than a decade later, I was pushed into the post of Ag. Chairman when the incumbent went on sabbatical. In that year, I had the privilege of leading the local branch into a fully national society, the Nature Society (Singapore). As its founding Hon. President for the next five years, I had close and personal dealings with birdwatchers.

In 1995 I stepped down from the post, a few years prior to my retirement from my teaching position in the university. In retrospect, I am glad I stepped down when I did. It is always to your advantage to move aside when you are doing reasonably well than otherwise. After an absence of some years from directly watching birdwatchers, I started watching birds.  This came about when a female Asian Koel laid her egg in the nest of a pair of Common Crows lodged in the crown of one of my palms. The koel is a nest parasite and by not wasting time building its own nest and by getting other birds to incubate its eggs and brood its chicks, it can concentrate on the more serious job of propagating its species. Although such behaviour has long been known by birdwatchers in the western world, details were not locally documented after decades of watching birds.

Then a pair of Pink-necked Green Pigeons built a nest in one of my trees. Seeing the male always in the nest, incubating the eggs and brooding the chicks, set me wondering what role the female played other than laying the eggs. A search in the net as well as among local ornithological writings drew a blank until I chanced upon a book on British birds. There, I learnt that the female shares responsibilities with the male, except that she takes on night duties. Again, local birdwatchers were unaware of this, or if they knew, they were not sharing.

It suddenly dawned on me that local birdwatchers were more interested in watching birds than studying them. We generally know what birds we have and most birdwatchers can identify them in the field. But few were concerned with what birds do, other than fly, feed and breed. This realisation led me to abandon watching plants to the joys of watching birds.


Birdwatching Pre-1990s

Watching birds is a western phenomenon, one that has a very long history. It was brought to Singapore during the colonial years when British biologists were sent over to collect specimens to stock the museums of Europe. With them came colonial civil servants, not a few watched birds as a pastime. A handful of these nature enthusiasts set up the Malayan Nature Society and eventually a Singapore branch appeared on the scene. The society encouraged nature appreciation but birds became the main focus, being colourful as well as plentiful.

Birdwatching then was an informal affair. A few birders would get together to watch birds or indulge in mist-netting and bird-ringing activities. Only in 1984 was a formal Bird Group (BG) formed, with mainly expatriate members and a few locals, mainly undergraduates and academics. Organised guided walks and activities such as bird race, surveys and censuses were arranged in an effort to attract new members.

The leadership came from knowledgeable birders who had years of exposure to birdwatching in their home country Britain as well as in colonies like India and Hong Kong. Birdwatchers were encouraged to play the role of citizen scientists, collecting field data on bird behaviour. The data collected were published in an in-house newsletter, the Singapore Avifauna, which proved to be a valuable source of information on the avian fauna of the region.


Birdwatching Post-1990s

Just before the society was re-registered as a Singapore Non-governmental Organisation in 1990, locals took over the leadership of the BG. Full of enthusiasm and eager to prove their worth, they did not heed the advice of the expatriate birdwatchers who gradually left to watch birds on their own. The leadership continued with activities put earlier into place. But with no further inputs from more experienced birdwatchers, members were led into a decade of recreational birdwatching. Activities became mundane and science took a backseat. It did not take long for new members to have ticked off the more common species of birds listed in their checklists. And in the absence of anything challenging to do, many simply allowed their membership to lapse. Contributions to the in-house newsletter slowly dried up. From a lively monthly, the Singapore Avifauna was transformed into an irregular quarterly. Interesting observations seen earlier were replaced with mainly sighting records and trip reports that carried lists after lists of birds purportedly seen.


Call for a New Approach to Birdwatching

Around mid-1990s an eminent ornithologist was invited to address local birdwatchers. He commented that there were eagerness among regional birdwatchers, especially the twitching genre, to simply add new species to a country’s checklist of birds, often based on casual sightings and a total lack of verification. He further urged birdwatchers to do more than simply look at birds, as there was a “need to know what the birds look like, where they live, what they eat, when and where they breed and so on.” There was then a dearth of information on the behaviour of regional birds. And although there was an earlier attempt at encouraging birdwatchers to record bird behaviour in the field, enthusiasm dissipated after 1990. Traditionally, such observations were always collected by birdwatchers, and the call was to remind them of what they were expected to do.

