STIRLING: In praise of old white guys who focus on getting things right

The UK’s Independent Television News is about to release a documentary about last June's Oceangate Titan tragedy. It is, of course, a compelling human story. Five people died aboard Titan as it descended 12,000 feet to the Titanic wreck. Search and rescue efforts later cost the US and Canada millions of dollars. It is also a modern morality tale however, in which wokeness, with its emphasis on diversity and inclusion rather than merit, stands permanently and irrefutably rebuked. That is, had the owners listened to the right people, those five men might be alive today. But they actually specifically chose to not listen to acknowledged experts and work instead with those who were not yet expert. That it was a white man discriminating against other white men on the basis of age, sex and race adds its own layer of bitterness to the story.But first, the context. Titan was a ‘submersible’ put together by adventurer/entrepreneur Stockton Rush who wanted to make deep sea tourism into a viable thing. Deep-sea diving however, is a dangerous field and only a handful of old engineers, most ex-Navy, are the experts. Significantly for what follows, they are in addition to being old, male and Caucasian.Surprisingly then, given the risks involved, Oceangate’s co-founder Stockton Rush famously said he didn’t want to 'work with old white men over 50 because they were not inspirational enough for young people.'Stockton was not uneducated. He had a degree in aviation engineering. However, aviation is a world away from deep sea challenges. And, with all due respect to his other accomplishments, he was an adventurer, not a subject matter expert.So, having dismissed (in one case literally) the old and the uninspiring experts, he worked with university students. Aside from those he recruited, he also partnered with Memorial University’s Fisheries and Marine Institute in St. John’s Newfoundland. In so doing, he exploited the naivety of eager students who did not have the depth of experience to question his choices, meanwhile making news headlines for being so avant garde, and a revolutionary disruptor who moved fast. Sadly, as events would manifestly demonstrate, he did so with insufficient regard for safety.Indeed, as Laura Trethewey reported for “The Walrus” on Sept. 11, 2023, even some Marine Institute graduates were not pleased with what they saw as a less-than-scientific partner, despite the university celebrating the partnership months earlier.What were the fatal errors?Aaron Amick from SubBrief, has 20 years experience with the US Submarine Force. He is a subject matter expert and he recorded this video on June 20, 2023, when Titan had lost contact with the launch ship and others were still hoping to find survivors, perhaps due to the banging sounds heard. Amick was not among the hopeful.Amick was actually fine with Stockton Rush’s young team’s innovation of using a video game controller to drive Titan. He was not fine with the lack of back-up systems, lack of testing, lack of on-board safety systems, choice of carbon fibre hull, and lack of escape hatch. He was not impressed with Titan’s titanium rings being epoxy glued to the carbon fibre body.Further, Indigenous Knowledge, or so-called “Two-eyed Seeing” — another woke infatuation — also had a role in Titan’s story. Two-eyed Seeing is being promoted as a way to ‘decolonize’ science and as a "distinct, time-tested and methodological knowledge system that can enhance and complement western science."“Two-eyed Seeing,” is also called “Etuaptmumk.” And, it was an approved philosophy on board the ship that towed Titan out to sea, the Horizon tender MV Polar Prince. “Don’t let school get in the way of your education,” advises one on-ship experience for youth. Journalist Sharael Kolberg, who was almost on the fateful Titan voyage, was thrilled about the idea of having an on-board artist.But focussing on these things may take attention from things that matter more. For example, previous forays to Titanic by the Titan had been served by putting the launch pad and Titan on the back of the Anchor Handling Tug Supply vessel Horizon Arctic — which is kind of like an ocean-going flatbed ‘truck.’ But as reported by the New York Times on June 24, 2023, for the last, fatal trip and reportedly to save money, Titan was towed on its launchpad behind the Polar Prince to its launch point.In many of the engineering YouTube video analyses of the catastrophe, there were questions about the security of the nose of Titan where the 7-inch thick, 80-lb., 21.3-inch acrylic viewing portal was positioned. It was reportedly not even certified to that depth. Yet, microcracks in carbon fiber are a huge risk at high pressures at depth. In the Sub Brief video (4:09), we see a clip of the gluing of one of the titanium rings to the carbon fiber body. It takes place in an open industrial bay, not a ‘clean room’ environment where negative air flow and workers in personal protective equipment prevent the risk of hair, dust or other particulate matter damaging the process.Imagine then, a relatively fragile pod made of the notoriously unpredictable light-weight carbon fiber, which can catastrophically shatter under stress, bonded to implacable titanium at each end, with a ‘nose-heavy’ viewport, rocking along on a square-nosed launch pad with no keel, designed solely for launching the submersible, bucking the waves of the Atlantic for 372 miles (600 km)…. to save money, when passengers had been charged a quarter of a million dollars each....Arnie Weissman of Travel Weekly reported on June 22, 2023 of his cancelled May dive, “…this was the first season that the Titan was being towed behind its support ship rather than being kept on its deck. I said I thought the sub and platform were being tossed around pretty roughly on a daily basis.”No one thought about what even a travel journo understood, just by seeing with his own two eyes.The old white men in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are the Knowledge Keepers of the Boomer Generation. Back in the day when these fellows entered their careers, the demographics of the West were more Caucasian than they are now. The working population was largely male. And engineering being one of the most demanding disciplines, many bright young men were drawn to it.These now old, white men, having created a complex, technological society which is filled with mostly fail-safe innovations, are alarmed that the “woke” reject their wisdom as if a barrier to progress. You should share that alarmWe may not all wish to indulge in wreck tourism; all of us depend every day however upon highly sophisticated machines for our travel, medical procedures and much else besides. If precision and accuracy are desirable goals, let it be in the design, operation and the qualifications of those involved, rather than in careful matching of occupations to the country's demographic makeup. Experienced engineers and men in STEM are the giants whose shoulders we must stand on. Or society will fall... implode... like Titan. Over time the demographics will change. Not for decades has engineering excellence been the exclusive preserve of the 'old white men over 50' who Stockton so disdained. But we must never give up the drive for excellence and earned merit upon which the DEI enthusiasts have declared war. We must cherish a dedication to the scientific method of evidence and excellence, over woke ideology.No matter what else ITN presents in its documentary about the Oceangate Titan, we know that decades of wisdom of old, white men was prejudicially rejected for wokeness. And people died.Two old white guys, J. Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green actually wrote a book on it, “The Scientific Method: A Guide to Finding Useful Knowledge.” I recommend it.Michelle Stirling is a writer/researcher whose op-eds have appeared in various Alberta newspapers. She is also the Communications Manager for Friends of Science Society

STIRLING: In praise of old white guys who focus on getting things right

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