Science, Art & Deception of the Mind

In his investigative report with the title "The mark of a masterpiece" published July 12, 2010, in The New Yorker, David Grann informs us about the novel use of methods adopted from forensic science to authenticate works of art. Deception seems intricately interwoven with art. Grann's fascinating story informs us about the scientific method and the power of deceit. It tells us about people who become vulnerable to deception and exploitation on their quest for affirmation of their believe because of pride, ego and money. Establishing the provenance of a masterpiece mainly relies on the subjective expertise to date. However, the desire to discover a new masterpiece by a fabled artist may obfuscate judgment and reason. Definitive objective prove is, therefore, highly sought after.

David Grann portrays the art expert Peter Paul Biro. Biro gained distinction in the world of art for using cutting-edge scientific methods to successfully identify fingerprints of famed masters like Turner, Pollock and Leonardo on hitherto-unknown paintings and drawings. He employs spectral microscopy and computer-supported image analysis to derive his conclusions.

We tend to believe that we are able to establish veracity beyond any doubt with hard data produced by objective machines that do not posses vested interests in the outcome of the examination. However, as David Grann's investigation elegantly reveals, the interpretation of the data may entirely lie in the hands of the investigator. He takes sole responsibility of deciding whether the evidence is sufficient to prove the identity of the fingerprint in question.

Because of our fallibility, more than one expert commonly shoulder such decisions. Peter Paul Biro states that he developed his own imaging equipment, which is one of a kind. No other expert could be asked to verify his findings because they lack the experience with the revolutionary methods he devised. The burden of prove rests with him alone.

This situation puts Biro in a unique position of extraordinary responsibility. The scientific method insists on the reproducibility of findings, preferably by independent examination. Additional verification with different methods may be necessary. Peter Paul Biro is intending to use DNA profiles from hair samples for this purpose. As the only expert in his method, he must know that his career and future depend on his truthfulness. Any scientist's credibility is intimately linked to her/his integrity. Deliberate misrepresentation of evidence is a serious offense, destroying the most highly-respected reputation.

Addenda

• Anyone versed in fluorescence or confocal microscopy could quickly learn how to image fingerprints. You may not even need a microscope. The detective in the video uses a magnifying glass to examine them. A CCD camera with a macrolense on a solid stand will suffice. A a high-quality light source and fiber optics are needed to produce sufficient illumination of the specimen as well as light filters for the wavelengths at which the images need to be captured. For storage and processing we need a computer with frame grabber and software.  In total, the equipment may not cost more than $100,000.-. The software for the described image treatment, that is background correction and subtraction, contrast enhancement and erosion to lay bare patterns, alignment and overlay of images as well as subsequent differentiation can be achieved with Wayne Rasband's ImageJ. The application is java-based freeware and can be downloaded from Wayne's National Institutes of Health site. The site also provides helpful information on equipment. For statistical analysis, we could quantify the number of picture elements, also known as pixels, in which the compared fingerprints overlap and use pixel-by-pixel paired t-tests to assess statistical significance as measures of identity. According to Grann, Biro charges $1,000.- per day for his qualitative analyses of fingerprints. His judgment must account for most of the cost (07/22/10).
• Bryony Jones reports in her post with the title "Museum discovers 'new' painting" published online by CNN on Mar. 23, 2012, on an excellent example demonstrating how improved X-ray spectrography helped authenticate a Van Gogh painting previously attributed to an imitator. The painting depicts a still-life of summer flowers exhibited in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. It had been examined with less powerful X-ray methods before, and it was known that there was another composition underneath. Using the new imaging method, experts unambiguously uncovered under the still-life two wrestlers entangled in a match known to have been painted by the famous painter. In addition, the method confirmed that the pigments in the paints were consistent with those used by Van Gogh at the time. Modern technology correctly applied helps (03/24/2012).
  
• On rare occasions, identification seems straight-forward. The proud new owner of this Renoir rediscovered comments: “One man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure!” (09/12/2012):

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Kurosawa's Teachings on Leadership & Academe

Today we commemorate the achievements of the great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa on the tenth anniversary of his passing. Kurosawa made countless contributions to the understanding of human behavior. He provided us with one of the most impressive descriptions of the changing relationship between humans and nature with his narrative on the life of the hunter Dersu Uzalain the vastness of Siberia around the turn of the last century. In Rashomon,he tells us about the treacherous mission of a judge attempting to establish the truth in a criminal case. The search ends in the admission that objective actuality cannot be established from subjective experience, arguing profoundly for the use of the scientific method in our lives. Kurosawa's most striking contributions touch on human leadership. In one of his short films collected in Dreams,a retired officer recounts his life-long nightmare of having sent his soldiers on a mission, from which none returned. The film paints in graphic, indelible strokes the pains of war and the horrid memories that torment the man decades after the experience. It argues strongly that for their own sanity officers must go first, leading their troops into action. In Seven Samurai,Kurosawa portrays the ambiguous relationship between citizenry and military. In times of war, we love our military. In times of peace, we feel no need for it. Leadership and power pervade Kurosawa's brilliant adaptations of Shakespear's plays, transposing them into the Japan of the Shoguns and Samurai (Ran).

