July 2, 2020 • 41 mins
In Bolivia, a political activist radically reforms the voting process for... student council elections. Who else does he convince? Revisionist History. And maybe a fancy private school in New Jersey. Get Revisionist History updates first by signing up for our newsletter at pushkin.fm.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
One day, not long ago, I went to visit the
Lawrenceville School just outside Princeton, New Jersey, a very old,
prestigious private school, leafy campus, Gothic this and that. I
asked one of their deans could I come and meet
with some students? She said yes, Does everyone have a
(00:41):
piece of paper and pen? The dean put together a
group of twenty kids. We met in a conference room
looking out on the campus lawn. On a scale of
one at ten, don't put your name on it. I
would like you to rank your happiness with the Lawrenceville
School's current electoral process.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ten is you think it's perfect?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
One is you think it's maybe time to bring in
Adam Adam Adam Cronkwright. He was the reason I was there. Okay,
hi everyone, thanks for coming. My name is Malcolm Babo,
so you as you know, I am a writer and
I have a podcast called Revision's History. That's how the
(01:29):
afternoon began. I said, I wanted to run an idea
by them, an idea field tested by this person. I
just met Adam kronkright about talent and chance and how
we choose others to lead us. And I would encourage
you all to be. If you think I'm crazy, you
should say, Malcolm, you're crazy. Maybe this idea could change
(01:52):
a lot about what's wrong with the world right now,
or maybe not. Revisionist history is about the overlooked and misunderstood.
Usually I decide what belongs in either of those categories.
This time, I thought I'd just run Adam's idea by
the students of Lawrenceville and that them decide. All this
(02:14):
had to do with the way they elected their student council.
I thought they should call a constitutional convention and start over.
There is no right answer or wrong answer, but I
want to make a case for something and see how
that possibly relates to the way you guys do things
here at Lawrenceville. They listened to Adam's idea argued about
(02:36):
it for close to two hours. I'll be honest, I
didn't think I'd get anywhere. The whole student council was
there as well, all people who had profited from the
Lawrenceville electoral status quo. And what was wrong with the
status quo in theory, not much. Lawrenceville elected its leaders
through the perfect democratic system, campaign speeches, open elections. Their
(02:58):
constitution might as well have been drawn up by the
founding Fathers. For all I know, one of the Founding
fathers went to Lawrenceville. But then at the end of
the day afternoon, I said, okay, now that I've given
you an alternative, how happy are you with what you have?
Scale of one to ten. One is totally miserable with
(03:20):
the status quo, and ten is delighted. Everything's perfect.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I want to see your number, rip it off and
hand it to me. Open to day.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
As the students handed in their little slips of paper,
I glanced at a few. I was taken aback. Lawrenceville
had the perfect democratic system, and upon reflection, upon exposure
to a little of Adam kronk Write's subversion, there were
a lot of students in that room who decided they
didn't like it anymore. I told them I'd do an
official tally later after I got home. But there's some
(04:02):
unhappiness in this room, and if they seem discontented with
democracy in the gilded corridors of the Lawrenceville School, I
can only imagine what it's like elsewhere. I first ran
across Adam Kronkwrte online. I was just rummaging around Google
(04:25):
one day, and what he was doing. Struck me is
so interesting that I tracked him down cold called him.
Are you ever in New York City? This was November.
He said yes, he'd be there in February. So he
settled on a date and he came to my apartment.
Young guy, beard, big backpack, hiking boots. So tell me, actually,
(04:47):
before we get into the question, where are you from.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I'm from just outside of Syracuse, New York. Yeah, so
central New York.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
How did you end up in Bolivia?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Coach of Bamba to be more precise, a mid size
city in the mountains of central Bolivia. It turned out
to be a long story that starts in Canada, across Lake,
Ontario from his home town.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I remember where I was when I thought of the idea,
Like you know, where were you I was. I was
outside Victoria Hall, walking on on Queen's campus and it
was spring.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It was two thousand and nine. Adam was finishing college
at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He wanted to be
a politician. He had, as he puts it, a pretty
big hero complex.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He was save the world and coming to terms with
this idea that, like you know, be difficult to get
to the heights of power without haveting to make some
serious compromises externally internally, and you know, so then I
was kind of like, Okay, well what am I going
to do? What are we going to do?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He began to read history, political science, turned it over
in his mind, looking for a big idea.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
This is going to you know, right, all the wrongs.
But I wasn't that involved in anything.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
He was more of a dreamer than a doer. Adam graduated.
The world was in a financial crisis. Occupy Wall Street
was one of the protest movements that grew up in response.
There was a tense city of activists in Szubcatti Park
in Lower Manhattan. Adam decided to go down to New
(06:27):
York and join them. There were working panels and panel discussions,
and one speaker in particular stuck with him, an activist
from Bolivia who talked about an epic struggle there over water.
Adam lived in Subcatti Park for five weeks until everyone
was evicted by the NYPD. His experience with Occupy left
(06:48):
him frustrated. He understood what they were fighting for, but
not how. There was no how in Occupy. They didn't
have a plan that seemed like it could actually reform
the systems that had failed during the financial crisis. Adam
moved to Brooklyn, slept on someone's couch, and all the
while kept skyping with his new friend Bolivia, the water
(07:10):
activist Marcella Olivella.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I kind of shared with her that I was feeling
a bit burnt out, disillusion from what I was seeing,
and she said, well, yeah, I come down to Bolivia
and check out social moments there.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So he did Syracuse to Kingston, to Zuccotti Park to Bolivia.
He made his way to coach A Bomba and there
he met Marcella's brother, Oscar, who runs a foundation.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So I was working with them for a while, and
then Oscar one day he was in the car and
he's asking me, what are you into, you know? And
so I started telling him about democratic lotteries and he
had never heard of the.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Concept democratic lotteries. That's Adam's idea, replace elections with lotteries.
Adam tells Oscar about it. Oscar says, we could test
it in the schools. They sign up a rural elementary
(08:10):
school and two high schools, a night school and a
regular high school, and Adam sells them on this new
way of picking the student council. Anyone who wanted to
be in the lottery put their name forward, and then
the whole school gathered in the gym to hear the results.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
We wanted something that was very visual that could generate buzz,
and so they had some clay pots and we used
faba beans as a crop that they grow there. They're
kind of the biggest beans you can find, and so
we had two colors, green and purple. The students would
put fava beans in the pot and they'd cover it
with an aguayoun, a traditional cloth, so that it's from
(08:53):
there and it was also visually beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
If there were two hundred students running for eight student
council positions, they would put one hundred and ninety two
green fava beans in the pot and eight purple ones.
Then all the candidates would line up. The kid reaches
in reaches under the cloth. Yeah, grabs a bean.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Do they hold it up?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
If it's purple, they hold it up. If it's purple
or green, they hold They're supposed to hold it up
so the school can see.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
No campaigning, no speeches or posters, no glad handing, no
ballots no recounts. The whole selection was over in twenty minutes.
Those who picked out the purple fava beans were on
student council. Done. Now, I know that sounds like a
crazy idea. You would never go for that, would you?
(09:51):
Or would you? Adam KRONKWRIGHTE learned three important things from
his work on school lottery in Bolivia. I'm going to
call them kronk Right's laws. None of them I think
(10:14):
are obvious beforehand, at least they were not obvious to him. First, numbers,
as in number of candidates, typically what percentage of the
kids want to be part of the lottery.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
It varies by the school. Yeah, it varies by the school.
