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-
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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
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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. You cannot farm human ministration who shield themselves from public view energy to replace lost solar energy. This the authors while manipulating the results of publicly-funded of Matrix tacitly acknowledge when Morpheus con- science. To read Shulman’s book is to take one of cludes his description of the bioelectric harvest by Morpheus’s red pills: one enters a Wonderland noting that the machines had also discovered “a where the rabbit holes run very deep indeed. form of fusion.” In other words, the real source of the machines’ energy was non-human. Once one Undermining Science grew out of a request Shul- actually calculates the energy inputs and outputs, it man received from the Union of Concerned Scien- becomes clear that raising and deceiving humans tists (UCS) in 2003 (p. xiii). Concerned then about would have been a very expensive hobby for the reports they were hearing from scientists inside vari- machines. But as the many examples recounted in ous federal agencies, departments, and programs, Voodoo Science amply demonstrate, when it comes the UCS asked Shulman, an independent journalist, to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we are all to investigate. Regular readers of the New York too ready to suspend our disbelief. Times or the Washington Post will recognize many of the individual stories Shulman has collected; what is Most Americans, in fact, do not understand these new about Undermining Science is the larger mural basic principles of energy. Plus, we have an abiding Shulman has pieced together with them. Here is his affection for the underdog, the aspiring, earnest, first sketch of that bigger picture: and self-taught entrepreneur (p. 5). Add to these two predispositions our human propensity to perceive Politics always plays a central role in science and and remember only what comports with our pre- technology policymaking. Every administration is existing beliefs, and we should not be surprised that influenced to some degree by political considera- Americans are so susceptible to non-science and tion on matters of science and technology—as it other forms of nonsense (“The Belief Gene,” pp. should be. What distinguishes the Bush admini- 28–45). stration, however, is a dramatic shift: its willing- ness to stifle or distort scientific evidence from its Park recounts several “discoveries” of free energy, own federal agencies that runs counter to its pre- from Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion (pp. 14–27), to ferred policies—and ideologies. (p.2) Joe Neuman’s Energy Machine (pp. 3–8, 98–106), to the Patterson Cell (pp. 10–14, 114–118). A criti- Shulman draws evidence for this thesis from cal marker on the road from foolishness to fraud, in across the full spectrum of federally funded research Park’s view, is the point at which the scientist or in- and administrative fact-finding. The list of suppres- ventor refuses to address legitimate questions about sions and distortions is long, but they can be methods, apparatus, or data, as all of the figures grouped into some broad categories: involved in these episodes tried to do. Carefully
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• the editing of reports and censoring of scientists security, the process of evaluating proposals and with evidence of the anthropogenic causes and reviewing reports is compromised, and the public the human costs and consequences of global promise of science is betrayed. But the evidence warming (pp. 16–30), Judson assembles for this broad claim is at best equivocal. From the era before the science-industrial • the cherry-picking of evidence that supported the complex, Judson draws several examples of falsifica- administration’s faith-based claims about abor- tion, fraud, and plagiarism, enough to question tion (pp. 46–53), abstinence (pp. 53–60), AIDS whether some new threshold has been crossed by (pp. 60–63) and stem-cells (pp. 127–37), the contemporary examples he reviews in greater detail. Repairs will always be necessary, but the de- • the stacking of panels and doctoring of evidence sign of the system seems sound. This judgment is for policies on environmental health hazards like supported by a recent article in Science, “Boom and factory farm wastes (pp. 38–42), lead (pp. 34– Bust,” (Couzin and Miller, 2007) that reported on 38), and mercury (pp. 71–75), the stiff competition for NIH grants. Now only 8% of first submissions are funded, compared with 21% • the shelving of field reports that documented just 8 years ago (356).1 The problem is not that bad claims of environmental damage or endangered studies are being funded on questionable grounds species (pp. 81–93). but that good studies aren’t being funded at all.
