I read an interesting story in the New York Times on Tuesday – interesting, but perplexing. It seems that a Czech ornithologist (more specifically, an avian evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist) surveyed other Czech ornithologists (more specifically, other avian evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists) on their beer drinking habits. He then correlated their scientific output (as measured by publications/year and citations/paper) with their annual beer consumption. The result was counterintuitive – higher beer consumption led to lower scientific output.

My first thought was to scoff at the study – after all, I drink a lot of beer, and my scientific output has been pretty good. Further, I hang out with quite of few other prolific scientists who also drink their fair share of man’s greatest beverage. There must be something strange about those Czech bird watchers.

But as I began to think further on the subject (and enjoy a fine Pale Ale to settle me down), I realized I was making two cardinal mistakes in my approach to this startling scientific development: 1) I trusted my limited anecdotal evidence over a statistically valid scientific study, and 2) I based my understanding of the science on a journalist’s description of a technical paper. Recognizing my initial flaws, I moved on to a smooth and especially bitter IPA and got on the internet. After a few minutes I had located the original paper in the biology journal Oikos. Here is the citation:

Tomáš Grim, “A possible role of social activity to explain differences in publication output among ecologists”, Oikos, OnlineEarly Articles, 8-Feb-2008.

The paper is only three pages long, so it was a quick read. It was also fairly easy to find the defects in the work. First, there was the common mistake of confusing correlation with causation. The author implied that increased beer drinking caused reduced scientific output. An equally likely explanation is that poor performance in one’s chosen career (in this case ornithology) led to increased beer drinking (and after all, the subjects live in a country with the world’s highest per capita beer consumption). Alternatively, a third, unmeasured factor could be leading to both poor job performance and higher beer consumption (a nagging spouse, for example).

As I looked more carefully at the data, I found a much more significant problem. The total number of data points (as these bird-watching scientists had been reduced to) was 34. This is not an exceptionally large number of subjects when one wishes to draw conclusions about all beer-drinking scientists. The discovered linear relationship between beer consumption and scientific output had a correlation coefficient (R-squared) of only about 0.5 – not very high by my standards, though I suspect many biologists would be happy to get one that high in their work.

But it was while I was switching to a magnificent Pacific Northwest microbrew porter that I saw the real problem. Looking at the graph of the 34 data points, it was clear that the entire correlation was caused by the five lowest-output scientists. Without those five data points, the remaining 29 – showing a wide range of scientific output and beer consumption habits – exhibited absolutely no correlation. Thus, the entire study came down to only one conclusion: the five worst ornithologists in the Czech Republic drank a lot of beer.

Other significant problems were also evident. Standard linear regression, with all the fanciest statistics one can muster, still makes the assumption that each data point is independent. But this study was specifically looking for the impact of social habits on scientific output. Isn’t it likely that some, or many, of these scientists socialized together? After all, the Czech avian evolutionary biology community is not that large. I know that much (possibly most) of my beer drinking is done with fellow lithographers. For all we know, the five lowest-output scientists that created this whole controversy were all part of a drinking club – they’re probably enjoying a fine pilsner and having a fine joke at our expense right now!

In the end, though, I was pleased to see that careful reading and analysis of the original published work led to an easy debunking of the silly notion reported in the press that somehow beer drinking was bad for scientific performance. With the reputation of beer-loving scientists restored to its rightful glory, I sat back and sipped my double-chocolate stout. Ah, the life of a Gentleman Scientist.

After graduating with my bachelors degrees in 1982, I spent the summer working in an optics lab at the National Security Agency and then went off to CalTech to work towards a degree in applied physics. But a funny thing happened on my way to a PhD. I got married (not a particularly wise decision for me at the age of 22) and realized I needed a break from school after four intense years as an undergrad. One semester at CalTech was enough – I dropped out. But now I needed a job.

