Class Warfare at Top Science Labs

The scientists vs those who supports them

Note: This article reflects my personal experience at SURF in Lead, SD. If anyone reading this works there and knows better, I would enormously appreciate hearing from you in the comments. I have no wish to mischaracterize either SURF or Thyssen.

Horrific class warfare at SURF. (Actually my son Andrew and I, a mile underground, with only minimal warfare)

A short while back I was at SURF, the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, one of our top theoretical physics labs in the country. I was there to show one of my feature documentaries and to give a talk. (Among other important experiments, SURF is the site of DUNE, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment — the world’s most ginormous neutrino detector, built to characterize neutrinos fired through the Earth at it from Fermilab.) For shiggles I brought along my son Andrew Dunning, MS, a geologist, who spent a day hanging out with a SURF geologist a mile underground looking for flaws in the rock that might pose problems, like, for example, collapsing and killing everyone.

SURF, and the (now closed) mine it is built inside, is the only reason for the existence of the town of Lead, SD, where virtually every working resident is employed by either SURF or its principal contractor Thyssen Mining, Inc. Thyssen does all the heavy lifting that makes it possible for SURF to exist. Keeping alive a small city a mile underground requires a lot of support staff. If not for this large army of talented professionals, the small army of SURF scientists could not exist. (We must also give a huge nod to the Lakota Nation, upon whose land all of this is, and without whose blessing neither would exist.)

Andrew and I arrived in Lead late enough to grab dinner at one of the town’s small brewpubs just before closing, where we were served the largest hamburgers ever assembled. We made small talk with the bartender. When she learned we were there for an official visit to SURF, she scoffed and rolled her eyes.

I wanted to know why. I asked. She was reluctant. I pressed. She said “They lie about what they do there.”

Of all the reactions I expected, least among them was that she would be an anti-SURF conspiracy theorist. Nearly everyone in this town literally works together a mile below Lead. One would expect plenty of cross-association between the scientists and the miners. Surely there would be a culture of mutual cooperation and respect, not of suspicion. I elected to STFU and not start a bicker about conspiracy theories and what the scientists are really up to. But I never forgot her comment.

So the next day, Andrew and I were all geared up — boots, overalls, helmet, goggles, self-rescue breathing equipment, and plenty of training — and we were escorted into one of the cages (elevators to you regular people) that took us down to however many thousands of feet underground was our first stop.

I don’t recall how many people a single cage accommodates, but let’s say it’s about 50. Half were scientists associated with SURF; half were Thyssen miners and technicians. All these people rode up and down with each other (or others just like them) every single day. It took a while to go that far, so there was plenty of conversation and laughter. But a careful study revealed an interesting observation.

Although nearly everyone was involved in some conversation, every scientist was talking with other scientists, and every miner was talking with other miners. I observed no crossover.

No crossover.

At the particular time we were there, the scientists had to walk through a dangerous area where large mining vehicles were driving back and forth. A Thyssen employee was assigned to each group of SURF people to escort them through, and they seemed to know each other by face or name. Other than that, and a few other interactions mandated by safety laws, I never once observed a SURF scientist interacting with a Thyssen employee.

It was class warfare. It was ivory-tower scientists vs the blue collars who “supported” them.

I was reminded of a blog I used to follow — and sadly cannot find today to link — written by a scientist who wintered over a couple times at Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole and ended up spending much of his time volunteer bartending. He wrote eloquently of an identical problem there. Amundsen-Scott is populated by two groups: (1) scientists from everywhere supported by grants, and (2) support staff working for Raytheon (the major contractor) or one of its subcontractors. The scientists were essentially unsupervised and left to their own devices. They were often drunk and had the freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted; whatever bosses any of them may have had were thousands of miles away. The contract workers, on the other hand, were ruled with an iron fist. The slightest violation of safety protocols was a career-ending move. They had zero freedom to screw around. And so a class schism had arisen: the scientists vs the support staff. When you think about it, there are a lot of factors. Resentment. Different backgrounds. Education. Probably different socio-economic status. Probably others.

It was class warfare. It was ivory-tower scientists vs the blue collars who “supported” them.

I’m going to end this post on an anticlimactic note, which is that I don’t really have a point. My reaction to all of these events was sadness. All of these folks are in it together; if not for the other, neither group could exist. No Ph.D out there would have their doctorate if there weren’t blue collar workers building the required infrastructure; and no blue collar worker out there would have a job building something if there wasn’t someone needing something built. Everything is a team effort, and I’m sad that teams feel the need to find division within themselves.

I expect that our tendency to identify hierarchy is the ultimate culprit. I’m above you. I’m down here because of your corruption — which is exactly the read I got from the bartender in Lead.

Regrettably I do not have any solution to offer. I can acknowledge that everyone on my team here at Skeptoid is fundamentally a support staffer of the others; call it a hierarchy with a top and a bottom if you want, but it’s really a circle with everything dependent on others both upstream and downstream.

OK, so if I have to have a point, it’s to encourage everyone to acknowledge the others who make their ecosystem work. From the lowliest mailroom guy to the highest-falutin’ CEO, none of it works without the other.

Be a team member, not a tribe member.