The High Cost of Skepticism

This article chronicles the tribulations noted psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin Guyer were put through for conduct- ing the investigation that is the subject of their ttvo-part article "Who Abused Jane Doe?" concluding in this issue of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (Pages 37-40).—The Editor The High Cost of Skepticism Here's what happened to two scientists who believed that tenure and the First Amendment would protect their rights to free inquiry. CAROL TAVRIS n the olden days, perhaps twenty or thirty years ago, aca- demic debates were marked by sweet discourse and the Iharmonious if impassioned hum of debate. (Also by sar- casm.) The rule used to be that if you disagreed with some- one's opinion or interpretations of data, you did the civilized thing—you called the person a knucklehead or an incompe- tent fool. Or you wrote a devastating reply explaining why the knucklehead was terminally wrong, misguided, or drunk. That was then. Just as noise trumps silence and rage trumps courtesy, the cudgel of lawsuits to silence or cower the opposition trumps free debate. In universities across the country, lawsuits, even spurious and unsuccessful ones, have weakened the once-sacrosanct guarantees to scholars of free SKEPTICAL INQUIRER luly/August 2002 41 speech and association. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) The Atlantic had conducted such an investigation, you would and Human Subjects Committees have proliferated, to protect know the city and state of all of the individuals interviewed, human subjects from harm caused by unethical scientists— their names (unless they requested anonymity), the data bases and to protect universities from any lawsuits that might ensue. the investigators used to gather information—in short, you Of course some scientists have conducted dangerous would know the details. But Loftus feels she is still not at lib- and/or unethical research. I do not disapprove of efforts to erty to provide these details in print, and that her university is assure the safety of subjects any more than I do of lawsuits to still looking over her shoulder. punish those who plagiarize, commit libel or fraud, or mali- ciously destroy reputations. But all institutionalized efforts to Who Abused Loftus and Guyer? correct one problem will inevitably create other problems. After reading David Corwin's account of Jane Doe in the jour- Today, many of the IRBs originally established to protect nal Child Maltreatment in 1997, Loftus and Guyer decided to subjects have instituted so many byzantine restrictions and examine his alleged evidence of a recovered memory of sexual rules that even good scientists cannot do their work. Some abuse. The stakes were high for their work as scholars, teach- have become fiefdoms of power—free to make decisions ers, and expert witnesses, because the case was already being based on caprice, personal vendettas, or self-interest, and free used in court as evidence that recovered memories of sexual to strangle research that might prove too provocative, con- abuse in childhood are reliable. troversial, or politically sensitive. They began by looking into documents in the public The growing power of IRBs in academia, along with the record. They found a public court case of "Jane Doe" who fit increasing number of restrictions on free speech in the politi- the description in Corwin's article, but the court records dif- cally correct name of "speech codes" and "conduct codes" fered from Corwin's account in significant ways. They eventu- (described so well by Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate in The ally met Jane Doe's mother, and became convinced that she Shadow University), is perilous for independent scientific had been falsely accused many years before, leading to the loss inquiry. For years, the skeptical movement, which had its birth of custody of her daughter. They decided that this was a story in the domain of philosophy and the study of logic, has tended worth pursuing and publishing, ideally in a popular magazine. to regard failures of skeptical and scientific thinking as failures In the spring of 1998, Guyer contacted the administrator of reasoning—something amiss in human cognition. The of the University of Michigan's IRB to make sure the commit- underlying assumption has been that if we can only get people tee shared his view that he did not need their approval because to think straight, junk their cognitive biases, and understand he was not doing "research" but rather "intellectual criticism, the basic principles and methods of science, pseudoscientific commentary on a forensic issue, and an historical/journalistic reasoning will become as vestigial to the mind as the appendix endeavor." The administrator and the then-chair of the IRB, is to the body. Sumer Pek, agreed; Guyer's investigation would be exempt Perhaps, but the skeptical movement needs also to focus its from IRB oversight. energies on the growing institutional barriers to free inquiry, A month later Guyer received a letter, with no intervening and the efforts to silence those whose inquiries make waves. warning that anything was