His call for a new approach to birdwatching in the region was not published in Nature Watch, the society’s magazine. His manuscript was then offered, and eventually published, in the Malayan Naturalist, magazine of sister organisation, the Malaysian Nature Society.


Bird Photographers and Birdwatchers

Digital photography became popular in the early 2000s and this in turn led to the popularity in bird photography. A group of photographers approached the society offering to join up and revive the then dormant Photo Group. Apparently they were rebuffed. The subsequent formation of a nature photographic society and a number of loose photographic e-groups saw bird photography flourishing beyond anyone’s expectation. This has forever changed the local birding scene. Photographers proved enthusiastic and focused while birdwatchers, after more than a decade of looking at birds, had mostly lost their enthusiasm. In no time photographers led the field in bird sightings and bird behaviour documentation.

Any new sightings saw hordes of photographers stalking the birds. Inevitably, disputes arose as photographers were accused of stressing the birds with their constant flashes, chatters and general lack of field ethics. What birdwatchers forgot was that the most conscientious of them started off being obnoxious in the field. It is with time and experience that one gradually becomes sensitive to the possibilities of disturbing birds, especially nesting birds. By not accepting photographers under their wings in the first place, birdwatchers lost a valuable opportunity to work closely with them and in the process, steer them to practice better field ethics. To the credit of photographers, their leaders are fully aware of the problems large crowds create and have set in place their very own codes of ethics.


An Alternative Bird Group

The failure of the BG to provide exciting activities short of simply looking, ticking and counting birds in the field, led to the eventual formation of the Bird Ecology Study Group (BESG) in 2005. This new group was to complement the existing bird group and provide a forum for birdwatchers interested in the study of bird behaviour. There was then an urgent need to introduce some science back to birdwatching, to the pre-1990s days when birders were actively observing birds in the field, not just looking at them.

However, getting the BESG formally recognised was a major hurdle. An alternate group posed a direct challenge to the BG’s monopoly on birds that had already been challenged by photographers outside the society. The BESG had the support of all but one member of the Executive Committee, the governing body of the society. However, not wishing to offend the powerful BG lobby, the then President consulted with the larger council members that included co-opted members, many allied to the BG. Naturally things dragged on and acceptance failed to materialise. It took the need of bringing the matter to an Extraordinary General Meeting that finally saw Exco members voting on the issue. So the BESG became an official activity group of the society.

The BESG started a weblog to propagate its aims of encouraging the study of bird behaviour, and so birdwatching entered cyberspace. The weblog began posting information that birdwatchers as well as nature enthusiasts were thirsting for and traffic increased by leaps and bounds. Currently, the number of visits to the weblog is fast approaching a million. Visitors come from all over the world, although locals make up about 40% with 37% coming from the US, UK, Australia and Malaysia. The weblog has proved to be one of the top five birding blogs in cyberspace.

Postings have always been regular and consistent, beginning with once in a day or two, increasing to daily or even twice a day. This is necessary as the volume of contributions from members as well as the public increased. So far we have posted more than 1,250 items of bird behaviour and contributions continue to flood in.


Impact of the BESG on Birdwatching

Four years after, the BESG has contributed much in terms of making birdwatchers aware of the different aspects of bird behaviour. With the help of photographers and birders, we have documented the different foods birds take as well as their foraging strategies. Data have also been gathered on nest types, which of the sexes help build them, the materials used, the nesting habits in terms of who incubate the eggs and brood the chicks, the length of the different stages, etc. Bits and pieces of information on inter-specific and intra-specific interactions of local birds were also received and posted. The weblog has in fact becomes an important database on bird behaviour that students, nature enthusiasts and even birdwatchers regularly consult.

So detailed are the observations that many of the posts have been consolidated and published in scientific journals. Obviously contributors are always acknowledged, many included as co-authors. We strongly follow the policy of giving credit where credit is due. In this way contributors will continue to share their images and observations with us.

In the process, we have made birdwatchers aware of certain of bird behaviour that are well known among their western counterparts. Two examples illustrate this. The first is anting. This is the phenomenon where certain species of birds pick up ants and place them onto their plumage. This is an unusual method of feather maintenance where the ants help get rid of microorganisms that damage the feathers. This was first observed in 1988 when a young nature enthusiast saw a Javan Myna picking up kerengga ants and placing them on its feathers. Each time it did this, it went into a curious dance, flopping around on the ground with wings outstretched. Local birdwatchers were totally unaware of its significance until 17 years later when BESG posted the account and made the phenomenon of anting common knowledge.

