Mad Scientist or False Suspect?

The New York Times ran a fascinating seven page article about Dr. Bruce Ivins, the FBI's main suspect in the anthrax letter attack back in 2001. Under scrutiny by federal investigators, Ivins committed suicide last year.

Although there is compelling evidence that Ivins was the attacker, there is no "smoking gun" that proves it conclusively. One of the interesting things to emerge, however, is his "darker" side concealed from family and co-workers. He was obsessed, for example, with College Sororities to the point where he actually stole a book of secrets and cipher device from a Sorority house. One minute he is ranting in e-mails in a way that borders on paranoia, the next he's a musician at his church.

Another thing that is interesting is how investigators became fixated on another suspect earlier in the investigation (also a scientist) and only reconsidered Ivins after a change in investigation leadership. But they were cautious to fall into the same trap and hound an innocent man. Reading the article, you get a sense of the FBI was really struggling with the massive amounts of information generated by a case like this. Putting it all together is nearly impossible. Cf. the famous Zodiac Killer case, which was also left in an unresolved state after the main suspect died.

From a purely philosophical point of view, I'm struck by how having more information in an investigation is not necessarily a good thing. In his book Blink, Malcome Gladwell argues that the human capacity for judgment is overwhelmed by too much data, and that the key to good decision making is 1) developing expertise, and 2) exposing that expertise to the right pieces of data (and not too much of it). Emergency room Doctors, for example, more accurately diagnose heart attacks when they are limited to five datums rather than be allowed to exhaustively test every possible indicator.

I believe that one of the primary skills necessary for good leadership (Pastoral or otherwise) in our time is simply managing information. Rather than assume that more and more information on a subject is a good, I think it's important to ask instead, "What do I need to know?" I think it's worthwhile to look at situations like these massive investigations to understand how to organize group thinking and leadership thinking.

-t