Current Day Alchemy

Recently, I had the chance to attend an annual meeting of a COST project. It was my first time attending such a meeting. This project is about the European eel (Anguilla anguilla). I asked my professors if I could join them since they were already going. They said that if I helped them during the event and manned the welcome desk on the first day, I could come along. My initial motivation for attending was because the meeting was taking place in Antalya, Türkiye, which is a great holiday destination.

Going to this meeting without knowing anything about the topic would be inefficient. Although part of my motivation was to enjoy a few days of nice weather and swim in the sea, I believe leaving knowledge on the table is as bad as leaving food on the plate. I should embrace every bit of relevant information that is given to me.

I was listening to a podcast series from Scientific American called Science Talk (Spotify link). I wanted to listen to five episodes about the fundamentals of science and its phenomena. It was a very interesting podcast that discussed phenomena through conversations with important science figures. As I really liked this series, I explored other podcasts they had and one episode immediately caught my eye called "...The Many Mysteries of Fish". In this episode, one of the books they talked about was "The Book of Eels" by Patrik Svensson (link). Apparently, this is a very popular book. The podcast presenter discussed several striking stories from the book, which immediately caught my attention because I was looking for a book to quickly get up to speed about eels. It was a short book, and I finished it in a week, just before the meeting.

This book talks about what we know and what we don't know about eels. I knew we couldn't produce eels from start to finish, but I didn't know that even today, with all the advancements in technology, we still haven't directly caught a sexually mature male eel. Hence, until a century ago, we didn't know where they were spawning. The book explains what we know about eels and the history of our knowledge with high accuracy.

Eels are fascinating creatures, to say the least. The book helped me to get up to speed.

Now, back to the meeting.

During the meeting, most people shared the stage of their research, discussing bottlenecks in production and various stages. Many people gave speeches about their expertise and experiences with eels or relevant points.

After the presentations, people split into working groups and discussed the highlighted problems. There was an exchange of information and discussions about them.

Since eel is a commercially sought-after fish, it is very important to produce it commercially, and at this point, it is a matter of prestige for some countries. The only country to successfully close the cycle of reproduction for several generations is Japan. They achieved this with the Japanese species of eel, which is not exactly the same as the European eel.

Given this, not everyone working in eel production was keen to share certain information about production steps. This was not just the case for those successful in production, but also for those further along in the production process who were also not open about critical points.

Were alchemists scientists?

Well, it depends on your definition of science. I think science is a way to reduce unknowns in the world. Alchemists were reducing unknowns they had created, more like social sciences. Then, is social science actually science? This is a classic discussion. I think it is moving us away from our point.

Do you remember Newton's alchemist work?

Everybody knows his work on gravity and his foundational contributions to classical physics. Nobody remembers his alchemist work. Sharing our findings is how we achieve iterative progress. Without the free exchange of information, we risk stagnating in our efforts. The history of science is filled with examples of breakthroughs made possible by building on the work of others. Just as Newton's discoveries in physics were foundational for later advancements, our collective knowledge of eel production can only advance if we share our successes and failures openly.

In today's world, however, the landscape of knowledge sharing has become more complex. Every establishment, especially those involved in highly competitive fields like commercial eel production, often operates under strict confidentiality. Intellectual property rights, patents, and trade secrets are fiercely guarded to maintain competitive advantages. This culture of secrecy, while understandable from a business perspective, can hinder overall progress in the industry.

Many companies invest heavily in research and development, aiming to be the first to market with new technologies or methods. The pressure to innovate and the potential financial rewards create an environment where information is siloed. This approach contrasts sharply with the collaborative spirit seen in academic research, where findings are typically published and peer-reviewed.

Despite these challenges, some forward-thinking companies recognize the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing. They participate in industry consortia and public-private partnerships, where stakeholders from different sectors work together to tackle common problems. These collaborations often lead to shared standards, pooled resources, and accelerated innovation.

For instance, in the pharmaceutical industry, pre-competitive collaboration has become more common. Companies might work together on early-stage research, sharing data and resources to better understand a disease, even if they compete in later stages of drug development. This model could be applied to eel production, where companies could collaborate on fundamental research about eel biology and reproduction, benefiting the entire industry.

I believe such an approach should also be adopted for eel production. There is no point in several companies and researchers spending money on things that others have already achieved. When we can't even close the cycle of eels, I see no point in being secretive as no one earns money from it unless the cycle is completed.

This would leave knowledge at a point where no one can profit from it. As early production techniques tend to be expensive, this trend can be observed in other fish species where production costs came down over time. But still, it would overcome thresholds that would otherwise take years and a lot of money. More like ITER.

In conclusion, I believe stakeholders should come to an agreement where they share every bit of knowledge with each other until the set goal is reached—in this case, one complete cycle of production of Anguilla anguilla.

This can be done under an agreement where only those who work together can be the owners of the final knowledge. When doing this, the number of collaborating people shouldn't be small. Maybe not everyone is as advanced as others, but some might have expertise in other species or departments. Some can contribute more than others, but in the end, we are trying to pass a threshold, and every little contribution counts. When this goal is reached, all the details can be made public or belong to those who contributed to the project for several years. Further improvements can be proprietary.

I believe this is the right way because if you look at progress over the years, you will see that it took a very long time to reach where we are, and we are still nowhere close to our destination. Currently, the playing field is not equal among partners. Everyone spends as much, if not more, money to reach where others are. It causes inefficiency.

In the COST project meeting that I attended, people were still continuing what they were doing before this project and will continue to do so.

Then, what changed with this meeting? Now people know the state attendees are at and who is capable of what. They had the chance to meet people. Other than these networking benefits, I see no step towards true collaboration in production. Maybe it happened behind closed doors, but still, nothing public.

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We have no clue about the population of Anguilla anguilla, how many there are in the world, or how much pollution affects them. The only thing we know is that their numbers are getting lower and lower every day. One day, we might pass a threshold that we didn't know was there, and they could disappear. Such a threshold could be temperature, acidification or something else. Given their environmental importance and monetary value, should public money fund projects where proprietary information is created in an inefficient manner for this magnificent species?