The second example involves birds casting pellets. Raptors and owls casting pellets of compressed bones, teeth and feathers of the preys they take are well known. Not so pellet casting by non-raptorial birds. Bee-eaters regurgitate pellets of undigested exoskeletons of the insects they eat. The pellets of kingfishers are similarly composed of bones and insect exoskeletons. Herons cast pellets made up mainly of mammals’ furs and birds’ feathers. But local birdwatchers were generally unaware of this until accounts began to appear in the BESG’s weblog. Then we received a series of images on birds in the act of casting pellets.


The Future

The 2009 Annual General Meeting of the Nature Society (Singapore) has voted in an Executive Committee that has proven to be proactive. The committee has deemed it necessary to rejuvenate the leadership of the various activity groups by encouraging long-serving leaders to give way to fresh talent. Hopefully, the society can then reinvent itself and move on to the next phase of dealing with the influx of young conservationists and nature enthusiasts. These youths have forsaken traditional organisations, operating independently as e-groups. Their energy and idealism need to be tapped and guided by more experienced practitioners, many of whom may not be all that net-savvy to be able to effectively interact with them on their turf. This is why older leaders need to move aside, taking the role of advisors and let younger members take over the leadership.

Organised birdwatchers especially, urgently need younger leaders to be able to confront the challenges ahead, whether as twitchers or citizen scientists. They need to touch base with the younger generation and work towards the same aim of enriching our knowledge of the bird behaviour of the region. This will be to the benefit of regional ornithology.


About the Writer

The writer is a botanist and author of numerous books on wayside trees, ferns and medicinal plants. His last book, published in 2005, is Plants that Heal, Thrill and Kill. He has since taken up birdwatching after his retirement from the National University of Singapore. He is currently managing the BESG weblog, http://besgroup.talfrynature.com/ full time.

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The Perplexing Human Mind

May 15, 2009 at 12:00 am (Guest Writer, Science & Technology)

This article is kindly contributed by Ong Siew Chey from Singapore. Refer to “About the Writer” at the end of the post.

Introduction

The greatest advantage human has over all animals is superior brain power. We are able to think in abstract terms and comprehend philosophical and moral concepts. And we are supposed to be capable of attaining perceptions and forming opinions in a rational and logical way. In spite of these superb faculties, the human mind is subject to contradictions and often becomes incongruous and defies understanding. For instance, in a court of law or in scientific fields, we accept only facts that can be proven and substantiated. In some other areas, however, we readily embrace beliefs that cannot withstand objective scrutiny. There seems to be a two-tier system in the human mental process.

The human mind works in a mysterious way. Human nature is such that one tends to defend one’s views and thoughts by rationalizing them, perhaps because admission of one’s misconceptions may hurt the ego or affect self-interest. Many of us have come to believe firmly in certain tenets from our cultural upbringing, education, association with others or from self-interest. Once entrenched in our mindsets, the viewpoints are held tightly in a logic-proof compartment not penetrable by reasoning. Our mind appears to possess two separate and irreconcilable parts. We can be rational, objective and just, but we are also capable of being biased, bigoted and self-seeking. Our beliefs do not always follow objective and logical deductions. Our thinking is commonly marked by incongruity. As a result, perplexing paradoxical phenomena occur frequently in our daily lives in a wide range of matters.

The Obstinate Mind

The human mind is highly susceptible to indoctrination of ideas, which are readily assimilated as one’s own. We then defend them with all our emotion. Some of us even do not hesitate to resort to violence to suppress or eliminate views and criticisms unfavorable to our beliefs.

It is probably easier and more comfortable for us to cling to a familiar doctrine than to question it or explore alternatives. In general, we are not inclined to stress ourselves and go beyond our comfort zone. We try to avoid strenuous physical efforts, and similarly we tend to shun taxing and tiresome mental activities even at the expense of seeking truth.

Not so long ago, I watched a television program in Chinese on the Phoenix channel. It was a lively discussion by invited speakers with audience participation, presided by an impartial and witty moderator. The topic was “Is traditional Chinese medicine a pseudoscience?” Speakers on the affirmative side emphasized the need to have proven scientific facts and data.  The other side argued on the merits of long history, old tradition and culture, and anecdotal evidence. One elderly gentleman, apparently a prominent scholar, visibly upset when his age-old faith in traditional Chinese medicine was challenged, began to speak irrelevantly and condemn science as an instrument of Western aggression. He became so agitated that the moderator had to persuade him to take a pill from a vial kept in his pocket, presumably to soothe his heart. Surprisingly, a considerable proportion of the audience supported his side.

