John,

You see, that's the problem, you think that everyone should be in your own field. Baskin Robbins wouldn't do quite as well as they have if they only had one flavor you know.

Your kind of science is like a world in a vacuum or a clean room. It's like something sucked the life out of it and what you see now is what's left. It's cold, colorless, darn near lifeless and is totally disconnected from the rest of society. It's rare to find a paper on something new because no one seems to get any new ideas. That means the creative thought process is being squelched and we all know the rest of the world thrives on new idea's. There's something odd about that and the borrow, borrow, borrow thing is counterproductive and you know that. The environment is dead, so who could expect anything NEW from a lifeless form? They'd probably do better at work if someone pumped in some nitrous oxide into the building and threw on some hot rock music and then they could do a dance and wake up those brains. I tell you I'm never going to forget that ghoulish looking guy I saw after Tom Jordan's speech. He was one scary looking being. And isn't it common knowledge that women are far more creative than men and what's inside the halls of science? Mostly men.

That's why everything else in the world is moving along, they get new ideas and progress happens. Even in my world they change things so fast that every single week at least two or three companies find some kind of added value for their customers and we have to remember all of the good stuff they've developed. The wheel just never stops turning.

Think for just a moment what has happened to the automobile in the past twenty years? They seem like just a car, but what's under the hood, the chassis, the exterior designs all make a simple car into an aerodynamically designed piece of equipment that goes faster, runs smoother and drives so much better. Who developed those new ideas? People from the aerospace field. Even people who build cars know it takes more than a mechanic to make progress. And how many colors do cars come in?

Your team needs a coffee latte every morning, some new music and 50% more women just for starters. Lacking that, they better get some help from outside or the word obsolete won't be far away.

Petra