***** Vol.3 Chap.9 Conference presentation *****

Frank had to prepare for his talk at the AMAS and spent countless hours trying to craft the proper words to present. As an old pro, he was not worried about the presenting part since he had done enough presentations in the past.

His major concern was the proper way to present the research results because he could not resolve the impact of the implications within himself. After weeks of preparation, he decided to just present the results without comments and let the audience draw their own conclusions. Instead of wrangling over what to say and how to say, he would simply emphasize just a few points of the results of the research.

At the AMAS meeting, Frank was one of the plenary speakers. He looked out at the audience and into the hall. It was full, with standing room only. Frank began his talk and reported how his team had obtained the database from subjects who had a history of violent crimes and DNA samples from siblings who did not.

In pairing the DNA from the parents, the team hypothesized that any mismatch resulting in an invalid sequence could be repaired by random selection. Using the DNA sequences, the team had found a viable model for predicting ones with violent and normal behavior.

Frank kept quiet at those results that Mark did for him privately.

No sooner did Frank finish his talk, many hands shot up.

“This is preposterous! Are you saying that those with violent behavior got that way purely by chance?” Professor Tahati from UCLA asked angrily.

“I am only reporting some results that our team has found. I am not ready to make any statement presently.”

“But your results say that.”

“Again, I repeat, I am not making any statement at this point. And I would like to add that we must be very careful in making any interpretations at this point. This is only a single experiment and a simple experiment at that. I just want to share our results with you and I hope that many of you can help to further confirm or dis-confirm our results.”

Frank was as professional as he could be.

“This type of research is crazy and unholy. You are trying to play God!”

“I am just a researcher who stumbled on these results.”

Another hand shot up in the audience.

“Yes.” Frank pointed to another hand.

“Have you tried using another set of data?”

“No. We only have one set of data. But we have used standard randomizing techniques to separate the dataset into five distinct sets of training and testing data. Each time, the program converges to the same conclusion.”

“Another question?” Frank pointed to another hand.

“Have you checked the computer program to be sure that it is correct?”

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“Of course I did not write the program myself. My post-doc wrote the program. She was very careful in her programming. This is the reason I am reporting these results today, hoping many of you can duplicate the research to see if you all can get the same results as well.”

Frank was a genuine gentleman here.

There were many other technical questions after that. Scientists were trained to be skeptical and to question everything. Frank had to repeat what he had said many times to different people both during the question-and-answer period and during the coffee break time. At the end, he felt happy about the presentation.

Dr. Chris Abrahamson, the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), came over and patted Frank at the back.

“Frank, that was a great presentation.”

“Thank you.”

“We would like you to be a panel speaker at the upcoming Annual Meeting of AAAS in a few months.”

“I’m honored. Who else would be at the panel?”

“Top secret, but I will let you know in due time. Good presentation, Frank. See you at the AAAS conference.”

“See you there.”

Overall, it was a very informative conference. Frank attended quite a few sessions and met many people. They all commented on Frank’s presentation, some pleasantly positive while others blatantly negative. Some felt he was at the cutting edge of technology while others jeered, thinking he was crazy by tempering with nature. As a gentleman, he responded to them all just the same, with a smile.

Somehow, he always seemed to run into Dr. Chris Abrahamson; and the two had several coffee discussions together. Chris was interested in what he was doing asking him all kinds of details related to his research. Just like any other skeptics, Chris was also dubious about the implications of his research. Not that he was negative about his research. He was genuinely interested and curious, but completely apprehensive about the implications of the outcome.

Frank came back from the conference with mixed feelings. On one hand, he was happy about the opportunity to present the team’s research material, but the questions and discussions with top scientific minds in the country also left him with several perspectives that he had not had the time to consider.

As soon as he got back from the conference, he fired off a bunch of emails to his research team and set a time for a team discussion. But when he looked at his calendar, he noticed he was already heavily booked for meetings already.

He knew that whenever he left on a conference; the work did not disappear, only piled up for his return. He sighed because he would rather devote his whole time to research, interacting with his students, but unfortunately there were other nonproductive work, as he called them, that he must attend to.

Looking at his calendar, there was a meeting with the departmental curriculum committee in late morning, then an advisory meeting with a master degree student for his colleague, another meeting with the University Academic Council in the late afternoon. Well, the day was shot for him.

For the following day, the calendar showed a class in the morning and a departmental meeting in the afternoon. Not good.

Flipping the calendar to another day, he had office hours in the morning and another seminar in the afternoon. He kept flipping his calendar, and every day was full of meetings and appointment.

Eventually, he settled for the following week at the regularly scheduled research meeting time to get the team together.

Before his memory of the conference faded away and his attention distracted by the daily affairs, he emailed his research team the thoughts from the conference.

To Research Team,

The conference was great, and I wished that you all were there. Presentation was well received, thanks to JB’s results. There were many questions after the presentation. Some I could answer, but many more I could not. The technical ones, I could answer. But the philosophical ones were too difficult for me to answer.

Hence, I would jot down some points brought out at the conference so that you all can consider these questions in the meantime. I would like to set aside the next research meeting for a good brainstorming session on these points.

1. If we have found the genetic sequences for predicting violent behavior, can we extrapolate to say that there would be a genetic basis for all behavior?

2. Is behavior totally genetically based?

3. Is it possible to repair the genetic defect?

4. If a genetic defect cannot be repaired, is it moral to select an offspring based on the prediction of the genetic code?

5. Does nurture play a part besides nature?

6. Can nurture overcome nature?

7. Would …

There was a knock on the door. Frank quickly hit the Send Button without finishing his email.