Recently, I happened to turn on the television and watch a local program. It was a symposium-like presentation concerning the basis of traditional Chinese medicine by several seemingly knowledgeable individuals. It was meant to be an advertisement, but except for a fleeting display of the sponsor’s name, one could have easily mistaken it to be a program featured by the television station. It was quite disturbing to note that nothing said made sense or came near truth. For instance, the heart was described as a “solid” organ that controlled the mind and had a parent-son relationship with the stomach. Anything wrong with the “son” would upset the “parent”. The stomach took in food but it was the spleen that absorbed the nutrients. The liver had the important function of producing qi, whatever it meant. These concepts would be at least two thousand years behind time; yet they are still held obstinately in the face of well-known and well-proven modern biological knowledge.

I found it quite incomprehensible that such antiquated and fallacious information could be presented to supposedly well-educated Singaporeans in the 21st century; it should really be considered an insult to the intelligence of our people. The sad truth is that many Singaporeans probably accepted what was said. Many of us have been exposed to some old erroneous concepts and have assimilated them in our mindsets. They are difficult to dislodge unless we are strongly motivated to seek truth and are willing to be introspective in an unbiased way. In this case of an emotionally-charged topic, one cannot even question the misinformation without eliciting a robust, hostile and possibly harmful response from interest groups because the bottom line here is financial interest.  I am reminded that some 28 years ago, the late Professor Wong Hock Boon, one of the most brilliant clinicians Singapore has produced, had to face a death threat (probably from interest groups) and public outcry when he said that Chinese herbs were like grass. He meant correctly that herbs were raw material like grass that had not been analysed, scientifically tested, and purified into drugs with proven pharmacological properties. In fact, the proper collective name for common Chinese herbs is “grass medicine” (草药). I remember that both the Chinese and English press and the general public ganged up to attack his views in a rather vicious and personal way. It was a case of tyranny of society, an ill-informed society, over an individual with knowledge and wisdom. It was also a case of tyranny of the press that subscribed to one-sided freedom of speech. I am sure many people (myself included) wrote to support Professor Wong’s views, but none of the letters were published.

History teaches us that our views and opinions, even if they are held by the majority, are not necessarily correct unless they can withstand free discussion and contest and finally emerge as truth. John Stewart Mill (1806 – 1873), an outstanding English philosopher and thinker, strongly stressed this point. Many of his views were well ahead of his time and are still miles ahead of the present time.

Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.), the great Greek philosopher, to whom mankind owes much not only for his wisdom but also for his bringing up a student named Plato, was tried and sentenced to death for corrupting the minds of the youth. Galileo (1564 – 1642), the great Italian astronomer, often called the father of modern physics, who maintained that the earth revolved around the sun, was found guilty by the Catholic Church for going against the teaching of the Bible, and was given a jail sentence, later commuted to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

It would seem that the human mind, once imbued with wrong beliefs, often has difficulty renewing itself as it tends to reject change. In spite of its capability, the mind is both susceptible and obstinate, and its fallibility easily leads to bigotry.

The Limited Mind

Our superior mind has made landing on the moon and exploration of distant planets possible. Our technological advances in recent decades have been incredible. Our knowledge in biology has reached the molecular level, and we have worked out our entire genome. We transplant organs routinely, and we can clone an animal. We are at the verge of using stem cells to repair tissues and organs. Yet when it comes to politics and economics, we become rather impotent and are unable to find fail-safe solutions. Our scientific achievements have been miraculous in the short span of a few centuries, but for millennia we have been unable to find an ideal system of government for ourselves.

In recent history, political ideology has been one of the most important factors leading to internal and international conflicts and wars. Numerous lives have been sacrificed over assertion or defense of political beliefs. The dust is settling with most people coming to accept that democracy is the ideal form of government. The conviction that only representative government is desirable seems to have been established in our minds. But is a truly representative government really achievable?