The master tells about the challenges of leadership most strikingly in Kagemusha.A great warlord is mortally wounded in a siege. In order to ensure the success of the campaign, his advisers decide to search for a substitute. They find the ideal candidate in the person of a beggar sentenced to die for a small crime. In exchange for his life, the man pledges to play the lord's role until the campaign is over. He resembles the deceased noble so much that even the wives and concubines mistake him. The advisers teach him the manners of life at court. The man learns his lessons and gradually adopts his new role as the lord. However, at all times he is plagued by the anxiety about wrongfully assuming the role of some one above his station. Moreover, his fear lingers that the nobles will kill him, once they do not need him anymore. But he plays his role well, so well in fact that he assumes true leadership in the most decisive moment on the battlefield.

After his formidable performance, the exhilarated advisers ask him to stay on. He declines. His ingrained sense of status forbids it. He feels that lordship is not a beggar's station. Plus, he was just a stand in, a deception. With regret, the nobles set him free. They toss him out on a country road where he resumes his old life of an impoverished vagrant. But his innocence is lost. He remains eternally tormented, witnessing that without his leadership the kingdom succombs to the onslaught of its adversaries.

This great tale offers many lessons for modern leadership. For example, academe today is still governed with a strong sense hierarchy. Young talent is hired on the promise of success and tenured once the promise is fulfilled. In U.S. research universities, the success is pegged to the amount of research dollars garnered from Federal agencies. These agencies add about 50 % indirect cost for overhead expenditures on every dollar they pay out in direct costs for the research. Only a bit more than a tenth of the research proposals is funded. However, assuming a rate of 50 % overhead American universities recover roughly $8 billion in indirect cost from grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health alone in fiscal year 2008. Without this sizable allotment, many institutions could not sustain themselves. Therefore, the pressure on the faculty to obtain federal funding is exorbitant. Established funding histories become necessary prerequisites for tenure and further promotion. This struggle consumes many a talented scientist, turning beggars into warlords they should not be, in analogy to Kurosawa's tale.

Often the energy is spent, once tenure is obtained. Creativity is drained. Productivity ceases. Soon funding evaporates. It becomes harder and harder to make a scientific contribution or even to keep up appearances. At that stage, universities have not developed adequate and effective mechanisms to realign faculty salary with performance. Offers for early retirement may leave a decade of limbo which neither the concerned faculty nor the university knows how to fill meaningfully. Administrative promotion may not provide a solution. Too easily, the Peter Principle applies. That is, faculty members are promoted to functions with ever greater expectations and fail. Since the academic promotion system is unidirectional, a sizable fraction of the hard-won Federal funding is bound to be spent on high salaries with little to show for. Frustration mounts among the involved parties, and the mind that is supposed to be preoccupied with finding the solutions for tomorrow's problems is increasingly consumed with the struggle for meaning and place in a combative environment. At this juncture, it is wholesome to reflect on one's original goals in life and on a timely strategy to negotiate a dignified and respectful path back to these goals.

In Kurosawa's tale, the beggars' decision to return to his former life was of defining importance not only for his own fate, but also for the fate of his country. The audience is left with the sense that he should have stayed on the job. His belief in predestination and his truthfulness prevented him from doing so. In our society unbound by destined fate, thorough reflection and careful planning should help us to develop and offer favorable individualized solutions, facilitating the proper choice at the opportune moment.

Addendum

• Today, National Public Radio's All Things Considered reported in a segment by Iris Mann entitled "A Kurosawa Celebration, From Many Angles" about Akira Kurosawa's achievements on the occasion of the restoration of Rashomon (11/10/08).

Continuity of the Mind

Today the National Convention of the Democratic Party nominated Senator Barack Obama as candidate for the election to the highest office in the United States. His campaign for candidacy took about two years. Though conditions and means have changed decisively, the challenges that have to be met by the hopefuls for this type of position have remained remarkably similar over the past millenium.

Roughly 800 years ago an ambitious young man set out from his home in the pursuit of the highest office of his nation. It was the beginning of a long campaign trail that took him thousands of miles across the land he aspired to govern, learning about differences in culture of a diverse people and gaining insights into their daily problems. The journey was cumbersome and needed elaborate organization. Several hundred aids accompanied him. They had to set up camp, see to his security, and prepare the next moves. His message had to go out. It had to resonate. He had to convey that he understood the people's needs and that, once elected, he was going to help them. The locals had to be entertained. Vast sums of money were spent. Promises were made. Though his journey was educational, the main purpose of the endeavor was to rally support for his cause. He had a powerful and influential opponent and needed the overwhelming endorsement from people of all walks of life in order to win.

