Dr. Paul Héroux: "We Have Our Quarterback"

On the 49ers, being reluctantly dragged out of obscurity and into the international spotlight, and what comes next

Meredith Oke at the Quantum Biology Collective invited me to do a Q&A on the 49ers and the electrical substation behind their training facility. Dr. Paul Héroux — whose research is the foundation of my theory — dropped in unexpectedly.

Paul’s arc parallels mine in a way I didn’t fully appreciate until we spoke in this Q&A. He earned his PhD in physics, spent fifteen years in engineering, and began his research career at Institut de Recherche d'Hydro-Québec, working with the electromagnetic fields whose biological consequences he'd later turn his focus to. He now teaches Toxicology and Health Effects of Electromagnetism at McGill's Faculty of Medicine, where he also directs the Occupational Health program. He serves as Vice Chair of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, and has spent thirty years building the body of work I keep coming back to in my own research.

My version of the same arc: a self-taught software engineer working from the cloud down to the device — server arrays in data centers, mobile phones, WiFi routers and access points, video surveillance cameras, and the firmware that runs them. I now work in environmental health, and investigate the biological consequences of the systems I helped build.

Paul is highly credentialed. I’m not. What we share is the curiosity of multi-domain generalists — breadth across fields, built on the depth each of us has earned in the disciplines we started in. That kind of cross-pollination is consistently overlooked and underappreciated, even though it produces a disproportionate share of important breakthroughs.

It's not often that the person you've cited most shows up to vouch for you in front of an audience, so it meant a lot to me when Paul did. And he didn't just defend the theory. He said I was the quarterback we needed and made the case for the 49ers to let me in to take measurements!

If I'm the quarterback, Paul, you're the offensive coordinator. Here's the scheme he's drawn up: shave, comb my hair, put on a suit, and charm the 49ers into letting me study the substation. (I'm calling an audible and keeping the beard, though).

But it wasn't only fun and games. Behind the paywall:

I turn the tables on the media and dig into what I call "subprime journalism." Technology as a double-edged sword — Paul's consulting story for Nortel, the Canadian telecom giant, and the principle that we are "entitled to other people's ignorance about us”. Engineers as sorcerer's apprentices who don't know what they're getting into, and won't stop once they do. Generational theory, the Fourth Turning, and what gets built after everything falls apart.