Each of the two systems, democracy and dictatorship, has its own merits and defects. Dictatorship is perhaps the most efficient system of government. In history, countries like Germany, Russia and China once surged to be world powers rapidly under their respective absolute dictators. Alas, an ideal, infallible and benevolent dictator probably does not exist in reality, and consequently the countries plunged into disaster and ruin before they managed to pick up the pieces. Individual dictatorship appears to be a high-risk system that is not covered by insurance. Group dictatorship perhaps can fare better, but one cannot be certain that the leaders will always be enlightened, just and benevolent, there being no effective checks and balances.

Although democracy has taken on various forms, it is basically the fairest available system and one that does not readily lead to violent conflict. Nevertheless, it is far from being truly representative of majority rule in most countries and is fraught with defects. To be really valid, it requires a population of a reasonably high general educational level and with interest and concern in the affairs of the country. Even in a country like the U.S., the turnout rate of voters is usually only between 50 and 55%. Moreover, one can say that many people probably cast their votes for the wrong reasons.

To conduct a successful election campaign, the candidate needs monetary and other extraneous supports. It is difficult for a candidate to completely avoid subtle and indirect influence of interest groups. The successful candidate after election needs to safeguard his political future and may be tempted to pursue a path that would not jeopardize his position or compromise his chances of advancement, instead of sincerely working for the greater good of the nation without fear or favors.

Furthermore, a democratic government system may be abused and may degenerate into a form that is as decadent as that of dictatorship unless a tradition of fair play, accountability, human rights and equality, and transparency of government, is firmly established. Examples of abused and distorted democracy are aplenty if we look at the sagas of some of the so-called democratic countries. Unscrupulous elected leaders frequently supplant the system of government for their own benefits and can continue to have an unyielding hold on the people’s minds.

In another aspect of government, the perpetual contest between socialism and capitalism seems difficult to resolve. A recent article written by Tan Chin Hwee and published in the Business Times pointed out the following humorous paradox:

“1949: only socialism can save China.  1979: only capitalism can save China.  1989: only China can save socialism.  2009: only China can save capitalism.”

The fallibility and vulnerability of the human mind condemn us to repeat history. We find it difficult to learn from past lessons, and belated realization of our mistakes is the usual rule.

We seem unable to escape from the unsatisfactory situation in politics. The best form of government we have is democracy, but it is riddled with shortcomings, and we have no better alternative to our Hobson’s choice. The human mind seems limited and powerless to break through this impasse.

The Incongruous Mind

An incongruous perplexing phenomenon in life is the matter of religion. There must be countless types, denominations, subdivisions and sects of religion in the world, and followers of each school consider their beliefs to be unquestionably valid and absolutely superior to all others. It stands to reason that not all can be right. Religions are overwhelmingly based on subjective beliefs. Unfortunately, they are unavoidably divisive of the human race and have provided the fuel for numerous conflicts and wars causing extensive bloodshed throughout the history. Why has all the killing been necessary?

In general, religion can be considered to consist of two components: compulsion to revere and submit to certain supernatural beings and observance of a code of behavior. The degree of dominance of either aspect varies a great deal from one religion to another. As a personal matter, religious devotion can lead to a peaceful state of mind and lessen the stress in our lives. In a broad sense, it has the potential of promoting love and kindness among men. The problem arises when ritualistic worship with its unquestioned, dogmatic doctrines becomes inundating and the basic instinct of “birds of the same feather” takes over. In that situation, religion lapses into a divisive and destructive force.

Religions have originated in different ways. One of the ways is that a certain human being, by virtue of his wisdom and behavior, is believed to have acquired supernatural power and immortality and have thus brought forth a religion. Another way is that there is in fact a creator who somehow materialized. He created the universe and all living things and his followers are beholden to him and are expected to praise and pray to him regularly and to conform to whatever directives he would have passed down directly or indirectly. Still another way is that certain deities seemingly spontaneously appeared and commanded the devotion of followers, who practice their worship essentially for their personal well-being. There are many other ways that have led to the establishment of religions, including the worship of natural phenomena and objects such as heaven, sun, fire and others, presumably out of fear of the unknown or unexplained.