And so at the night high school, you know, these
kids often work even on Saturdays, like they got a
full schedule, So we would usually get between twenty and
thirty students who are volunteering for like twelve spots. Right,
So it wasn't a huge, huge turnout. And then at
(10:49):
the like rural K through eight school, it was literally
like every student that could participate participated in every lottery.
And then you know, at another school we worked out
later on. It was an urban high school, but in
the morning you know there you had at least half
of the school.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
After the student council members finished their time in office.
Adam always asks a simple question, would you have run
if we had done things the old way with campaigns
and speeches.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's about three quarters who say no right away?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Why do they say no?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, let's say that nobody would have voted for me.
I was new in the school, didn't have a lot
of friends. You know, I would not want to run
a campaign, you know, and ask people to vote for me.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's the things that you can kind of guess are impediments.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
They liked serving in office. They just didn't want to
run for office. The demands of the campaign were filtering
out all kinds of people who would otherwise have been
very interested in student council politics. Overwhelmingly those who win
the lottery one year in fact run again the next.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So yeah, they tend to line back up. But when
we ask them, you know, it'd be normal elections, would
you have done it? The majority of saying now.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What's interesting is the extent to which running for an
office and running an office are two very very different things,
and someone may be both capable and interested in running
an office, but have no interest in running for That's
(12:33):
the first law. In a democracy. Elections are supposed to
encourage participation, but they don't. They discourage it. Lotteries encourage participation. Okay,
crank write's second law. When you choose your student government
by lottery, you see a change in the kinds of
(12:55):
things the government actually does. In my high school, the
student council basically organized dances, not at Adams schools. In
coach of Bamba, at the Night School, for example, the
student government tackled all kinds of issues.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Human trafficking is a big problem there, and so they
organized a workshop on human trafficking that had like you know,
theatrical production and breakout groups and stuff. They've gotten First
aid kits for their schools. The schools don't tend to
have them. They've organized educational field trips.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The student council put together soccer tournaments and poetry competitions.
They opened a library.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
School didn't have one, and so they solicited book donations
from institutions and DVDs and they were able to get
a computer donated from the Ministry of Education and they
set it up and they ran it. They also created
their own student ID cards because that school didn't have
ID cards and didn't have uniforms, and since they went
(13:56):
to school at seven pm, the transportation workers didn't believe
that there were students since they charged them double. So
that was the first thing that they worked on that
was like already number one for all the students was
we want student ID cards, and so they made their
own and distributed those to Adam.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
The crucial thing about that long list of accomplishments was
the range of things the students were interested in.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
What do you mean by that? That's a more diverse group.
They come from different social circles versus typically, at least
in Bolivia. You know, it'll be like a group of
friends who runs for election, right, and so have similar
perspective on the school and what the school might need
and or what they're going to offer to win people's votes,
(14:41):
which is typically more the case. And so a group
that's brought the book together through lottery. None of the
students in the student government know each other prior to
that first meeting, and they often have very divergent interests.
You know, you'll have you know, jocks and artists and
you know, like just kind of the whole gamut.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
The whole gamut. Democracies are supposed to be the best
system for ensuring that a whole gamut of interests are
represented in government. Kronk Right's second law says that's not true,
not if the government is drawn from the same narrow
band of society year after year. It's the lottery that
gives you a truly representative sample of leaders. After the
(15:22):
success of a few experiments, Adam helps set up a
nonprofit called Democracy in Practice to work with student governments
in Bolivia.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I can't tell you the number of times that, you know,
fresh off of a lottery selection, we have the first
couple orientation meetings and my co founder, Raoul and I
will come out and we'll be walking together and will
be saying, oh, you know, so and so they're going
to be a really important part of this team. You know.
(15:52):
They present themselves well, they speak well, they're confident, and
they don't even finish the term of office.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
This brings us to kronk Right's third law, maybe the
most important of all. Nobody knows anything.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The number of times that we've walked out of those
meetings and been worried about a particular student who seemed
really unplugged, you know, just kind of close body language, uncomfortable,
didn't participate much, and and we say, we've got to
work cut out with that student. And it, you know,
they within a couple of weeks they figure out what's
expected of them, how they can plug in, and by
(16:31):
the end of the term they're even voted by their peers.
It's like one of the most important members of the team.
And so that's an experience we've had over and over
again and still kind of get fooled by that. Now,
the charisma that that that certain students will have and
the confidence that they'll have.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So the prediction, the mechanism we're using for predicting who
will be a good leader, it's just flawed. So you're saying, yeah, yeah,
even you, even you sometimes fall into this trap of
of thinking that because a kid presents herself well and
it's both spoken and charismatic, that she's going to be
(17:12):
a good leader.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah. Yeah, it's really difficult to counter that bias, right,
And obviously not every student who's confident charismatic, you know,
has has a big ego and can't work well with
others and doesn't show up, you know, we've had. We've
had several students who fit that mold, and we're great teammates.
But generally it's a lot easier to teach a Shire
(17:39):
student or student who's not super popular. It's a lot
easier to teach them to overcome those fears and kind
of add a few more leadership skills to their skill set.
Then it is to to teach some of the more confident,
charismatic students to kind of set aside their ego and
like be a good member of a team and not
(18:00):
try to steal the limelight and listen to others and
not dominate conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Democratic elections are based on the idea that voters are
good predictors, that they can look at a slate of
candidates and accurately predict who will be the most effective leader.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
That's why we.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Have campaigns and speeches and debates to help us make
that prediction. But in Bolivia, Adam and his team discovered
that people are lousy predictors.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The teachers who often aren't in the meetings are just
constantly fooled by, you know, when they come up and say, oh,
you know that student, what a great leader you know,
and they're not even aware that the rest of the
student government's about to kick them out. You know, they've
had enough of some of their behavior. And it's one
student who got picked in the lottery. And during the
(18:47):
lottery I had a teacher turned to me under his
breath say, you know that students a dud. You're not
going to work out, you know. I found out afterwards
he was the one student from his class of thirty
five students who had failed the previous year, and he
was one of the one of the more kind of
outstanding examples that we've had. He just you really loved
(19:10):
to work on meaningful projects and be a part of
a team.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Now I know what you're thinking. It's Bolivia. What works
for teenagers and coach of Bamba doesn't necessarily work for
the rest of us Apples and oranges and all that.
Except after being schooled by Adam, I began to see
versions of his logic everywhere.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Hello, this is Michael Loward.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Nih delighted that you found time to chat with me.
I just ran across your papers on peer review and
citations and found them absolutely fascinating and they fit very
much in a theme I'm exploring in my podcast. This season,
so I wanted to chat. Michael Lawer is Deputy Director
(19:58):
of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
If I had to make a list of the most
important Americans you've never heard of, Flower's in the top ten.
He's way way up in what you might call, and
I mean this in the nicest possible way, the biomedical
deep state. His office hands out around thirty billion dollars
(20:19):
a year in research grants to scientists across the United States. Basically,
if you walk through any biology or chemistry department, or
any medical school or any medical research institute, Lawer's office
is what's paying for it. So every year, his office
gets eighty thousand grant applications from around the country. They
(20:40):
only have money to find about twenty percent of those,
so they hold the equivalent of an election. Each of
those applications gets assigned to a small group of reviewers.
