the Diffusion of Innovations, or Lack Thereof
Everett Rogers wrote the classic work on the difficulties of spreading new ideas and solutions, none more elucidating than the case of the British Navy and the cure to scurvy:
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In the early days of long sea voyages, scurvy killed more sailors than did warfare, accidents, and other causes. For instance, of Vasco da Gamma’s crew of 160 men who sailed with him around the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, 100 died of scurvy. In 1601, an English sea captain, James Lancaster, conducted an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of lemon juice in preventing scurvy. Captain Lancaster commanded four ships that sailed from England on a voyage to India. He served three teaspoonfuls of lemon juice every day to the sailors in one of his four ships. These men stayed healthy. The other three ships constituted Lancaster’s ‘control group,’ and their sailors were not given any lemon juice. On the other three ships, by the halfway point in the journey, 110 of 278 sailors had died from scurvy. So many of these sailors got scurvy that Lancaster had to transfer men from his ‘treatment’ ship in order to staff the three other ships for the remainder of the voyage….
Not until 1747, about 150 years later, did James Lind, a British Navy physician who knew of Lancaster’s results, carry out another experiment…
not until 1795, forty-eight years later… was [scurvy] immediately wiped out…
Why were the authorities so slow to adopt the idea of citrus for scurvy prevention? Other, competing remedies for scurvy were also being proposed, and each such cure had its champions. For example, Captain Cook’s reports from his voyages in the Pacific did not provide support for curing scurvy with citrus fruits. Further, Dr. Lind was not a prominent figure in the field of naval medicine, so his experimental findings did not get much attention.
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There was another unsolved problem Britain was facing during the 1800s in the wake of the Felling mine disaster: how to design a safety lamp that wouldn’t lead to explosions. The most eminent British chemist at the time was Humprhy Davy at the Royal Society, who had discovered several elements and was a spectacularly popular lecturer. As Richard Holmes relates in the Age of Wonder, the accidents committee approached Davy to help them understand the problem. He began analyzing the gas (known as fire-damp at the time) and visiting mines and speaking with miners and overseers. Upon returning to London, he “summoned Faraday to his assistance” and ordered an “apparatus capable of withstanding an explosion.” He soon discovered that “explosions only occur[ed] when methane reacted critical ratio of gas to air (1:8 parts),” and eventually realized that a fine gauge iron mesh/gauze surrounding the flame would prevent explosions by providing a high surface area for cooling. He refused to patent his safety lamp, and having “subdued this monster” and “scourge of humanity” to “much public gratitude,” thank you letters poured in from miners across the country; some of the letters were drafted by mine owners, but “the signatures were genuine… 47 [miners] were illiterate and simply put ‘x’ against their names.”
Problem solved, right? Fast forward over 200 years. A coal mine collapse earlier this year in Pakistan killed over 40 people when methane gas in the mine ignited and caused an explosion. But what’s the root cause? Methane doesn’t auto-ignite until over 500 degrees Celsius, and neither does coal dust below 425 Celsius. That kind heat could have been generated through friction during mining activities, or even by but coal dust in a pile that oxidizes, leading to a runaway exothermic reaction. But I think the picture below (taken recently) gives us a clue. Some of the miners are still using kerosene lamps when they don’t have access to hard hats with electric lamps. Why would anyone still be using kerosene lamps, when safe electric lamps have been available for almost a hundred years? Because the people using the lamps are not the ones buying the lamps – the prototypical agent problem, as this article details:
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a major reason why working conditions are bad at the mines lies in the ownership and operational structure of the mines. The mine owners do not actually own the mines; they are long leased from the government. They are then sublet to contractors, delegating the whole responsibility of operating the mine with all the risks involved…Since the contractors are not the legal operators of the mines, the law cannot hold them responsible for the absence of safety measures and equipment as well as accidents.
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The kerosene lamps have a lower up-front cost than the battery-operated electric lights, so the mine owners/operators would favor buying them for the miners. Even if the miners themselves know about electric lights, they’re simply too poor to afford them on their own.