In many religions, the belief in supernatural beings is accompanied by defined codes of conduct and behavior, most of which are desirable and would definitely promote human virtues. In exhorting the followers to conform to the teaching, several religions uphold a dogma that an individual can expect future reward for piety and eventual retribution for infidelity. This “hope for heaven and the threat of hell” doctrine exerts a very powerful influence on the human mind.  The teaching naturally necessitates the belief in each religious group that its supernatural overseer is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

There is, therefore, a great religious paradox. There have been many different religions existing in the world for a long time, and in each religion the worshipped supernatural supreme being is supposed to have unlimited power. Out of the great diversity of religions, logically there can be only one true religion and one true god in our world if religious beliefs are to maintain credibility. It is puzzling why all human beings have not been led by the single omnipotent Supreme Being to the correct belief. Many of us embrace a particular religion by birth and/or upbringing and not by conscious choice. In other words, most of us cannot be blamed for having a “wrong” religious belief, as it has been thrust on us. Why then have these innocent individuals been left to persist till death with their “wrongful beliefs” or the lack of a belief, and to face possible punishment or disadvantage in the “afterlife”?

In most religions the codes of conduct and behavior undoubtedly aim at benevolence and love among men and harmony and peace in the world. However, too often they are overshadowed by forms of worship. Basic reasoning and common sense would lead one to think that blessings should be bestowed mainly for merits of deeds and not for ritualistic worship, and prayers should be answered only for deserving individuals and not by the mere act of praying.

Since the Almighty Being is omnipotent, one must assume that all natural phenomena are under His control.  It is, therefore, difficult to make sense of the natural disasters such as quakes, floods, tsunamis, storms and volcanic eruptions in which numerous people including innocent children and infants perish. Are these disasters meant for mass punishments or are there other explanations? Even the Straits Times, which usually shuns discussion on religions, was moved to publish an article asking where God was in the tsunami of December 2004.

All these religious ironies leave one feeling perplexed. By the trend in the world today, it seems unlikely that mankind can find an answer for a few more millennia. In the meantime, religious strife will persist as the human mind continues to be incongruous and contradictory.


About the Writer

Ong Siew Chey is a retired general surgeon who occasionally writes for pastime. He is author of two books: China Condensed: 5000 Years of History and Culture and Tales from Old China. Primarily educated in Chinese, he attended university and underwent postgraduate training in U.S. Prior to his private practice, he was professor and head of surgery of the University of Singapore.

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What Makes Silicon Valley so Successful and Unique?

April 25, 2009 at 12:00 am (Current Affairs, Science & Technology)

Silicon Valley is a magnet to which numerous talented engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs from overseas flock to in search of fame, fast money and to participate in a technological revolution whose impact on mankind will surely surpass the epoch-making European Renaissance and Industrial Revolution of the bygone age.

With the rapid spread of the Internet since the early ’90s, and the relentless technological innovations generated through it, the information era is truly upon us, profoundly influencing and changing not only our lifestyle, but also the way we work, do business, think and communicate with others.

The unprecedented success of the Valley is a testimony to the concerted international endeavours and contributions by people from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds, made possible by the favourable political, economic and intellectual climate prevailing, as well as the farsighted policies of the US government.

It is noteworthy that close to 50% of its skilled manpower, including engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs, come from Asia. Prominent among them are Indians and Chinese, and not a few Singaporeans. They include such illustrious names as Vinod Khosla who co-founded Sun Microsystems, Jerry Yang of Yahoo fame and Singaporean Sim Wong Hoo, to name a few.

Many countries have, or are in the process of creating, their own “Silicon Valley”. So far, none has as yet threatened the preeminence of the US prototype. What makes Silicon Valley such a unique entity? There are several crucial factors.

First and foremost, it has the largest concentration of brilliant computer professionals and the best supporting services in the world, and easy access to world-class research institutions, like Stanford University, which continually nurtures would-be geniuses which the industry needs in order to move forward. Without these advantages, the Valley would be a different place.

Secondly, it actively encourages, or even exalts, risk-taking. Hence, failure holds no terror and there is no stigma attached to a failed effort. On the contrary, they will try even harder next time round. Such never-say-die approach is the sine qua non for the ultimate triumph in entrepreneurship and technological breakthrough.

A third decisive factor is the vital role of venture capitalists who willingly support promising start-ups with urgently needed initial capital to get them started. Some would even give failed entrepreneurs a second chance if convinced that a fresh concept might lead to eventual success.

Of equal importance, many bright young people and middle level professionals are keen to work for a new venture at substantially reduced remuneration, as it offers more scope for entrepreneurship and job satisfaction than the established companies. There is also a pride of achievement if their efforts contribute to its fruition.