The reviewers vote for the ones they like and throw
out the rest. Then those finalists are turned over to
a second group of voters.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
The reviewers who are assigned to grant will give a
brief presentation about the grant itself and what they thought
were the strengths and weaknesses. This is then followed by
an open discussion. After the discussion is complete, there is
then a scoring.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So first round is you're throwing out the bottom the
bottom half.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Second round is you're scoring the remainder. And how what
is the the scores on a scale of what to water?
How is the score represented?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
This is like golf, So a lower score is better.
A score of ten would be perfect. That means that
as far as the reviewers are concerned, they can't think
of anything better. A score of ninety would represent the
absolute worst.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Those scores are predictions about how good a scientist's proposal is,
in exactly the same way that the choices voters make
are predictions about how good a leader a candidate will be.
Kronkrite's third law says that voters aren't very good.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
At that prediction.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So Lower wonders, what about the NIH's grant reviewers? Are
we any good at it? Does the proposal that got
a perfect ten from the voters grant approval time actually
end up being the most influential or innovative research. Once
it's finished, lawer looks around. He can't find any definitive
answer to that question. This peer review process that you've
(22:22):
just described has been in place at NIH.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
For how long seventy five years?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Twenty five years. So we had this situation where we
have a process in place for many, many years, seventy
five years, which is from an empirical perspective, unexamined.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Well, that's right, so.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Lauer says, let's take a look. His method is simple.
The standard way that science measures the value of a
bit of research is how often it's cited by other
scientists in their work. So if I spend five years
working on an experiment and no one mentions that experiment again,
it would be considered a failure. And if it's mentioned
(23:04):
a thousand times, it's considered a home run. So what
is there between the score of your grant application and
the number of citations your work gets once it's finished.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I think you know where this is going.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
We did not find a strong correlation between the peer
review score and the citation metrics of the subsequently funded grant.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Now it's worth pointing something out. Flower doesn't go into
this thinking that the NAH is going to be subject
to Chronkrit's third law. Nobody knows anything after all, lower's
not talking about adolescents judging other adolescents. He's talking about
distinguished scientists judging the potential of other distinguished scientists.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
We had assumed that we would find a reasonably strong
correlation between the peer review score and the grant productivity.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Really, I had assumed that you went in skeptical No.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
But then again, exactly as I said, if we knew
what we were doing, we wouldn't call it research.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Kronk Wrt's third law applies outside of coach of Bamba.
It applies even at the National Institutes of Health, to
the process by which billions of dollars of research money
is distributed. It's not kronk Wrt's third law. It's kronk
Right's universal third law. When Lauer publishes his research, lots
(24:42):
of other scientists look at his results and say, if
he's right, our electoral system in science is broken. I mean,
why bother voting on grants at all. People throughout the
scientific community start talking like Adam, start saying, let's just
do a lottery. Let the reviewers make the first cut
(25:02):
and get rid of the obvious losers, then put the
rest in a hat. My favorite article ran in the
wallst Journal by two microbiologists, Ferrik Fang and Arturo cost
of All entitled taking the Powerball Approach to funding medical
research Powerball for goodness Sake with the subtitle winning a
(25:23):
government grant is already a crapshoot, Making it official by
running a lottery would be an improvement.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
There's a famous line from Nil's board, and also attributed
to Yogi Berra, that prediction is very hard, especially about
the future. By its very nature, science is unpredictable. And
essentially what we are asking scientists to do is to
make predictions about something which is itself inherently unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Well so is leadership. Leadership is even more unpredictable than
scientific merit, So why do we insist on making predictions
about something which is inherently unpredictable? Along these lines, I
did something fun two days ago. I went to a
to the Lawrenceville School, I got fancy boarding school in
(26:14):
New Jersey, and I spoke to a group of kids,
seniors and juniors, a random group of kids, but including
the student council and student uncil president, and I told
them about your work. I describe it to them, and
I said, you know at Lawrenceville, you have a very
similar situation. This is a pre selected group of highly
(26:37):
able people which you use essentially a peer review process
to decide who was eligible for the student council. Right,
they have a vote, yep. And I said, well, given
the fact that doctor Lower's work suggests that we're bad
at making those kinds of predictions at the very top,
would you consider change in the way you elect your
(26:57):
student council and student council president?
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Laughs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
No. On the contrary, as you'll discover, the students at
the Lawrenceville School did not laugh at this idea. Yeah,
at all thoughts comments, this is something you'd ever think
(27:20):
of trying here? Do you think Bolivia is different than
New Jersey? The students at the Lawrenceville School take the
argument I brought them very seriously. They have lots of questions.
The democratic process at Lawrenceville is steeped in tradition. They're
a little leery of leaving the process up to chance,
especially for the top student body president.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
You don't want to have to go to a first
school meeting and have a president who's a little bit shaky,
because the first time you go to school meeting, you're
expecting the freshmen to be excited about the school year ahead,
and the seniors everyone in between to be excited about
the school yearhead. You don't want to have to learn
with them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
The students are crammed into a small conference room. Some
sit at a long table, others stand along the walls.
The headmaster and one of the schools steens stand by
the door. A microphone is passed to whomever wants to speak.
This is a student named solet you want.
Speaker 6 (28:16):
To have someone initially who is a figurehead who can
immediately be put into a stressful situation of talking to
the entire school and basically the entire faculty perform at
the high level.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
One of the president's most important functions at Lawrenceville is
the school meeting that happens in the auditorium every Thursday morning.
Forty five minutes all the students show up. It's a
central part of the school culture.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
Hi Am Quinn, I think that a good public speaker
is someone who is willing to be vulnerable with the audience,
which is also why I think that being a good
public speaker and being a sociable, energetic person is really
important in being a good leader, because when you're vulnerable
on stage like Tay last year wrapped on stage, which
(29:04):
was awesome and got us really excited.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Hey, Lawrenceville's current student body. He's standing at the back
of the room. Later, when we chat, I learned he's
half Nigerian half Kenyon, grew up in London. I've noticed
that we have not heard from the current president student Council.
Hold on k for the Tay is the only one
(29:28):
in the room wearing a suit. A little bit of
his English formality.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Tell me why you think you were elected?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
What I think?
Speaker 8 (29:35):
I think a large part of why I was elected
is the fact that I am someone who has made
sure that I am very president on campus. I speak
to as many people as possible. I think I'm known
for generally being someone who does speak to people and
looks to make change and help people.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Did you really wrap in your speech?
Speaker 8 (29:51):
Yes, so my my closing speech. The person I was
running against, he was a phenomenal speaker. He partakes in theaters,
so he was, if not as good, he was definitely
he's actually I would actually say he's a better public
speaker than I was. So I knew that I had.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
All the great public speakers. By the way, do that exactly.
They claim that others are better public speech.
Speaker 8 (30:10):
Oh oh no, But genuinely, he is someone who who
speaks on stage law. He is a theater kid, so
he is he's greater at public speaking. So I knew
that he was going to come in essence, all guns
blazing and produce a phenomenal speech. So I knew that
there was some way in which I had to show
that I am a quote unquote fun guy and someone
that the student body could relate to. So I decided
(30:32):
to go out with a wrap.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
In my closing statement, I.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Have to say I really liked Day. He's incredibly thoughtful
and charismatic. My first thought after talking to him was
would I have voted for him? I think I would have.