To round out his data, Shulman includes a brief Robert L. Park never claims that science itself is in chapter on the gathering and interpretation of intelli- trouble, only that the public continues to have diffi- gence in the lead-up to the Iraq War, arguing that culty distinguishing between productive science and the Bush administration’s top-down imposition of a fraud/foolishness. The broader factors he cites to foreordained conclusion was of a piece with its sup- explain this incapacity are low levels of scientific pression and distortion of scientific data (pp. 94– literacy and high levels of media-driven hype (pp. 3– 110). 27). When scientists, or their university patrons, suc- cumb to the hype, the results are almost always non- As portrayed in Shulman’s Undermining Science, science—and costly. And when the story involves the Bush administration clearly crossed the line that one of our Holy Grails, like free energy, even scien- separates retail interference from wholesale subver- tists can be too-ready to suspend their disbelief, as a sion. While it still sought certification of its policies recent Chronicle piece on “bubble fusion” confirmed as the results of “sound science” (pp. 13–14), the yet again (Vance, 2007). When most of the public Bush administration did not arrive at those policies receives its science news through mass media that as a result of any process that could be deemed are increasingly subservient to the market, and when scientific. Instead, by installing loyal appointees in a significant portion of that market craves quick and critical positions in the federal bureaucracy, the easy solutions, then unorthodox claims will be Bush administration strove to put professional (i.e. fetched from afar to feed that audience’s hunger for neutral and objective) stamps of approval on its par- the magical and the unreal. tisan political policies. Discouraged by these ma- nipulations, career scientists resigned in record num- But it is when people with insulated (and thus bers (p. 145). As a result, Shulman concludes, untestable) beliefs gain the opportunity to govern Americans will still be dealing with the consequences science that science is most threatened. Although of his administration’s attack on science years after Shulman repeatedly points to the Bush administra- Bush has left office (pp. 145–158). tion’s efforts to appease its corporate and religious supporters, he never draws the logical conclusion: With these three books, then, we have three differ- Bush Republicans do not believe in peer-reviewed ent views on the possible breakdown, or devolution, academic science. To the extent that they believe in of science. science at all, it is the sort of fix-it science of engi- neers, applied sciences that simultaneously assume According to Horace Freeland Judson, once sci- human priority and yet only human scale. We ence becomes an industry, once the need for fund- should not worry about global warming, for exam- ing and publication become matters of economic ple, because (a) human welfare (i.e. economic
115 Plagiary 2007 growth) is more important than “the environment” Michael Svoboda is Assistant Professor of Writing in and (b) humans are too small to produce any the University Writing Program at the George Wash- planet-scale effects. This problem of worldviews ington University in Washington, DC. His primary goes back to Copernicus and Galileo, two scientists area of research is ancient philosophy and rhetoric. who asserted that a heliocentric model, rather than For his themed writing courses, however, he has an earth-centered one, made better sense of the closely followed the public debate on global warm- data. Like the papal authorities then, the Bush ad- ing, a process that includes the weekly issues of Na- ministration and its supporters now are willing to ture and Science. accept complex epicycles and to reject conflicting data in order to maintain their core conviction: man is the center of the universe. When they gained mas- tery over the many federal domains of academic science, they simply imposed their product on the Plagiary, Falsification, and Fabrica- process, as the recent reports of the Fish and Wild- tion in American Historiography life Service’s handling of endangered species studies revealed—yet again (Barringer, 2007). Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Frauds - American
History From Bancroft And Parkman To Ambrose, The simulacrum of the Matrix, in its own very Bellesiles, Ellis, And Goodwin strange way, was also a human-centered universe.
The machines and their machinations were not seen. Peter C. Hoffer. Public Affairs, 2004: 287pages. The devastation of the environment was invisible. And causes and consequences were limited to the It may not be too great an exaggeration to main- human world of the global economy. This is an opti- tain that the American historians of the present mo- mal structure for scientific devolution. ment best known among the general public are most famous not for the depth of their knowledge of the nation’s past, nor the sharpness of their opinions References about the present, but for their very public and scan- dalous dishonesty. Peter Charles Hoffer, a professor Barringer, F. (2007). Interior official steps down af- history at the University of Georgia and a member ter report of rules violations. The New York Times of the American Historical Association’s professional on the Web. Retrieved May 10, 2007, from division, the ethical watchdog of the profession, has
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