Since I had spent the previous summer at NSA, I decided to call someone I knew in their HR/Recruiting office about the possibility of a permanent job. After a few phone interviews, I got a job offer from a brand new group – the Microelectronics Research Lab. I hopped on a plane to start a new career and a new life in Maryland.

There is something important to know about working for the NSA – it requires a Top Secret Special Intelligence security clearance. Such a clearance is not trivial to get. One takes a battery of psychological exams, personality tests, and a particularly unpleasant lie detector test. A very thorough background check is done, including interviews with friends, neighbors, teachers, etc. The whole process takes at least nine months, and typically one year. Fortunately, I had just gone through this ordeal in order to get my temporary job the previous summer. Thus, I already had a clearance. When I arrived at the beginning of February, 1983, they even let me skip the two week orientation class and I went straight to my new boss’s office.

Why is all of this important? My new boss didn’t realize that I already had a clearance, and so was expecting me to show up for work in about a year. She had not even begun to think about what I was supposed to do and how I would fit into the group. She gave me some busy work while she pondered my fate. In the meantime, another young engineer in the group noticed my boredom and took pity on me. He was trying to work on etch and deposition (though we were in a very crude lab – our clean room would take a few years to build), and had recently ordered a very small, very manual contact printer (almost a toy, really) so that he could make himself some test patterns. The contact printer arrived the week that I showed up, and to give me something to do, he pointed me to the box. Even though I couldn’t spell it, that week I become a lithographer.

I often wonder what might have happened to me and my life if a different piece of equipment had shown up that week – an electrical prober, or a wafer cleaner, maybe. In hindsight, it seems that lithography was ideal for my educational background and my temperament – something that could have been a perfect plan rather than a perfect fluke. And while my marriage (the thing that sent me into this job) did not last but a few years, lithography has stuck with me for 25 years. Go figure.

By the way, while I was waiting for our clean room to be built (don’t expect things to move fast in the government), I decided the best way to learn about lithography was through simulation. I read Rick Dill’s 1975 papers and fell in love with the idea of lithography simulation. I started to write my own simulator that summer. As they say, the rest is history.

Believe it or not, I started my first lithography company while I was in high school. My parents had moved our family to Texas in order to start a business, so the idea of starting my own business just seemed natural to me. After giving up on my first idea of a used book store, I settled on printing T-shirts. The silk-screen process begins with using contact printing on a photographic emulsion on the screen. Both resolution for fine lines and overlay for four-color printing were important. Still, I spent most of my time worrying about defects (the emulsion getting beat up during screening) and turn-around time (customers can be so demanding). In the end, lithographic quality didn’t matter much as my business acumen was insufficient to allow my survival. It didn’t occur to me that this was my first lithography job until many, many years later, since I certainly didn’t use the word “lithography” (or even know what it meant) until after I got into the semiconductor industry.

I suppose that the failure of my first business was inevitable, since I was soon bound for college anyway (though I was able to make some extra money in college by printing T-shirts and hats for various campus groups). In high school I was a good student, but it was in college, at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, that I found my groove. I graduated four years later with four bachelor degrees (physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering).

Next Time: my failure in graduate school, and how it led to a career in semiconductor lithography

I didn’t grow up saying I wanted to be a lithographer – does anybody? So, like most of us lithographers, I came to my profession the old fashion way – by accident. The story of how I became a lithographer is a relatively short one, so I’ll make it long by adding lots of extraneous details.

My first real job, at age 16, was working for my father in the construction business. He gave me all the dirtiest jobs: digging ditches, laying tie-rod for concrete, running a jack hammer, doing demo (demolition) work. That summer in Dallas saw 41 days in a row above 100F, and I never saw my dad slow down. It was a relief when school started again in the fall, and I decided that when I got to college I was going to work really hard! I few years ago I told this story to my dad. His only response: “It worked”.

During this same time, my mother and her sister-in-law had started a fabric store (the early seeds of an entrepreneurial spirit?). I helped out a bit there, so that by the end of that year I was the only kid I knew who could run a jack hammer and make his own shirts.