He had the professional credentials. He was formally educated to stand up to the challenges of government. He was well prepared in public administration and law. He was fluent in the legal language of his time and proficient in several other languages. However, he needed to learn the language instrumental in his struggle for national leadership: German. The majority of the people in the nation spoke German. The members of the Electoral Council considered themselves German. They met in a German city to elect the new head of state and government, and they wanted a popular leader.

This was a great disadvantage for our candidate. He had grown up in Southern Italy. He was considered a minority, an outsider. His mother was Norman. Though his father was German, our candidate conversed poorly in the high language. A superb command of German was imperative. Therefore, he campaigned much in Germany and made a great effort to learn the language. Eventually, he mastered it so well that he could write poetry. His was a brilliant mind. He dazzled those who met him. He was gregarious, smart and engaging. His sophistication impressed. He had a great gift of endearment. He attained wide popularity, becoming known as the Kid from Apulia after his birthplace in Italy where he would continue to live for many years. Apulia is quite deforested and arid today. In the our candidate's time, the landscape could have easily resembled Turner's vision.

His popularity would eventually give our candidate the edge in the election. His opponent struck a rather dull pose, though he could impress with a fabled pedigree. He was the member of a Saxon dynasty, known as the Wolves. They counted several figures of worldwide acclaim in their ranks. Alas, the Saxon did not show much political skill, reveled in military prowess and was given to adventure. On election day, the Kid from Apulia carried the vote. Though the Council of Electors had only seven members, the effort on our candidate's part was tremendous. Three electors were clergy. Our candidate had a complicated relationship with the Church. He and the Holy See held diametrically opposed views on the separation of church and state and the prerogatives of the two branches. He was to assume a difficult position.

Although he became nominally head of the nation, his governance was riddled with problems. Revenue was hard to collect. Resources beyond his own were never certain. Any decision of national importance needed the support of powerful locals who pursued their own special interests. He spent much time on the road to negotiate support for his ideas. Alliances were ever shifting, and the Holy See never seized to challenge his claims to power. The struggle would consume much of his energy and almost cost him his life. But, ultimately the Kid from Apulia is not remembered for his political achievements, but for his scholarly writings, the poetry he left behind, and his philanthropy.

He founded one of the first universities in continental Europe, the University of Naples. He enjoyed falconry. Some of his accounts on falcon behavior and training are preserved. His modern-minded examination of the subject strikes today's reader in awe. This man was determined, yet flexible. He had excellent observation skills and a brilliant analytical mind. He kept his mind open, willing to learn and embrace the unanticipated and unknown. He understood that even the most powerful can ill afford ignorance. Hopefully, the next President of the United States will be blessed with such abilities.

Who was this man? His name was Frederic. He was crowned Frederic II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations in A.D. 1220. We do not know much about his looks. Some believe that the horseman statue in the Cathedral of Bamberg is sculpted in his likeness. We are left with a bronze of his beloved hunting companions and his writings about them. The bronze is on display at the Cloisters in New York City. Pages of his treatise on falcon behavior can be seen in the Vatican Library.

Why Scientists like Artists

It is often said that Nashvillians possess two lives. One is spent on a day job to make a living. The other unfolds during the off hours, when we pursue our musical aspirations. If the music works out, we will quit our day job. I was once privileged to meet someone who was about to make this lucky transition. She was recording her first CD. Because I had never witnessed a recording session, I asked her whether I could not tag along to experience what it was like. She graciously agreed, and I ended up visiting a recording studio.

It was different from what I had expected. The location was somewhere in the countryside a forty-minute drive from Nashville. The producer worked out of his basement. Below the keyboards and mixers, I saw plenty computer equipment. The music could be heavily computer-generated. Essentially, this man was able to produce the sounds of all instruments in a band by himself, except the steel guitar. I was told that this was one rare instrument whose sound could not be synthesized to satisfaction yet. On my day, the soundtrack for the steel guitar was recorded. After that my friend sang. She was cooped up in a sound-insulated booth that doubled as the closet for the washer and the drier on other days. All afternoon, my friend repeated the same line until her voice almost broke and she needed a lolly pop to continue singing.

The producer was working with a man who possessed the golden finger that came down on a button exactly at the point in time when the line had to be spliced into the song. My friend had to sing the line precisely the way the man with the golden finger demanded. What he asked for was so nuanced, I could hardly hear the difference. He was profoundly insistent and perfectionist about the process. My friend gave her best to deliver. After three hours, I myself imagined hearing what the man with the golden finger was aiming at. The day went by like a breeze. My friend told me afterwards that she had spent many weeks like this and was not quite finished yet. Her hard work eventually paid off with a collection of beautiful songs, opening the way into the Bluebird Cafe. In Nashville, music means business!