But then I thought, aren't I making the same mistake
that Adam kronk Write warned about. Am I unfairly ruling
out other students who might be just as capable of
(30:56):
being a great student body president. Back when I met
with Adam kronk Wright, he talked about this one student
at one of his schools in coach Obamba.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
What happened to him?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I really should have played this tape for the Laurens
Hill students.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
He just he started off. He looked bored, he looked uncomfortable,
you know, just like slouched in his chair, didn't know
if he was listening and stuff. The moment that they
started to do some of that work, he just would
wake up in the meetings basically and start bottom lining things.
(31:31):
He said, Oh, I can go, you know, I can
go take the letter down to the Mayor's office. I
can go do this, I can go do that, and
he'd do it. He'd file through, you know, and that
sometimes is in short supply when you're working with teenagers,
you know. And he really liked to do those types
of things and he'd file through. And so then people
started to count on him, and they realized they could
(31:51):
count on him, and he took on a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Adam CRONKWRD also told me about another student named Richard
Knew in school, completely introverted, who then blossomed and turned
out to be one of the most effective student council members.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I remember walking with him after one of the first
meetings and I told them, you know, this is your opportunity.
Everyone else in the group is looking to you as
a leader and he stopped dead in his tracks. You know,
he looks at me all confused, and he says, I'm
not a leader. I'm not always out front and don't
menando like dominating the conversation, you know. And I told them, like,
(32:30):
that's not our conception of leadership.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
A leader is someone who develops leadership and other people
right and works well on the team.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And I think this is the key, the larger lesson
behind Cronkrite's three laws. It isn't just that we're bad
at making predictions. It's worse than that. It's that our
whole system of prediction is screwed up because we require
that our candidates perform for us. Will never get the
richards of the world or the student who everyone thought
(33:01):
would be a dud. Neither of them could win an election,
could they. They'd slouch in their chairs and look bored
and uncomfortable. They get blown off the stage, even though
both those kids could end up being great leaders in
their own right. In that room at Lawrenceville, they were
Indian and Korean, and Chinese and African and African American
(33:22):
and white American kids. They were from all over. Some
were funny, some were serious. Some sounded like they were
forty five years old, some seemed very young. They were
as varied and idiosyncratic as any group of teenagers anywhere
would be. So why when it came to their leader
did they cling to a system that ensured that only
(33:42):
one type the performer could win. Now, even if you
accept those arguments, there's still the problem that a lottery
doesn't feel right. If you win an NAH grant under
the old system, you get to walk around and say
my grant was selected over thousands of others.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It feels earned.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
If you win an election, you get to say that
people chose me, and that people get to say I
chose her.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
My name's Frankie. And I think another aspect of the
sort of arbitrarily picked lottery like it's effect. I think
it's worth thinking about its effect on like the students
themselves and their kind of response in terms of their
lack of control or say over who is decided to
(34:37):
be the leader.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
But here's what I think Adam Krunkwright would have said
to Frankie. You can't just pay attention to the legitimacy
of the end result. You have to pay attention to
the legitimacy of the process. I suppose we did this
in you know, we chosen a big set of people
and then chosen our president by lottery. What percent of
American presidents would have been female?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Fifty?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So wait, you guys twice I've heard this argument that
by in depends on elections, but when it comes to presidents,
it seems to be the opposite. Is true that if
we had a lottery a, a whole lot of people
right now who feel disenfranchised would feel enfranchised. It was
(35:24):
at that point that a sophomore ninged Summer, suggested a
hybrid plan, kind of like the Lawrenceville version of the
idea that has been floated for the NIH. Have voters
make a first cut, then pick the final winners by
lottery who has.
Speaker 9 (35:38):
That potential to learn and to grow and is open
to other viewpoints, whereas someone who's already stuck in their ways.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Summer laid out her idea, then stopped, looked around the room. Wait, Summer,
don't give up. This is this is I love this,
keep going, so walk me through. I'm going to make
you dean of students for the day. By the way,
the fact that Summer stopped like that while exploring her idea.
That's exactly the point of Adam kronk Write's lottery work
(36:07):
with students in Bolivia, because the electoral system does not
reward the candidate who, midway through explaining her idea during
a debate pauses to gather feedback and take the temperature
of the room and reflect on whether what she's saying
is actually what she wants to say. No, the system
rewards the candidate who blunders ahead, convinced of their own brilliance.
(36:29):
I want more candidates like Summer keep going. So describe
to me how this works. I like this idea a lot.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
So I think the preliminary part, like I said, would
be an anonymous procedure, where people could prepare a piece,
any piece they wanted, whether it be a project, an
essay of video. And then from there I was either
thinking that there could be a lottery system from there,
because at that point you know that people chosen are
(36:57):
ones you're equally interested in representing the community.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Right, So Summer, we're gonna call us the Summer proposal.
So what you're saying is suppose all the students look
at these fifty projects, and then you're saying that they
would vote on the ones they liked the best. Yes,
and then from that pool you would do potentially a lottery. Yes.
Speaker 8 (37:22):
Yes, love this idea.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Now that they had thought about their electoral system and
talked about the alternatives, how happy were they with the
status quo?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I wanted to vote?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I want to show up hands. Scale of one to ten.
Ten meant happy, one meant disillusion.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
What should it be?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Hold? What should it be? Because I'm gonna let you know,
and I'm going to hold you to this. And I
got them to agree that six should be the threshold.
Anything less than six, anything less than that, and they
should consider calling their own constitutional convention and rewriting the rules.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Raise your hands, way up, way up, way up, way up.
It carries a day, cooks right. I'll let you know.
Thank you all very much.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I went home and counted their average happiness score with
the electoral status quo five point three. A tried and
tested democratic process honed over generations at one of America's
most prestigious private schools. And when you ask the students,
even for a moment to think about how well it works,
(38:30):
they say, we're not so sure. Oh, I forgot to
mention one thing, kind of a big thing. Wait, so
do you think colleges should Where I really wanted to
push this discussion was maybe colleges should choose their students
by lottery.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I think there's a lot to be said for that.
It you liked that idea, Machia, I.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Think I do. I'm not prepared to give you a
full answer on it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You guys write down age.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
They were mostly juniors and seniors either on the cusp
of the endless college application process or in the middle
of it. And selection is the student body president problem
times ten. Right, the student runs for a highly coveted position,
the university makes its prediction. But if NAA T viewers
can't predict the best scientists based on grant proposals, and
(39:23):
if voters pass over perfectly good candidates because they slouch
in the corner, how on earth can universities pick the
best students based on college applications. There are much much
bigger fish to fry here.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I like the idea a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Another revolutionary I was suddenly so giddy with excitement that
I didn't catch his name. Lanky kid, big head of
curly hair. Do you think that the reason you and
I think alike. So much is that our hair is similar?
I think?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Sorry exactly, I called.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
For another vote on support for college admission lotteries. Show
of hands, Oh most of you? Well, half the revolutionaries
are not at the gates Lawrenceville.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
They're inside the gates.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Next stop for Adam Kronkwright, New Jersey. Revicious History is
produced by Mia LaBelle and Lee Mingestu, with Jacob Smith,
(40:33):
Eloise Linton, and Anna Naime. Our editor is Julia Barton.
Original scoring by Louis Scara, mastering by Flawn Williams. Fact
checking by Beth Johnson. A special thanks to the Pushkin Crew,
Hede Fane, Carly Migliori, Maya Knig, Maggie Taylor, Jason Gambrell,
(40:54):
and of course LFA Jacob Weisberg. Oh and big thanks
to the staff and students of the Lawrenceville School for
a really fun afternoon. I'm Malcolm Goma. It would have
been so much clever if I had had them to
(41:16):
have a lottery to decide on whether to have a lottery.
