I know this works very well on even the best and brightest of my academic colleagues. They suffer from confirmation or expectation bias, as do all experimentalists, racists, misogynists and columnists. In our industry, most of us operate according to an honor code with respect to competitors. Imagine if we didn’t. A new flow cytometer is introduced. The leading competitor then runs a series of ads, Tweets and blogs accusing advocates for the new device to be mean to cells, to line them up against their will and to be especially unfair to circulating tumor cells. Their instrument clearly doesn’t work, includes shoddy parts, service is terrible and their application notes are all fabricated while they cheat on their taxes. The integrity of science is based on facts, and facts win the day. We are often guilty of excessive enthusiasm for our own themes, but for the most part, we don’t live by bashing others.  

 

But what defines an American? What is our plan, our mission statement? We either do not know or have forgotten. We’ve always been a heterogeneous mixture—a melting pot—but today our multicultural tendencies have run away from integration toward segregated tribes. Focusing on the values that separate the demographics is a proven way to destroy a society. That was not the intention of recognizing and valuing differences. We are no longer blended, but rather hyphenated.

 

Some say there is no room for politics in science. That’s wrong. Politics is what distinguishes us from raccoons and is what funds science and medicine, like it or not.  Not only is our national debt heading ineluctably toward $20 trillion, our gross national happiness continues to head south, and the slope is steepening. I wonder how the labs are doing in Bhutan.  

 

What have I learned this year that I didn’t know sooner? I learned that junk DNA is no longer junk. I learned that tumors evolve to resist the drugs we throw at them. I learned that noninvasive prenatal genetic testing shows much promise. This was the year of extensive exposure of the human gut microbiome and its role in health and disease, suggesting new avenues for research. Recent FDA approvals of first-in-class therapies are a further cause for celebration—so, too, Big Pharma’s embrace of more open innovation.  

 

Together, they will achieve more. I learned that we have multiple satellites circling Mars and communicating with a cool SUV making chemical and physical measurements while sending us vacation pictures. I learned that others purportedly have evidence for the Higgs boson. I can’t see anything in Facebook but a waste of time. The election aside, science advanced nicely in 2012.  

 

Have a great 2013! I fear the ‘13 is a premonition, at least for weak funding prospects for government grants. Then again, the Mayan doomsday prophesies for my wife’s birthday on Dec. 21 may be an escape for us all. I could buy a fabulous gift on credit—and never have to pay for it. Now I feel better. Catharsis is achieved.

 

Peter T. Kissinger is professor of chemistry at Purdue University, chairman emeritus of BASi and a director of Chembio Diagnostics, Phlebotics and Prosolia.