Next Time: my first “lithography” job

A couple of blog entries ago, I mentioned two words that I like. Now, here are two words that I definitely don’t like: methodology and utilize. Both are examples of word inflation, and I don’t like word inflation. Why use a big word when a small word would work just as well? Utilize means use – there is no difference and, in my opinion, no reason to ever use “utilize”. Whenever I come across a writer or speaker who has no reason to utilize “use”, I am unlikely to pay attention. The abundant use of the word “methodology” is even worse. Methodology is the study of methods, but most people use it incorrectly as a synonym for “method”. (I’m embarrassed to say that I actually used the word “methodology” once in my recent book Fundamental Principles of Optical Lithography – I am anxiously awaiting the second printing so that I can correct my miserable mistake.)

Small words, when conveying the proper meaning, are always more effect at that conveyance. Big words, when used to impress, have the exact opposite effect on me. Trust me – if you utilize this methodology, you can’t go wrong.

How best to remember Jeff Byers? Several people have asked me what charities would be best to donate to in Jeff’s name, and certainly Jeff had some causes that he cared deeply about. But I am very excited about a new scholarship endowment fund set up in Jeff’s name at the University of Texas at Austin through the efforts of Paul Zimmerman and Grant Willson. Below is a letter describing the fund and how to donate to it.

January 20, 2008

Dear Friends of Jeff Byers;

We are all struggling to come to terms with Jeff’s untimely passing on November 4th. Several of us have been discussing ways to serve Jeff’s memory. We have decided that our best idea is to set up the Jeff Byers Memorial Award through an endowment at The University of Texas at Austin. This award will be given annually to the UT Chemistry or Chemical Engineering graduate student that best typifies the qualities exhibited by Jeff during his lifetime. The award will have an academic excellence component and an equally important component based on the candidate’s selflessly helping his peers. We have all experienced Jeff’s generous nature, where he would put himself second to help a friend, student, or a colleague with their work or problem. We no longer can tell him how much we appreciate all he did for us on human and professional levels; however, this award, by small measure, will allow us all to memorialize Jeff’s enduring spirit.

We are hopeful that you will join us with any size contribution you see fit in order to help reach our goal and create a permanent endowment named for Jeff at $25,000. The University of Texas will administer the endowment, and all donations are tax-deductible. The endowment is a sincere commitment to honor Jeff with a very meaningful tribute, and will no doubt be considered prestigious by the students that receive it. The Jeff Byers Memorial Award in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering will forever be a testament to how he was a part of our lives while also providing support for future students in the Departments in perpetuity. This endowment will be used to directly support future generations of graduate students in Jeff’s name, building on his already deep legacy of giving and helping others.

To join us in creating this annual award in Jeff’s memory, checks and pledges can be sent directly to the University at the address below. Checks should be made out to UT Austin, with an important note in the memo field that the gift is “in memory of Jeff Byers,” and mailed to:

Attn: Tim Aronson
College of Natural Sciences, Office of the Dean
The University of Texas
1 University Station G2500
Austin, Texas 78712-0549

Gifts can also be made online at: https://utdirect.utexas.edu/nlogon/vip/ogp.WBX. Select “Natural Sciences” in step 1, and in step 2 write, “in memory of Jeff Byers” in the space provided.

Most importantly, we offer our deepest sympathies for our mutual loss. We also sincerely thank those many of you who already promised some donation to this, which helped motivate us to move forward.

Sincerely,

The Friends and Colleagues of Jeff Byers

I love the words “somnambulist” and “perambulator”. They are superb – sublime, even. I don’t know what they mean, but I still love them. I have looked them up many times, mid-sentence in a book by Gunter Grass or George Orwell, but I always forget their meaning. Nevertheless, whenever I read these words I immediately suspect the author of genius. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that all great ideas occur while walking (which just means that he must have spent a lot of time sitting down). While I walk a lot, I don’t have many great ideas. I am happy, though, when on a walk, to simply reflect on these words.