That would have been so meta and great. But I
missed that opportunity.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
One day, not long ago, I went to visit the
Lawrenceville School just outside Princeton, New Jersey, a very old,
prestigious private school, leafy campus, Gothic this and that. I
asked one of their deans could I come and meet
with some students? She said yes, Does everyone have a
(00:41):
piece of paper and pen? The dean put together a
group of twenty kids. We met in a conference room
looking out on the campus lawn. On a scale of
one at ten, don't put your name on it. I
would like you to rank your happiness with the Lawrenceville
School's current electoral process.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ten is you think it's perfect?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
One is you think it's maybe time to bring in
Adam Adam Adam Cronkwright. He was the reason I was there. Okay,
hi everyone, thanks for coming. My name is Malcolm Babo,
so you as you know, I am a writer and
I have a podcast called Revision's History. That's how the
(01:29):
afternoon began. I said, I wanted to run an idea
by them, an idea field tested by this person. I
just met Adam kronkright about talent and chance and how
we choose others to lead us. And I would encourage
you all to be. If you think I'm crazy, you
should say, Malcolm, you're crazy. Maybe this idea could change
(01:52):
a lot about what's wrong with the world right now,
or maybe not. Revisionist history is about the overlooked and misunderstood.
Usually I decide what belongs in either of those categories.
This time, I thought I'd just run Adam's idea by
the students of Lawrenceville and that them decide. All this
(02:14):
had to do with the way they elected their student council.
I thought they should call a constitutional convention and start over.
There is no right answer or wrong answer, but I
want to make a case for something and see how
that possibly relates to the way you guys do things
here at Lawrenceville. They listened to Adam's idea argued about
(02:36):
it for close to two hours. I'll be honest, I
didn't think I'd get anywhere. The whole student council was
there as well, all people who had profited from the
Lawrenceville electoral status quo. And what was wrong with the
status quo in theory, not much. Lawrenceville elected its leaders
through the perfect democratic system, campaign speeches, open elections. Their
(02:58):
constitution might as well have been drawn up by the
founding Fathers. For all I know, one of the Founding
fathers went to Lawrenceville. But then at the end of
the day afternoon, I said, okay, now that I've given
you an alternative, how happy are you with what you have?
Scale of one to ten. One is totally miserable with
(03:20):
the status quo, and ten is delighted. Everything's perfect.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I want to see your number, rip it off and
hand it to me. Open to day.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
As the students handed in their little slips of paper,
I glanced at a few. I was taken aback. Lawrenceville
had the perfect democratic system, and upon reflection, upon exposure
to a little of Adam kronk Write's subversion, there were
a lot of students in that room who decided they
didn't like it anymore. I told them I'd do an
official tally later after I got home. But there's some
(04:02):
unhappiness in this room, and if they seem discontented with
democracy in the gilded corridors of the Lawrenceville School, I
can only imagine what it's like elsewhere. I first ran
across Adam Kronkwrte online. I was just rummaging around Google
(04:25):
one day, and what he was doing. Struck me is
so interesting that I tracked him down cold called him.
Are you ever in New York City? This was November.
He said yes, he'd be there in February. So he
settled on a date and he came to my apartment.
Young guy, beard, big backpack, hiking boots. So tell me, actually,
(04:47):
before we get into the question, where are you from.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I'm from just outside of Syracuse, New York. Yeah, so
central New York.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
How did you end up in Bolivia?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Coach of Bamba to be more precise, a mid size
city in the mountains of central Bolivia. It turned out
to be a long story that starts in Canada, across Lake,
Ontario from his home town.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I remember where I was when I thought of the idea,
Like you know, where were you I was. I was
outside Victoria Hall, walking on on Queen's campus and it
was spring.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It was two thousand and nine. Adam was finishing college
at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He wanted to be
a politician. He had, as he puts it, a pretty
big hero complex.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He was save the world and coming to terms with
this idea that, like you know, be difficult to get
to the heights of power without haveting to make some
serious compromises externally internally, and you know, so then I
was kind of like, Okay, well what am I going
to do? What are we going to do?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He began to read history, political science, turned it over
in his mind, looking for a big idea.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
This is going to you know, right, all the wrongs.
But I wasn't that involved in anything.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
He was more of a dreamer than a doer. Adam graduated.
The world was in a financial crisis. Occupy Wall Street
was one of the protest movements that grew up in response.
There was a tense city of activists in Szubcatti Park
in Lower Manhattan. Adam decided to go down to New
(06:27):
York and join them. There were working panels and panel discussions,
and one speaker in particular stuck with him, an activist
from Bolivia who talked about an epic struggle there over water.
Adam lived in Subcatti Park for five weeks until everyone
was evicted by the NYPD. His experience with Occupy left
(06:48):
him frustrated. He understood what they were fighting for, but
not how. There was no how in Occupy. They didn't
have a plan that seemed like it could actually reform
the systems that had failed during the financial crisis. Adam
moved to Brooklyn, slept on someone's couch, and all the
while kept skyping with his new friend Bolivia, the water
(07:10):
activist Marcella Olivella.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I kind of shared with her that I was feeling
a bit burnt out, disillusion from what I was seeing,
and she said, well, yeah, I come down to Bolivia
and check out social moments there.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So he did Syracuse to Kingston, to Zuccotti Park to Bolivia.
He made his way to coach A Bomba and there
he met Marcella's brother, Oscar, who runs a foundation.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So I was working with them for a while, and
then Oscar one day he was in the car and
he's asking me, what are you into, you know? And
so I started telling him about democratic lotteries and he
had never heard of the.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Concept democratic lotteries. That's Adam's idea, replace elections with lotteries.
Adam tells Oscar about it. Oscar says, we could test
it in the schools. They sign up a rural elementary
(08:10):
school and two high schools, a night school and a
regular high school, and Adam sells them on this new
way of picking the student council. Anyone who wanted to
be in the lottery put their name forward, and then
the whole school gathered in the gym to hear the results.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
We wanted something that was very visual that could generate buzz,
and so they had some clay pots and we used
faba beans as a crop that they grow there. They're
kind of the biggest beans you can find, and so
we had two colors, green and purple. The students would
put fava beans in the pot and they'd cover it
with an aguayoun, a traditional cloth, so that it's from
(08:53):
there and it was also visually beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
If there were two hundred students running for eight student
council positions, they would put one hundred and ninety two
green fava beans in the pot and eight purple ones.
Then all the candidates would line up. The kid reaches
in reaches under the cloth. Yeah, grabs a bean.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Do they hold it up?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
If it's purple, they hold it up. If it's purple
or green, they hold They're supposed to hold it up
so the school can see.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
No campaigning, no speeches or posters, no glad handing, no
ballots no recounts. The whole selection was over in twenty minutes.
Those who picked out the purple fava beans were on
student council. Done. Now, I know that sounds like a
crazy idea. You would never go for that, would you?
(09:51):
Or would you? Adam KRONKWRIGHTE learned three important things from
his work on school lottery in Bolivia. I'm going to
call them kronk Right's laws. None of them I think
(10:14):
are obvious beforehand, at least they were not obvious to him. First, numbers,
as in number of candidates, typically what percentage of the
kids want to be part of the lottery.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
It varies by the school. Yeah, it varies by the school.
