The Undergrowth of Science by Walter Gratzer, Oxford, 拢18.99, ISBN
0198507070
EVERY scientist should be familiar with N-rays, discovered in 1903 by the
French physicist Ren茅 Blondlot. These had properties the science of the
day couldn鈥檛 explain, and the physics community鈥檚 excited speculation won many
adherents to Blondlot鈥檚 claims. These faded quickly when the American physicist
Robert Wood visited Blondlot鈥檚 lab and showed that recording of the N-rays was
not the slightest bit changed when he surreptitiously removed what was supposed
to be a crucial component of the apparatus.
This story, like the others in Walter Grazer鈥檚 fascinating The
Undergrowth of Science, is a welcome corrective to the comfortable view
that science merely and necessarily reveals the facts for all to recognise. Here
you will find opportunists, ideologues, incompetents and cranks aplenty. But
they rub shoulders with Nobel prizewinners, leaders of laboratories and editors
of scholarly journals to create an undergrowth of what chemist Irving Langmuir
dubbed 鈥減athological science鈥�.
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Proponents of these unsubstantiated theories and of the ephemeral phenomena
presented to support them always claim special sensitivities and unique
insights. Their arguments sound little different from those advocating
astrology, palmistry or any of the myriad pseudoscientific activities that still
hold so many in thrall. Gratzer confidently puts psychoanalysis and homeopathy
among these.
Discussions among alternative medical practitioners still echo to Jacques
Benveniste鈥檚 1988 claim that a substance diluted in water to less than one
molecule per litre had physiological effects. Careful demonstration of
statistical problems in the claim has sent most such practitioners looking
elsewhere for support.
Wishful thinking seems to have been an ingredient in the announcements of
cold fusion emerging from the University of Utah in the early
1990s鈥攁longside a humour deficiency. Quite recently cold fusion
enthusiasts apparently proposed a new subatomic particle, named the meshugganon.
This appears to be free of irony, although 鈥渕eshuggener鈥� is a Yiddish word for
鈥渃razy person鈥�.
Sometimes pathological science stems from a mixture of incompetence and
driving professional ambition. But the most disturbing cause of pathological
science is scientists鈥� adherence to ideologies. Gratzer describes with
frightening detail how communities of biologists, physicists, chemists and
medics supported bizarre ideas because they were in accord with Soviet or Nazi
ideology. Until the 1970s, proponents of Darwinian approaches to evolution were
condemned in the Soviet Union. German science has still not recovered from the
Nazis鈥� attempts in the 1930s and 1940s to ensure that all research was free of
Jewish influence.
Though Gratzer documents pathological science thoroughly, I waited in vain
for a proper discussion of how and why it can take hold. In practice, a
combination of incompetent, ambitious, opportunistic scientists and dominant,
intolerant ideologies seems to be a strong predictor of bad science. It follows
that scientific activity that is closely tied to political or commercial
processes, nursed by bureaucratic intrigue, is highly prone to pathology.
So the message I draw is that the less influence government and its minions
have on science, the healthier science will be. Academic departments throughout
Britain are tidying up their submissions for the upcoming Research Assessment
Exercise. Along with the bureaucrats who demand this information, who are
concerned above all with counting quality publications in established journals,
they will do well to remember that Benveniste鈥檚 work was first published in
Nature.