I am not musically versed in any respect. I am a research scientist. What struck me most about the production process was its similarity to the work I know. The beginning of any research study is an idea, that is the hypothesis. The scientist shapes the hypothesis and designs the experiments to prove or disprove it. The results provide new insights. Things may turn out different from expectation. The hypothesis will change and experimentation proceeds until a break-through is achieved.

Watching my friend at work that day, I learned that making a song adheres to the same procedure. The singer/songwriters and producers shape the tune and the lyrics of the song until they fit perfectly together and all aspects fall in place. Eventually a new song is born. In this process as much as in scientific research, experience is essential for the design of a flawless product, pure and free of contradiction. As many scientists teach, my friend became a councilor. She published a collection of interviews with successful singer/songwriters, giving advice to those who wish to pursue this career. Today, she coaches young talent to get started. You may visit her here.

Addenda

• When we listen to Bob Boilen's segment on NPR's All Things Considered entitled "Moby: One Song, Two Days, Three Versions" broadcast today, we grasp immediately that artists and scientists are striving in the same fashion to perfect a product shaped countless times in their imagination. In that sense humans seem unique. No other creature we know is able to accomplish such act of creation (05/04/10).

• It is fascinating how similar the creative process in the arts and the sciences can be. The eminent pharmacologist Otto Loewi had the idea for the experiment that would prove the existence of neurotransmitters and win him the Nobel Prize in his dreams. Keith Richards had the fundamental idea for "I can't get no satisfaction", one of The Rolling Stones' signature songs, in his dreams as well. Loewy needed to scribble notes down on a pad that he had placed on his bed stand. He had had the dream of the experiment on a prior night, but had nothing to write it down with at that time, and forgotten the details when he awoke. When the dream re-occurred, he was prepared with pad and pencil, finding his notes next morning. Richards habitually took his guitar hooked up to a tape recorder to bed and woke up one morning, finding the basic tune for the fabled Stones song recorded on the tape. Listen to this, at times mildly strained, interview with Terry Gross broadcast on National Public Radio's Fresh Air under the title "The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards Looks Back At 'Life'" today in context with Richard's just-published memoir entitled "Life" (10/25/10).

Leonardo's View

I just was reminded of the great Leonardo da Vinci the other day. A book entitled “La Musica Celata” has just been published in which the author, Giovanni Maria Pala, lays out evidence that a musical theme is embedded in Leonardo's painting of the Last Supper. That Leonardo was truly one of a kind! His drawings and paintings reflect such a keen sense of actuality and maybe more. I am a neuro-anatomist by training. I always admired realistic drawings of the human body. In my mind, Leonardo was the first modern anatomist.

I once could visit a traveling exhibit of his drawings and notes on human anatomy at the Philadelphia College of Physicians. Beside the very impressively detailed renderings of muscles and bones, drawings on the brain caught my eye. On one parchment (Fig. 5), a schema on how the brain may work was center stage. The ventricles, that is the fluid-filled cavities, were of utmost importance. In Leonardo's time, it was commonly accepted that our thoughts, our spirit, would travel with the juice in the ventricles. The nerve cells were discovered only centuries later. However, the Maestro was not going to be fooled. If you train your eye on the lower left corner of the parchment, you discover that what looks like a smudge is the faint impression of a more detailed drawing of brain structure. As if Leonardo tried to draw something as he saw it and then erased it. The other parchment (Fig. 6) shows his method of reproducing the shape of the ventricles by filling them with wax in the bovine brain. On this parchment, again the ventricles take center stage, Yet, on the right side there is another faint drawing. This time, the shape is distinct. You see a very realistic reproduction of the cerebral cortex with its sulci and gyri. Though it may seem human, it is most likely the cortex cerebri of a cow. Yes, also ruminants have a cortex with numerous convolutions. That must have caught the Maestro's eye. I can imagine that he mumbled to himself: ”Only shows the limits of inductive thinking. This proves that cortical convolutions are no key to intellect!” And all the world's cows must have agreed with a resounding:” Moo!”

If you like to see more of Leonardo's notes on human anatomy, check in a book like Leonardo Da Vinci on the Human Body. In his studies, Leonardo was constantly struggling with the unreal views of the day and with the actuality that he saw and could not help, but draw. He must have erased his impression of reality many times, because of his fear of the authorities. Dissecting bodies was forbidden. He wrote his notes on the parchments in mirror image to conceal his thoughts from the average person who may have betrayed him. But, then he could not efface his convictions entirely. In the end, Leonardo's perceptions of the brain were correct, and he stands tall today. What can we learn from this?

Trust your own eyes more than anything, particularly when the views of the day get in the way.

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• Science, Art & Deception of the Mind