And so at the night high school, you know, these
kids often work even on Saturdays, like they got a
full schedule, So we would usually get between twenty and
thirty students who are volunteering for like twelve spots. Right,
So it wasn't a huge, huge turnout. And then at
(10:49):
the like rural K through eight school, it was literally
like every student that could participate participated in every lottery.
And then you know, at another school we worked out
later on. It was an urban high school, but in
the morning you know there you had at least half
of the school.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
After the student council members finished their time in office.
Adam always asks a simple question, would you have run
if we had done things the old way with campaigns
and speeches.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's about three quarters who say no right away?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Why do they say no?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, let's say that nobody would have voted for me.
I was new in the school, didn't have a lot
of friends. You know, I would not want to run
a campaign, you know, and ask people to vote for me.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's the things that you can kind of guess are impediments.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
They liked serving in office. They just didn't want to
run for office. The demands of the campaign were filtering
out all kinds of people who would otherwise have been
very interested in student council politics. Overwhelmingly those who win
the lottery one year in fact run again the next.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So yeah, they tend to line back up. But when
we ask them, you know, it'd be normal elections, would
you have done it? The majority of saying now.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What's interesting is the extent to which running for an
office and running an office are two very very different things,
and someone may be both capable and interested in running
an office, but have no interest in running for That's
(12:33):
the first law. In a democracy. Elections are supposed to
encourage participation, but they don't. They discourage it. Lotteries encourage participation. Okay,
crank write's second law. When you choose your student government
by lottery, you see a change in the kinds of
(12:55):
things the government actually does. In my high school, the
student council basically organized dances, not at Adams schools. In
coach of Bamba, at the Night School, for example, the
student government tackled all kinds of issues.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Human trafficking is a big problem there, and so they
organized a workshop on human trafficking that had like you know,
theatrical production and breakout groups and stuff. They've gotten First
aid kits for their schools. The schools don't tend to
have them. They've organized educational field trips.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The student council put together soccer tournaments and poetry competitions.
They opened a library.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
School didn't have one, and so they solicited book donations
from institutions and DVDs and they were able to get
a computer donated from the Ministry of Education and they
set it up and they ran it. They also created
their own student ID cards because that school didn't have
ID cards and didn't have uniforms, and since they went
(13:56):
to school at seven pm, the transportation workers didn't believe
that there were students since they charged them double. So
that was the first thing that they worked on that
was like already number one for all the students was
we want student ID cards, and so they made their
own and distributed those to Adam.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
The crucial thing about that long list of accomplishments was
the range of things the students were interested in.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
What do you mean by that? That's a more diverse group.
They come from different social circles versus typically, at least
in Bolivia. You know, it'll be like a group of
friends who runs for election, right, and so have similar
perspective on the school and what the school might need
and or what they're going to offer to win people's votes,
(14:41):
which is typically more the case. And so a group
that's brought the book together through lottery. None of the
students in the student government know each other prior to
that first meeting, and they often have very divergent interests.
You know, you'll have you know, jocks and artists and
you know, like just kind of the whole gamut.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
The whole gamut. Democracies are supposed to be the best
system for ensuring that a whole gamut of interests are
represented in government. Kronk Right's second law says that's not true,
not if the government is drawn from the same narrow
band of society year after year. It's the lottery that
gives you a truly representative sample of leaders. After the
(15:22):
success of a few experiments, Adam helps set up a
nonprofit called Democracy in Practice to work with student governments
in Bolivia.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I can't tell you the number of times that, you know,
fresh off of a lottery selection, we have the first
couple orientation meetings and my co founder, Raoul and I
will come out and we'll be walking together and will
be saying, oh, you know, so and so they're going
to be a really important part of this team. You know.
(15:52):
They present themselves well, they speak well, they're confident, and
they don't even finish the term of office.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
This brings us to kronk Right's third law, maybe the
most important of all. Nobody knows anything.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The number of times that we've walked out of those
meetings and been worried about a particular student who seemed
really unplugged, you know, just kind of close body language, uncomfortable,
didn't participate much, and and we say, we've got to
work cut out with that student. And it, you know,
they within a couple of weeks they figure out what's
expected of them, how they can plug in, and by
(16:31):
the end of the term they're even voted by their peers.
It's like one of the most important members of the team.
And so that's an experience we've had over and over
again and still kind of get fooled by that. Now,
the charisma that that that certain students will have and
the confidence that they'll have.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So the prediction, the mechanism we're using for predicting who
will be a good leader, it's just flawed. So you're saying, yeah, yeah,
even you, even you sometimes fall into this trap of
of thinking that because a kid presents herself well and
it's both spoken and charismatic, that she's going to be
(17:12):
a good leader.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah. Yeah, it's really difficult to counter that bias, right,
And obviously not every student who's confident charismatic, you know,
has has a big ego and can't work well with
others and doesn't show up, you know, we've had. We've
had several students who fit that mold, and we're great teammates.
But generally it's a lot easier to teach a Shire
(17:39):
student or student who's not super popular. It's a lot
easier to teach them to overcome those fears and kind
of add a few more leadership skills to their skill set.
Then it is to to teach some of the more confident,
charismatic students to kind of set aside their ego and
like be a good member of a team and not
(18:00):
try to steal the limelight and listen to others and
not dominate conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Democratic elections are based on the idea that voters are
good predictors, that they can look at a slate of
candidates and accurately predict who will be the most effective leader.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
That's why we.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Have campaigns and speeches and debates to help us make
that prediction. But in Bolivia, Adam and his team discovered
that people are lousy predictors.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The teachers who often aren't in the meetings are just
constantly fooled by, you know, when they come up and say, oh,
you know that student, what a great leader you know,
and they're not even aware that the rest of the
student government's about to kick them out. You know, they've
had enough of some of their behavior. And it's one
student who got picked in the lottery. And during the
(18:47):
lottery I had a teacher turned to me under his
breath say, you know that students a dud. You're not
going to work out, you know. I found out afterwards
he was the one student from his class of thirty
five students who had failed the previous year, and he
was one of the one of the more kind of
outstanding examples that we've had. He just you really loved
(19:10):
to work on meaningful projects and be a part of
a team.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Now I know what you're thinking. It's Bolivia. What works
for teenagers and coach of Bamba doesn't necessarily work for
the rest of us Apples and oranges and all that.
Except after being schooled by Adam, I began to see
versions of his logic everywhere.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Hello, this is Michael Loward.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Nih delighted that you found time to chat with me.
I just ran across your papers on peer review and
citations and found them absolutely fascinating and they fit very
much in a theme I'm exploring in my podcast. This season,
so I wanted to chat. Michael Lawer is Deputy Director
(19:58):
of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
If I had to make a list of the most
important Americans you've never heard of, Flower's in the top ten.
He's way way up in what you might call, and
I mean this in the nicest possible way, the biomedical
deep state. His office hands out around thirty billion dollars
(20:19):
a year in research grants to scientists across the United States. Basically,
if you walk through any biology or chemistry department, or
any medical school or any medical research institute, Lawer's office
is what's paying for it. So every year, his office
gets eighty thousand grant applications from around the country. They
(20:40):
only have money to find about twenty percent of those,
so they hold the equivalent of an election. Each of
those applications gets assigned to a small group of reviewers.
The reviewers vote for the ones they like and throw
out the rest. Then those finalists are turned over to
a second group of voters.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
The reviewers who are assigned to grant will give a
brief presentation about the grant itself and what they thought
were the strengths and weaknesses. This is then followed by
an open discussion. After the discussion is complete, there is
then a scoring.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So first round is you're throwing out the bottom the
bottom half.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Second round is you're scoring the remainder. And how what
is the the scores on a scale of what to water?