Intellectual challenges aside, it is a common practice for start-ups to offer generous share options to employees in order to attract the right talent into their folds. This is a powerful incentive to motivate the staff to do their utmost and to share in the company’s prosperity if it reaches its goal. Many regard this as the foundation of a successful enterprise.

Those that have become high fliers, such as Netscape, Intel, Cisco and Yahoo, have turned many of their employees, including support staff like secretaries, into dot.com millionaires overnight, often at the relatively young age of 20s or 30s.

The Valley’s professionals are among the most hardworking people anywhere. A 15-hour day and 7-day week is not uncommon, especially during the start-up stage. They would give up social life, and curtail their family life too, in order to pursue the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It is this single minded pursuit of excellence, supported by strong ethos of team work and esprit de corps, that sustain them until their mission is accomplished.

Paper qualifications, though useful, is not a be all and end all. More weight is given to a candidate’s proven abilities and aptitude for the job. This is amply demonstrated by industry icons like Apple’s Jobs and Wozniak and Microsoft’s Gates, all college dropouts who might not have emerged in a qualification-conscious community.

While racial prejudice no doubt still exists in the United States, albeit in a less degrading form as before, it is hardly discernible in the Valley. What counts most is one’s vision and track record, and not one’s nationality, skin colour or creed. This, together with its multiracial society, informal lifestyle and agreeable climate, lure foreigners to its shores .

Its phenomenal success has led to a worldwide fever to proliferate dot.com companies, both as a prestigious symbol and a quicker way to wealth. Singapore is part of this rising tide. In Consequence, many bright young people have given up their secure jobs to join in the race. But the reality is that, because of its high-risk nature, for every success story there are hundreds who will, perforce, fall by the wayside. Will they get a second chance, given their own operating environment?

However, with the collapse of the US NASDAQ share index earlier this year resulting in the plunge in prices of technology shares listed on it and elsewhere, the hitherto valuable share options held by numerous paper dot.com millionaires have become virtually worthless in these changed circumstances. Those who could not take the heat, as it were, left their employment feeling disillusioned.

Be that as it may, the majority in the Valley view this traumatic experience only as a temporary setback for the industry. They are sanguine that its longer term prospects remain bright as the ultimate potential of the information age has not yet run its full course.They are confident that it will flourish well into this century provided it maintains its cutting-edge in science and technology.

Lam Pin Foo
(This article first appeared in Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao Bilingual Commentary Column on 2.9.2000)

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Needham Legacy and China’s Genius

September 15, 2008 at 12:00 am (Chinese Culture, Current Affairs, Science & Technology)

Last week, Singapore’s Centre for Chinese culture, the Chinese Heritage Centre, opened at Nanyang Technological University. It is to be a place for all things Chinese-history, language, culture, the arts and overseas Chinese. But several years ago, two Singaporeans were already involved in the setting up of a centre for Chinese culture, far beyond the country’s shores.

In 1984, when funds were being raised for the Needham Research Institute (NRI) Cambridge, two Singaporean organisations dug deep into their pockets. Mr Tan Chin Tuan, the then OCBC chairman, donated 350,000 GBP (equivalent to S$1 million in 1984), which was about one-third of the total building cost. Mr Lee Seng Gee, the Lee Foundation chairman, agreed to give an annual grant of 5000 GBP, which is still being awarded to this day. The two must have had a vision of the worth of such an institute. For the NRI, opened in 1987, is now one of the world’s top three centres for Chinese science and technology. The other two are in Beijing and Kyoto. As a mark of appreciation, the NRI board of trustees named the library block after Mr Tan. The institute was named after Joseph Needham. He was a scientist, scholar and a world-renowned authority on the history of Chinese science and technology. He died in 1994 at age 94.

What he is best remembered for is his monumental work, Science and Civilisation in China (SCC), a labour of love that lasted 47 years. Covering more than 3000 years of Chinese science, its first volume was published in 1954 by Cambridge University Press. Conceived originally to be a single-volume publication, it will now run to at least 25 and will be completed by Needham’s team of collaborators.

When he first embarked on the SCC, many among the older generation of sinologists were convinced he would fail. China’s contribution, they said was not in science and technology. This was felt to be the preserve of European civilisation. China’s contribution was in other areas, such as the arts and philosophy, they said. How wrong they were.