amiss, telling him that his project The story of what happened to Elizabeth Loftus and Mel was not exempt; in fact, that it was assigned a "disapproval" sta- Guyer when they set out to investigate the case of Jane Doe is tus; and that the IRB was recommending to the Office of the itself a case study of the high cost of skepticism.1 The two Vice President of Research that he, personally, be reprimanded. demonstrated exactly the kind of openminded spirit of discov- The Catholic Church has given up limbo, but not, appar- ery that is at the heart of the skeptical movement. For their ently, university IRBs. Appeals, protests, and exchanges ensued pains, they found themselves in an Orwellian nightmare. for nearly a year. In March 1999, Guyer received a letter from The irony is that if Loftus and Guyer were journalists, they the new chair of the IRB, Stephen Gebarski, telling him that his would have done precisely the same investigation unhampered work was indeed exempt from IRB consideration because it was and fully supported by their employer. But because they are not "human subjects research." The OVP Research office con- university professors, they were subjected to a secret, shadowy cluded that there was no basis for a recommendation of "repri- investigation of their legal right to GO what good reporters do mand." Guyer was given no explanation of the year-long delay, every day. And their respective universities, far from support- although Gebarski did apologize for any "misunderstandings" ing their intellectual inquiries and their tenured (indeed that might have occurred that year. He added that he was per- American) right to free speech, obstucted and harassed them. sonally "[looking] forward to seeing your interesting historical Some of these obstructionist efforts linger in the articles they journalistic work published in the appropriate forum." wrote in this magazine ["Who Abused Jane Doe?" May/June Encouraged by the green light given to Guyer at Michigan, and July/August 2002]. If a writer for, say, The New Yorker or the two pursued their investigation. Then the University of Washington received an e-mail from Jane Doe, complaining Carol Tavris, Ph.D., is a social psychologist, writer, and lecturer. that her privacy was being violated. Considering that David She is author of a recent collection of book reviews and essays. Corwin had published his account of her life and was traveling Psychobabble and Biobunk, and coauthor of three introductory around the country showing videotapes of Jane at six and sev- psychology textbooks. enteen, and considering that no one was making her story 4 2 July/August 2002 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER public (and hence violating her "privacy") except Jane herself cipals" [sic] of psychologists—that is, the methods of a jour- and Corwin, this complaint should have been recognized as a nalistic investigation. cry from a troubled and vulnerable young woman, and set On July 3, 2001, one year and nine months after the aside. Instead, it was enough to set in motion a series of end- University of Washington seized her files, and one month after lessly shifting charges against Elizabeth Loftus, a scientist of Loftus won the prestigious William James award from the international stature who had brought luster and prestige to American Psychological Society for her decades of scientific her university for more than twenty-five years. The "investiga- research [see SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, November/December tion" against her lasted more than twenty-one months, in spite 2001], Dean Hodge wrote Loftus a letter of exoneration. Her of the University's own statute of limitations—thirty days for work, he said, "does not constitute research involving human the selection of a committee and ninety days for its delibera- subjects." She did not commit ethical violations or deviate tions—for bringing all such investigations to a conclusion. from accepted research practices. She was not guilty of any On September 30, 1999, having given Loftus fifteen min- misconduct. She would not have to undergo remedial educa- utes' advance notice by telephone, John Slattery of the tion on how to conduct research. University of Washington's "Office of Scientific Integrity" But, oh, one more thing: She was not to contact Jane Doe's arrived in Loftus's office, along with the chair of the psychol- mother again or interview anyone else involved in the case ogy department, and seized her files. She asked Slattery what without advance approval. Such meetings, he said, would con- the charges against her were. It took him five weeks to stitute "human subjects research requiring Human Subjects respond, and when he did he had transformed Jane Doe's "pri- Committee approval." vacy" complaint into an investigation of "possible violations of human subjects research." Loftus later learned that lawyers in The Enemy Within another state, who had retained Corwin as their defense And there it stands: Loftus and Guyer won; their investigation expert, were trying to subpoena her personnel file in hopes of was published in these pages; but at tremendous cost.

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