How is the score represented?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
This is like golf, So a lower score is better.
A score of ten would be perfect. That means that
as far as the reviewers are concerned, they can't think
of anything better. A score of ninety would represent the
absolute worst.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Those scores are predictions about how good a scientist's proposal is,
in exactly the same way that the choices voters make
are predictions about how good a leader a candidate will be.
Kronkrite's third law says that voters aren't very good.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
At that prediction.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So Lower wonders, what about the NIH's grant reviewers? Are
we any good at it? Does the proposal that got
a perfect ten from the voters grant approval time actually
end up being the most influential or innovative research. Once
it's finished, lawer looks around. He can't find any definitive
answer to that question. This peer review process that you've
(22:22):
just described has been in place at NIH.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
For how long seventy five years?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Twenty five years. So we had this situation where we
have a process in place for many, many years, seventy
five years, which is from an empirical perspective, unexamined.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Well, that's right, so.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Lauer says, let's take a look. His method is simple.
The standard way that science measures the value of a
bit of research is how often it's cited by other
scientists in their work. So if I spend five years
working on an experiment and no one mentions that experiment again,
it would be considered a failure. And if it's mentioned
(23:04):
a thousand times, it's considered a home run. So what
is there between the score of your grant application and
the number of citations your work gets once it's finished.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I think you know where this is going.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
We did not find a strong correlation between the peer
review score and the citation metrics of the subsequently funded grant.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Now it's worth pointing something out. Flower doesn't go into
this thinking that the NAH is going to be subject
to Chronkrit's third law. Nobody knows anything after all, lower's
not talking about adolescents judging other adolescents. He's talking about
distinguished scientists judging the potential of other distinguished scientists.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
We had assumed that we would find a reasonably strong
correlation between the peer review score and the grant productivity.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Really, I had assumed that you went in skeptical No.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
But then again, exactly as I said, if we knew
what we were doing, we wouldn't call it research.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Kronk Wrt's third law applies outside of coach of Bamba.
It applies even at the National Institutes of Health, to
the process by which billions of dollars of research money
is distributed. It's not kronk Wrt's third law. It's kronk
Right's universal third law. When Lauer publishes his research, lots
(24:42):
of other scientists look at his results and say, if
he's right, our electoral system in science is broken. I mean,
why bother voting on grants at all. People throughout the
scientific community start talking like Adam, start saying, let's just
do a lottery. Let the reviewers make the first cut
(25:02):
and get rid of the obvious losers, then put the
rest in a hat. My favorite article ran in the
wallst Journal by two microbiologists, Ferrik Fang and Arturo cost
of All entitled taking the Powerball Approach to funding medical
research Powerball for goodness Sake with the subtitle winning a
(25:23):
government grant is already a crapshoot, Making it official by
running a lottery would be an improvement.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
There's a famous line from Nil's board, and also attributed
to Yogi Berra, that prediction is very hard, especially about
the future. By its very nature, science is unpredictable. And
essentially what we are asking scientists to do is to
make predictions about something which is itself inherently unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Well so is leadership. Leadership is even more unpredictable than
scientific merit, So why do we insist on making predictions
about something which is inherently unpredictable? Along these lines, I
did something fun two days ago. I went to a
to the Lawrenceville School, I got fancy boarding school in
(26:14):
New Jersey, and I spoke to a group of kids,
seniors and juniors, a random group of kids, but including
the student council and student uncil president, and I told
them about your work. I describe it to them, and
I said, you know at Lawrenceville, you have a very
similar situation. This is a pre selected group of highly
(26:37):
able people which you use essentially a peer review process
to decide who was eligible for the student council. Right,
they have a vote, yep. And I said, well, given
the fact that doctor Lower's work suggests that we're bad
at making those kinds of predictions at the very top,
would you consider change in the way you elect your
(26:57):
student council and student council president?
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Laughs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
No. On the contrary, as you'll discover, the students at
the Lawrenceville School did not laugh at this idea. Yeah,
at all thoughts comments, this is something you'd ever think
(27:20):
of trying here? Do you think Bolivia is different than
New Jersey? The students at the Lawrenceville School take the
argument I brought them very seriously. They have lots of questions.
The democratic process at Lawrenceville is steeped in tradition. They're
a little leery of leaving the process up to chance,
especially for the top student body president.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
You don't want to have to go to a first
school meeting and have a president who's a little bit shaky,
because the first time you go to school meeting, you're
expecting the freshmen to be excited about the school year ahead,
and the seniors everyone in between to be excited about
the school yearhead. You don't want to have to learn
with them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
The students are crammed into a small conference room. Some
sit at a long table, others stand along the walls.
The headmaster and one of the schools steens stand by
the door. A microphone is passed to whomever wants to speak.
This is a student named solet you want.
Speaker 6 (28:16):
To have someone initially who is a figurehead who can
immediately be put into a stressful situation of talking to
the entire school and basically the entire faculty perform at
the high level.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
One of the president's most important functions at Lawrenceville is
the school meeting that happens in the auditorium every Thursday morning.
Forty five minutes all the students show up. It's a
central part of the school culture.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
Hi Am Quinn, I think that a good public speaker
is someone who is willing to be vulnerable with the audience,
which is also why I think that being a good
public speaker and being a sociable, energetic person is really
important in being a good leader, because when you're vulnerable
on stage like Tay last year wrapped on stage, which
(29:04):
was awesome and got us really excited.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Hey, Lawrenceville's current student body. He's standing at the back
of the room. Later, when we chat, I learned he's
half Nigerian half Kenyon, grew up in London. I've noticed
that we have not heard from the current president student Council.
Hold on k for the Tay is the only one
(29:28):
in the room wearing a suit. A little bit of
his English formality.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Tell me why you think you were elected?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
What I think?
Speaker 8 (29:35):
I think a large part of why I was elected
is the fact that I am someone who has made
sure that I am very president on campus. I speak
to as many people as possible. I think I'm known
for generally being someone who does speak to people and
looks to make change and help people.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Did you really wrap in your speech?
Speaker 8 (29:51):
Yes, so my my closing speech. The person I was
running against, he was a phenomenal speaker. He partakes in theaters,
so he was, if not as good, he was definitely
he's actually I would actually say he's a better public
speaker than I was. So I knew that I had.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
All the great public speakers. By the way, do that exactly.
They claim that others are better public speech.
Speaker 8 (30:10):
Oh oh no, But genuinely, he is someone who who
speaks on stage law. He is a theater kid, so
he is he's greater at public speaking. So I knew
that he was going to come in essence, all guns
blazing and produce a phenomenal speech. So I knew that
there was some way in which I had to show
that I am a quote unquote fun guy and someone
that the student body could relate to. So I decided
(30:32):
to go out with a wrap.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
In my closing statement, I.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Have to say I really liked Day. He's incredibly thoughtful
and charismatic. My first thought after talking to him was
would I have voted for him? I think I would have.
But then I thought, aren't I making the same mistake
that Adam kronk Write warned about. Am I unfairly ruling
out other students who might be just as capable of
(30:56):
being a great student body president. Back when I met
with Adam kronk Wright, he talked about this one student
at one of his schools in coach Obamba.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
What happened to him?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I really should have played this tape for the Laurens
Hill students.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
He just he started off. He looked bored, he looked uncomfortable,
you know, just like slouched in his chair, didn't know
if he was listening and stuff. The moment that they
started to do some of that work, he just would
wake up in the meetings basically and start bottom lining things.