One after another, Needham and his team were able to uncover evidence of inventions and discoveries recorded clearly in some long-forgotten Chinese literature, archaeological finds or visual works of art. The Chinese were using these inventions, such as a move-able printing device, long before Europeans.

In fact, Needham was fond of telling this story: Francis Bacon, the great 16th century English statesman and philosopher, singled out three inventions which he believed had done more to change human history than any other scientific discovery, religion or military achievements. His choices: paper and printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass. He died without learning that the Chinese had invented all three.

For over 40 years, the SCC series has received world acclaim and been hailed as a classic. The Guardian newspaper’s obituary on Needham said: “It is not merely the standard history of Chinese science but the most important Western work on Chinese culture produced in the 20th century. It is also with E.H. Carr’s History of the Russian Revolution, the most significant work of history of any culture produced by an English historian since Gibbon”.

Needham’s next ambition was to build the East Asian History of Science Library in Cambridge. His many books on Chinese culture, science and technology and medicine together with books for the SCC project, would form the nucleus of its collection. In 1969, the library occupied its first address, a three-storey Victorian house donated by Needham himself. But to build a new library 1 million GBP was needed that year, 1983.

The same year, Needham came to Singapore to give a public lecture at the National University and looked for financial support. He was introduced to Mr Tan and Mr Lee by a long-time friend, Professor Lam Lay Yong of the NUS Mathematics Department.

Since its founding, the NRI has lived up to Needham’s vision of providing a home for scholars interested in East Asian science and technology.

In 1988, when he was 87, he relinquished the directorship to Professor Ho Peng Yoke, a historian of Chinese science of international standing and a former senior academic staff member of the then University of Malaya in Singapore.

But until shortly before his death, Needham continued to work at the NRI on the SCC project, as he had done for 47 years.

 

Chinese Gave World Money and Maths

Besides Francis Bacon’s pick of the world’s top three inventions-paper and printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass-almost everything one can think of owes its genesis to Chinese science and technology.

To name a few: decimal mathematics, paper money,umbrella, fishing reel, wheelbarrow, multi-stage rocket, gun,underwater mine, poison,gas, parachute, mechanical clock, hot-air ballon, manned flight, brandy, whisky, chess and steam engine.

Without the import of Chinese knowledge of nautical and navigational improvements such as the ship’s rudder, magnetic compass and multiple mast, the great European voyages of discovery would not have been possible.

Without the moveable printing device, Europe would have had to rely on hand-copied books, thus delaying the spread of literacy.

More surprisingly, it was the Chinese , not Isaac Newton, who discovered the First Law of Motion-the principle that a body at rest or in motion will remain that way.

If the Chinese were so advanced, how is it that they are not now centuries ahead of others in scientific achievements? And why did the scientific revolution happen in Europe?

Joseph Needham called this the $64,000 question, which will be answered in the concluding volume of the Science and Civilisation in China when it is published. Part of the answer, he said, lies in the different feudalism in China and Europe.

“Modern research is showing that the bureaucratic organisation of China in its earlier stages strongly helped science to grow; only in later ones did it inhibit further growth and, in particular,prevent a breakthrough which has occurred in Europe.”
 

Dedication to Monumental Project

Born in 1900, Joseph Needham was the only child of a Harley Street specialist-father and musician-composer mother. He studied medicine in Caius but switched to biochemistry. In 1931, he published an important three-volume work, Chemical Embryology, and three years later the definitive History of Embryology.

In 1937, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the highest honour for a British scientist. His biochemist wife, Dorothy Mary Moyle, was also an FRS. That year proved to be a turning point for Needham. Three Chinese scientists came to Cambridge to do research for doctoral degrees and became his close friends.

By 1940, they were convinced they had to do something to document the history of Chinese science, technology and medicine. As Needham’s interest deepened, he was invited to China, as a Royal Society envoy, and was appointed scientific counsellor at the British Embassy in wartime capital, Chongqing. He met Chinese scientists and educators and was able to study China’s culture and historical development.

After a two-year stint in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation (UNESCO), he returned to Cambridge in 1948 and began work on Science and Civilisation in China. Its first volume was published in 1954.

 

About the Writer

The writer, a lawyer, is deputy chairman of the Singapore Science Centre and a member of the Substation management committee.

(The above article was published by the Singapore Straits Times on 26.5.1995)

 

Lam Pin Foo
15.9.08

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