ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (08/12/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Tuesday, August 12, 1986 9:50AM
Volume 7, Issue 1
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
Science and impartiality
KAL 007
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Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1986 00:47 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: administrivia
This issue is the first of Volume 7. Take note.
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Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1986 17:52 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Administrivia
A formerly known subscriber has turned into an unknown subscriber.
Someone please inform him.
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Thanks.
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Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 11:28:40 pdt
From: Steve Walton <ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Subject: Science and impartiality
In Arms-D V6 #136, you write:
>With regard to bias in the journal Science, I would ask, "Biased with
>respect to what?" (of course, everything is biased; there is no
>absolute objective standard.) If asked whether Science is biased in the
>way it presents news, from the perspective of the average scientist, I
>would judge that it is not, since it is produced for and by
>scientists. But if you apply Jan Steinman's criterion, which I assume
>is to expect news from the perspective of how it effects the average
>citizen, Science, in addition to most media, is definitely biased.
I beg to differ; there is an absolute objective standard, not only for
what Science publishes in its research reports (which is the topic
under discussion) but for all scientific journals--reports must
contain the results of observations and experiments which are both new
and repeatable by others. My disagreement with Jan Steinmann was not
over Science's news and editorial reporting, but over its refusal to
print, as a *research report*, Ernst Sternglass's study "proving" that
260 excess infant deaths resulted from the TMI accident. I think my
and others' postings since then have amply demonstrated that Science
was justified in its decision to abide by the peer-review
recommendation not to publish this report.
>Science criticizes things that hurt "science," but does not criticize
>things that help "science" yet fail to benefit the average person.
>There is an implicit, but suspect assumption that what is good for
>science is good for the country. The journal Science does not need to
>be "pro-business" to exhibit such bias; a failure to be critical when
>non-scientists are affected constitutes bias, with respect to the
>standard mentioned above. A pro-science bias is still a bias.
The acquisition of new knowledge benefits everyone, perhaps not
directly or immediately, but enough so that I believe that the
miniscule fraction of the national wealth which goes toward scien-
tific research is money well spent. Do you disagree? Science
magazine disapproves when budgets for science are cut, but recognizes
that the political process decides what priorities to assign to the
apportionment of the federal budget; it attempts, as does everyone, to
influence that process by presenting what scientists do as important.
Please remember that, in constant dollars, federal spending for
science has been on a consistent downward trend for nearly 20 years
now--almost the only area of the federal budget for which that is
true. Under those circumstances, I think scientists, through the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes
Science magazine), are justified in suggesting that perhaps science
has been cut enough and that the budget-balancers should look
elsewhere.
Incidentally, the AAS magazine "Science '86," which did an excellent
job of explaining scientific research to the intelligent
non-scientist, just folded. "You can lead a horse to water..."
>; (me): Science is a peer-reviewed research journal...
>; I think I can safely (!) say that no important new scientific discovery
>; has failed to find publication in peer-reviewed journals (along with
>; much which turned out to be wrong).
>
>How could you possibly know (or have evidence) that there is no valuable
>scientific discovery that has ever been dismissed? Actually, Evelyn Fox
>Geller, in New Scientist a few weeks ago, talks about a female biologist
>whose theories where dismissed, but are now gaining acceptance. And, of
>course, what constitutes an "important" discovery is a value judgment
>decided mainly by peer review, therefore your statement is circular and
>meaningless.
>
I thought the context of my remarks made it clear that by "important"
discovery I was talking about such things as Galileo's telescopic
observations and Darwin's and Wallace's formulation of evolution by
natural selection. Both of these are often cited by opponents of
science and/or various cranks (not that I'm calling you one, Rich!)
as examples of cases where scientific heterodoxy was imposed on
someone who turned out to be correct; Jan cited the Galileo case in
this context. The truth of the matter is that in ALL cases where
scientific discoveries which turned out to be correct were not
accepted and the scientists making the discoveries were attacked, the
people who did not accept the discoveries were the political or
religious establishment, with the tacit support of "the people;" the
scientists involved were vigorously defended by their fellow
scientists, who recognized both the importance and the correctness of
the results. To cite just one example from the 20th century, it is
not widely known that Clarence Darrow lost the famous "monkey trial"
of 1925; his client John Scopes was in fact convicted of teaching
evolution in violation of state law and fined. The Tennessee law
under which he was convicted was not declared unconstitutional by the
US Supreme Court until 1968, nearly a century after Darwin published
"The Origin of Species." Working biologists accepted evolution by
natural selection almost immediately upon its presentation; the most
famous contemporary opponent of Darwin was Bishop Samuel Wilberforce,
and even he eventaully accepted Darwin's results.
What we call "science" is the accumulated knowledge of the results of
experiments and observations by many thousands of independent workers.
Who is better qualified than someone who has worked in a field for his
or her entire life to judge whether new work is a significant addition
to this knowledge? When new work is presented which seems to
contradict a large fraction of what has gone before, skepticism is
justified; this was probably what happened in the case you cited.
Undoubtedly, there are cases where a peer reviewer is incorrect and
the reviewed work is correct; but I repeat my claim that I am aware of
no important scientific results which have not found eventual
publication in peer-reviewed journals. I will reformulate this as
follows: NOTHING which failed to win publication in peer-reviewed
journals and then appeared in a non-peer-reviewed book turned out to
be correct. The books often make their authors piles of money and get
them lots of media attention, though, which the scientific community
is powerless to prevent.
A discussion of the philosophy of science is rather far afield from
Arms-D. I can do no more, and no better, than recommend Daniel
Boorstin's "The Discoverers" as the best available exposition of the
scientific enterprise and its progress through history.
Stephen Walton, Ametek Computer Research Division
ARPA: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
Moore: You must be a nut case!
Cook: They said that about Galileo! They said that about Einstein!
Moore: They've said it about a lot of nut cases, too.
--from the movie "Bedazzled"
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Date: 12 Aug 1986 06:33:34 PDT
Subject: KAL 007
From: Jerry Mungle <JMUNGLE@ADA20.ISI.EDU>
Re: KAL007
The interesting part of the KAL007 tragedy was examining the Soviet
behavior. I think it may have some relevance to the question of treaty
compliance, and what one does when convinced the other party has violated
a treaty.
Consider the situation - an aircraft flies through Soviet airspace. There
is reason to be suspicious of its behavior, but noone could be certain
it was spying on that day. The response was to shoot it down before it
was possible to identify it with certainty (the most charitable interpretation
of the situation). Regardless of the intent of the KAL007 overflight
(spying mission or error in flight path), the Soviet action treated the
flight as if it were on an intelligence gathering mission. Is this a
justifiable action by standards of international conduct? Apparently
the Soviets were convinced (by lesss than conclusive evidence, even today)
KAL007 was spying, and exacted a stiff penalt The US protest against
the Soviet action was ineffective - even if it could be absolutely proven
that KAL007 was simply in error, I cannot see any Soviet payment of damages,
or even an official apology.
This makes me wonder how well a system of treaties can be enforced. I'm
not saying world opinion doesn't mean much, but apparently there are cases
when it doesn't matter, and a country will act to protect its own perceived
interests, and refuse to acknowledge the possibility of error or mistake.
Sigh.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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