(31:31):
He said, Oh, I can go, you know, I can
go take the letter down to the Mayor's office. I
can go do this, I can go do that, and
he'd do it. He'd file through, you know, and that
sometimes is in short supply when you're working with teenagers,
you know. And he really liked to do those types
of things and he'd file through. And so then people
started to count on him, and they realized they could
(31:51):
count on him, and he took on a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Adam CRONKWRD also told me about another student named Richard
Knew in school, completely introverted, who then blossomed and turned
out to be one of the most effective student council members.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I remember walking with him after one of the first
meetings and I told them, you know, this is your opportunity.
Everyone else in the group is looking to you as
a leader and he stopped dead in his tracks. You know,
he looks at me all confused, and he says, I'm
not a leader. I'm not always out front and don't
menando like dominating the conversation, you know. And I told them, like,
(32:30):
that's not our conception of leadership.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
A leader is someone who develops leadership and other people
right and works well on the team.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And I think this is the key, the larger lesson
behind Cronkrite's three laws. It isn't just that we're bad
at making predictions. It's worse than that. It's that our
whole system of prediction is screwed up because we require
that our candidates perform for us. Will never get the
richards of the world or the student who everyone thought
(33:01):
would be a dud. Neither of them could win an election,
could they. They'd slouch in their chairs and look bored
and uncomfortable. They get blown off the stage, even though
both those kids could end up being great leaders in
their own right. In that room at Lawrenceville, they were
Indian and Korean, and Chinese and African and African American
(33:22):
and white American kids. They were from all over. Some
were funny, some were serious. Some sounded like they were
forty five years old, some seemed very young. They were
as varied and idiosyncratic as any group of teenagers anywhere
would be. So why when it came to their leader
did they cling to a system that ensured that only
(33:42):
one type the performer could win. Now, even if you
accept those arguments, there's still the problem that a lottery
doesn't feel right. If you win an NAH grant under
the old system, you get to walk around and say
my grant was selected over thousands of others.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It feels earned.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
If you win an election, you get to say that
people chose me, and that people get to say I
chose her.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
My name's Frankie. And I think another aspect of the
sort of arbitrarily picked lottery like it's effect. I think
it's worth thinking about its effect on like the students
themselves and their kind of response in terms of their
lack of control or say over who is decided to
(34:37):
be the leader.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
But here's what I think Adam Krunkwright would have said
to Frankie. You can't just pay attention to the legitimacy
of the end result. You have to pay attention to
the legitimacy of the process. I suppose we did this
in you know, we chosen a big set of people
and then chosen our president by lottery. What percent of
American presidents would have been female?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Fifty?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So wait, you guys twice I've heard this argument that
by in depends on elections, but when it comes to presidents,
it seems to be the opposite. Is true that if
we had a lottery a, a whole lot of people
right now who feel disenfranchised would feel enfranchised. It was
(35:24):
at that point that a sophomore ninged Summer, suggested a
hybrid plan, kind of like the Lawrenceville version of the
idea that has been floated for the NIH. Have voters
make a first cut, then pick the final winners by
lottery who has.
Speaker 9 (35:38):
That potential to learn and to grow and is open
to other viewpoints, whereas someone who's already stuck in their ways.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Summer laid out her idea, then stopped, looked around the room. Wait, Summer,
don't give up. This is this is I love this,
keep going, so walk me through. I'm going to make
you dean of students for the day. By the way,
the fact that Summer stopped like that while exploring her idea.
That's exactly the point of Adam kronk Write's lottery work
(36:07):
with students in Bolivia, because the electoral system does not
reward the candidate who, midway through explaining her idea during
a debate pauses to gather feedback and take the temperature
of the room and reflect on whether what she's saying
is actually what she wants to say. No, the system
rewards the candidate who blunders ahead, convinced of their own brilliance.
(36:29):
I want more candidates like Summer keep going. So describe
to me how this works. I like this idea a lot.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
So I think the preliminary part, like I said, would
be an anonymous procedure, where people could prepare a piece,
any piece they wanted, whether it be a project, an
essay of video. And then from there I was either
thinking that there could be a lottery system from there,
because at that point you know that people chosen are
(36:57):
ones you're equally interested in representing the community.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Right, So Summer, we're gonna call us the Summer proposal.
So what you're saying is suppose all the students look
at these fifty projects, and then you're saying that they
would vote on the ones they liked the best. Yes,
and then from that pool you would do potentially a lottery. Yes.
Speaker 8 (37:22):
Yes, love this idea.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Now that they had thought about their electoral system and
talked about the alternatives, how happy were they with the
status quo?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I wanted to vote?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I want to show up hands. Scale of one to ten.
Ten meant happy, one meant disillusion.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
What should it be?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Hold? What should it be? Because I'm gonna let you know,
and I'm going to hold you to this. And I
got them to agree that six should be the threshold.
Anything less than six, anything less than that, and they
should consider calling their own constitutional convention and rewriting the rules.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Raise your hands, way up, way up, way up, way up.
It carries a day, cooks right. I'll let you know.
Thank you all very much.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I went home and counted their average happiness score with
the electoral status quo five point three. A tried and
tested democratic process honed over generations at one of America's
most prestigious private schools. And when you ask the students,
even for a moment to think about how well it works,
(38:30):
they say, we're not so sure. Oh, I forgot to
mention one thing, kind of a big thing. Wait, so
do you think colleges should Where I really wanted to
push this discussion was maybe colleges should choose their students
by lottery.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I think there's a lot to be said for that.
It you liked that idea, Machia, I.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Think I do. I'm not prepared to give you a
full answer on it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You guys write down age.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
They were mostly juniors and seniors either on the cusp
of the endless college application process or in the middle
of it. And selection is the student body president problem
times ten. Right, the student runs for a highly coveted position,
the university makes its prediction. But if NAA T viewers
can't predict the best scientists based on grant proposals, and
(39:23):
if voters pass over perfectly good candidates because they slouch
in the corner, how on earth can universities pick the
best students based on college applications. There are much much
bigger fish to fry here.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I like the idea a lot.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Another revolutionary I was suddenly so giddy with excitement that
I didn't catch his name. Lanky kid, big head of
curly hair. Do you think that the reason you and
I think alike. So much is that our hair is similar?
I think?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Sorry exactly, I called.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
For another vote on support for college admission lotteries. Show
of hands, Oh most of you? Well, half the revolutionaries
are not at the gates Lawrenceville.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
They're inside the gates.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Next stop for Adam Kronkwright, New Jersey. Revicious History is
produced by Mia LaBelle and Lee Mingestu, with Jacob Smith,
(40:33):
Eloise Linton, and Anna Naime. Our editor is Julia Barton.
Original scoring by Louis Scara, mastering by Flawn Williams. Fact
checking by Beth Johnson. A special thanks to the Pushkin Crew,
Hede Fane, Carly Migliori, Maya Knig, Maggie Taylor, Jason Gambrell,
(40:54):
and of course LFA Jacob Weisberg. Oh and big thanks
to the staff and students of the Lawrenceville School for
a really fun afternoon. I'm Malcolm Goma. It would have
been so much clever if I had had them to
(41:16):
have a lottery to decide on whether to have a lottery.
That would have been so meta and great. But I
missed that opportunity.
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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