I’ve heard this complaint from doctors before, often echoed by Republican politicians: Growing medical malpractice jury awards are causing malpractice insurance rates to skyrocket, resulting in higher medical costs for everyone. I remember a recent speech by President Bush where he said the most important thing we can do to control medical costs is tort reform.

Really? I’ve always wondered how much truth there was to this malpractice hype, so I did what I usually do – take the macroeconomic view. A bit of research (thank you, Google) was all that was required to find out that in 2003 (the last year I found any data) malpractice premiums in the US totaled about $10B. That same year, the US spent about $1.7 trillion on health care. That makes malpractice insurance costs much less than 1% of health costs. Even if there was some sort of multiplicative effect (doctors practicing “defensive medicine”, etc.) there is little chance of total malpractice costs making up more than about 1% of health care costs. And since health care costs are growing at about 6 – 7% per year, there is just no way that controlling malpractice costs could have any noticeable impact on the rising costs of medical care in the US.

While doing this bit of internet research, I found that Tom Baker wrote a book in 2005 called The Medical Malpractice Myth where he makes this same basic argument. I think it is very important to look at how Americans can better control health spending. But harping on malpractice insurance just keeps us from focusing on a solution that might actually help.

I’ve just finished reading an essay written by George Orwell called Notes on Nationalism. It is brilliant (which is expected – it was written by George Orwell after all). Here is my favorite line: “Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, since their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.” And this was written in 1945! He could have been taking about any (or all) of the talking-head commentators on TV or talk radio today. Some things never change.

And now to the core of our debate on Social Security. With sufficient prodding, my conservative friends came out with the real reason they are against social security: “Social security is not an ‘insurance’ program, it is an entitlement program.” To a conservative, “entitlement” signifies everything that is wrong with America: government programs that encourage bad behavior because people are not forced to live with the consequences of their bad decisions.

Certainly, any program that encourages bad behavior, or incentivizes bad decisions, is misguided. But is that really what Social Security does? Are the 40% of retirees that rely on Social Security to survive really just a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings on the government dole, laughing all the way to the bank while real, hard working Americans suffer to pay for their vices? The image is ludicrous. The problem with this cartoonish characterization of “entitlement” programs is that it makes a very significant (and self-serving) logical fallacy: that the outcomes in one’s life are solely a result of the choices one makes.

There are three predominant factors that impact outcomes in life: one’s natural abilities, the effort and choices one makes, and the circumstances of one’s life that are outside of one’s control. Is it right to blame someone for lack of natural ability, or bad luck? There are plenty of people that have worked harder in their life than me and have barely gotten by. The formula that poor = lazy is so full of exceptions that it is more likely an exception to the rule that poor = hard work.

[So why is this “entitlement” logical fallacy self-serving? People who are successful in life want to take credit for their own success.]

Of course, the liberals have their own entitlement fallacy: people’s failures are predominantly a result of a life stacked up against them. Like the conservative entitlement fallacy, it simplifies the complex reality of consequences to the point of cartoonish caricature: the rich aligned together in a vast conspiracy to keep the poor down.

But my opinions as to the value of Social Security go beyond the simple statement that the vast majority of people that receive Social Security are not being rewarded for bad decisions. Consider the man (or woman) who really did make bad decisions throughout his life – never considering what it would take to survive at 70. Suppose he now has reached that age without friends or family able to help him, and without the means to help himself. Some people may be OK with watching him slowly starve to death, or die from lack of simple, basic medical care. I am not.

I believe that every human being has intrinsic value independent of how much that person contributes to a market economy. This belief alone is enough to justify a “safety net” social policy – providing a collection of programs that work to prevent death due to extreme poverty. Social Security is one such program – and arguable an exceptionally successful one. For those opposed to Social Security on philosophical grounds, don’t kid yourself: without it, many people will die, old and desperate.