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The Structure of Scientific Devolutions Plagiary 2007 The Structure of Scientific Devolutions The Great Betrayal : Fraud in Science Horace F. Judson. Harcourt, 2004: 480 pages. Voodoo Science : The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Robert L. Park. Oxford University Press, USA , 2001: 240 pages. Undermining Science: Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration. Seth Shulman. University of California Press, 2006: 202 pages. If you watched the 1998 film, The Matrix, you know the choice: “Take the blue pill and you wake up in your bed with no knowledge of what has hap- pened. Take the red pill and you stay in Wonder- land, and I [, Morpheus,] show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” With Keanu Reeves, millions of viewers took the red pill. Moments later they woke up in a fluid-filled pod, tethered to a complex indus- trial plant that abruptly excreted them from its sys- tem. Then they were rescued, rehabilitated, and re- educated. They learned that the late-1990s world in which they had hacked a living was an elaborate simulacrum created by intelligent machines that ing process has resulted in a simulacrum of science farm humans for their bio-electric energy. akin to the machine programming of the Matrix. In the Kuhnian terms invoked by the title of this review, The characters in the film used many words to “normal” fraud has crossed into “revolutionary” describe the grim reality of the matrix, but fraud and now poses the risk of a fundamental “plagiarism,” “fraud,” and “falsification” were not devolution of science (Kuhn, 1970, p. 1–9). among them. Nevertheless, these words apply. The machines did not acknowledge the inventors, de- Despite the drama promised by its title, the first signers, and authors of the sets, props and plots they book, Horace Judson’s The Great Betrayal, offers a deployed in their programs (plagiarism). They pre- portrait of normal science that now, just three years sented the matrix for one purpose but used it for after its publication, seems quaintly reassuring. Al- another (fraud). And they made up the data for though Judson seeks to persuade us that the neces- whole lives just to fit this purpose (falsification). The sary and sufficient conditions for the honest pursuit reason these otherwise descriptive words seem out of research are becoming ever harder to maintain, of place in the Matrix is the sheer scale and perva- his book actually affirms the essential integrity of siveness of the deception. We feel we are far past science. After all, the frauds that he recounts have the point where false dealing can be viewed as been rooted out, and scientists continue to find ways manageable noise in an otherwise functioning sys- to circumvent the best efforts of corporations and tem. Here the system as a whole is false. governments to withhold information or otherwise block open and effective communication. Judson’s But at what point is the line between system noise efforts to situate recent scientific fraud within and system failure crossed? The three books re- broader historical and social contexts produce a viewed here offer different answers to this question. similar result: the contemporary practice of science Of these, the most disturbing is the most recent; it looks good by comparison. argues that political manipulation of the policymak- 112 Reviews Judson begins by observing that contemporary authorships, by harried or compromised reviewers, science is practiced within “A Culture of Fraud” (pp. or by administrators who managed perceptions be- 9–42). The examples of Enron, of assorted stock fore they managed their programs have allowed market manipulations, of corrupt and overpaid tech/ faulty or fraudulent studies to be funded and/or com CEOs suggest that our society extols greed and published (pp. 144–153). The traditional safeguard tolerates the cunning with which it can be satisfied against such problems, the peer-review process, has (pp. 10–18). Does this change of national heart lie simply been overwhelmed by the numbers involved: behind recent examples of scientific fraud? more scientists, more grant applications, more arti- cles. And whenever federal funding does not keep Judson’s first move to answer this question is to pace with institutional investments in labs and grad define what fraud means in the context of science, students, competition only raises the stakes higher. for which purpose he turns to Charles Babbage, Even if she wanted to do due diligence, a harried who, writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, researcher volunteering her time for a grant review carefully distinguished four frauds of scientific obser- panel might not be able to root out more subtle ma- vation: hoaxing (deceiving in order to expose folly), nipulations of data. forging (making up data), trimming (discarding data that falls too far beyond the mean), and cooking Judson examines two possible solutions to this (selecting only data that support the hypothesis) (pp. problem of oversight. The first, the return of the 46–47). Judson then provides historical examples managing editor, he briefly explores at the end of for each of these frauds, several of which involve his chapter on “The Problems of Peer Review” (pp. significant figures in the pantheon of modern sci- 244–286). The second solution, the emergence of ence—Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel, Charles Dar- open-access publishing, is detailed in “The Rise of win, Louis Pasteur, Robert Millikan, Ernst Haeckel, Open Publication on the Internet" (pp. 325–368). In Sigmund Freud, and Cyril Burt (pp. 48, 52–96). this rapidly evolving system, scientific papers are Recounting the work of scholars who have closely posted online and subjected to endless correction examined the notebooks of these men, Judson re- and revision by publicly identified researchers, rather ports case after case of scientists manipulating their than certified just once by anonymous peer- raw data to support their finished theories. Defend- reviewers. Eventually, Judson concludes, the vast ers of these men, Judson notes, argue that it is readership of science will collectively edit most of the wrong to measure them against the standards of science it reads. contemporary peer-reviewed science. (See, for ex- ample, Wright on Mendel (p. 57) or Holton on Mil- While Judson clearly makes the case that the scale likan (p. 79)). Judson grants the objection but con- of contemporary science is without precedent, he cludes that we cannot acquit the charge: we should never really demonstrates that fraud in science has still be troubled by the small daily deceptions prac- grown at the same exponential rate. In fact, one gets ticed by these scientists (pp. 95–97). the sense that science remains a calling for many of its practitioners, that science has successfully encul- But the science practiced by these tainted luminar- tured the millions who now inhabit its research sta- ies was cottage work compared with the scientific- tions, labs, and institutes. It is Judson who has lost industrial complex of today, and it is to this much his sense of proportion. bigger science that Judson devotes the remainder— and bulk—of his book. Pointing to the vast growth in Just how close and closed was the atmosphere federally-funded science, and to the incentives for that Horace Judson breathed while researching his forming science empires and dynasties, Judson ar- story of scientific infidelities becomes clear when one gues that science can no longer monitor itself prop- turns from The Great Betrayal to Voodoo Science. If erly and thus can no longer insure the integrity of its Judson’s book is a sort of academic novel, David L. results. This is “the great betrayal,” the failed prom- Park’s, though much shorter, is an epic tale. Much ise of science that Judson chronicles in a series of broader characters fill its pages, men who awk- tales of scientific fraud, most notably the case of wardly straddle the boundary between science and David Baltimore (pp. 191–243). In all of these cases, self-delusion. These are the figures Park has found blindspots created by hyper-productivity, by co- on “the road from foolishness to fraud.” dependent mentor-mentee relationships, by honorary 113 Plagiary 2007 Although Park does not mention the movie, this maintained isolation is often a precursor to delusion road passes through the Matrix. One continuous (“pathological science”) or fraud (“junk science”) thread of Voodoo Science is the eternal search for (p.164). If a scientific claim is shielded from critical “free energy,” a notion most commonly represented inspection by the isolation of its proponent(s), then it by the perpetual motion machine. As Park patiently is difficult to replicate that claim. Excessive secrecy explains, the goal of free energy, a system that deliv- regarding data ultimately render’s that work un- ers more work (or useful energy) than the energy put testable (pp. 38-43). Thus, “secrecy . [provides] a into it, violates some fundamental laws of physics haven for voodoo science” (p. 189). (pp. 6–7). Claims to have discovered a principle or to have invented a mechanism that delivers such a Although he includes a chapter on the ways gov- bounty are thus the result either of inept or dishonest ernment secrecy fosters foolishness and fraud (pp. accounting for the energies involved. Such is the 172–191), in Park’s book it is typically entrepreneu- case with the bio-electric power plant that drives the rial inventors who are isolated from the scientific plot and feeds the programs in Matrix. Farming re- establishment and who cloak their methods in mys- quires the added energy of the sun; farmers can sell tery. In Seth Shulman’s Undermining Science, by crops for more than their costs because the light contrast, it is the political operatives of the Bush ad- their plants absorb is free.
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