pmd@cbscd5.UUCP (07/18/83)
>From THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATIONS by Carol Quigley:
"A number of years ago a book called SCIENCE IS A SACRED COW mad a
malicious attack on science. In this work the method of experimental
science was explained somewhat like this: on Monday I drink whiskey and
water and get drunk; on Wednesday I drink vodka and water and get drunk; on
Thursday I think about this and decide that water makes me drunk, since this
is the only common action I did every day.
...
"There would, perhaps, be no reason to pay attention to this perversion of
science if it were an isolated case. But it is not an isolated case.
Indeed, the book in question, SCIENCE IS A SACRED COW, attracted undeserved
attention and was publicized in America's most widely read picture magazine
as a worthy book and a salutary effort to readjust the balance of America's
idolatry of science. The magazine article in question reprinted extracts
from the book, including the section on experimental method, and seriously
presented to millions of readers the experimental proof that water is an
intoxicant as an example of scientif method."
Does anybody know which magazine it was?
--
Larry Kolodney #13 (I try harder)
I don't know the answer to the question, but another, more recent, book
on the subject is "Betrayers of the Truth" by William Broad and Nicholas
Wade (Simon & Schuster, New York 1982). What often scares me is that there
seems to be no good way to hold scientists accountable for the "truths" they
present to the general public. Considering the reactions of many scientists
to this book, they seem more interested in their reputations than the truth.
Paul Dubucmbr@fortune.UUCP (07/20/83)
It's all well and good to say that this is overly simplistic and frightening. But how about a good argument explaining in what way the "water as an intoxicant" example violates the scientific method.
larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (07/22/83)
The "water is an intoxicant" experiment violates the scientific method because it did not use a control group. That is, you have to have a group which is identical to the test groups in all aspects except for the characteristic you are testing. Thus, in order for the "intoxicant" experiment to be valid, there would have to have been a day on which I drank vodka and no water, or gin and no water. If I didn't get drunk on those days, then I could say that water had an effect. -- Larry Kolodney #13 (I try harder) (USENET) decvax!genrad!grkermit!larry allegra!linus!genrad!grkermit!larry (ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ai
debray@sbcs.UUCP (07/22/83)
>> It's all well and good to say that this is overly simplistic >> and frightening. But how about a good argument explaining in >> what way the "water as an intoxicant" example violates the >> scientific method. "Gin and water is intoxicating; vodka and water is intoxicating; rum and water is intoxicating; water is the *only* substance common to these three experiments; hence, water is intoxicating." That is an excellent example of pseudo-scientific method. It departs from proper scientific method at two places: (1) It asserts without proof that "water is the *only* substance common to all the cases" : without further analysis of the various substances, a scientist would only assert "water is AT LEAST ONE of the substances common to these cases". (2) It jumps to the conclusion that water *is* the intoxicant. A scientist, having asserted that water was *at least one* of the substances the three experiments had in common, would hypothesize that water is intoxicating, and then *TEST THIS HYPOTHESIS* by testing the intoxicating properties of pure water. If, and ONLY IF, this test came out positive would he conclude that water was intoxicating. One of the most important aspects of the scientific method is the testing of theories by testing the predictions that the theories make. Remember reading about the Michelson-Morley experiment and its effect on the theory of "ether"? Saumya Debray SUNY at Stony Brook
mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (07/31/83)
The book "Betrayers of the Truth" by Broad and Wade is actually a
good example of science doing a good job policing itself. Broad
and Wade are both on the staff of Science magazine (or used to
be), probably the premier english language scientific journal.
Portions of the book appeared in articles in Science and were
read with relish by the scientific community.
--
spoken: mark weiser
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs
ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@UDel-Relaymark@umcp-cs.UUCP (07/31/83)
The "water is an intoxicant" example is not an example of the
scientific method. The scientific method is often characterized
by the short-hand slogan: hypothesize and test. That water is an
intoxicant is the hypothesis. So far, ok. But the test would
be, try ingesting the pure intoxicant and see if the hypothesis
holds true. It doesn't, so no nobel prize for this scientist.
Hypothesize and test, again and again and again...
--
spoken: mark weiser
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs
ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@UDel-Relaypmd@cbscd5.UUCP (08/02/83)
[from Mark Weiser:]
The book "Betrayers of the Truth" by Broad and Wade is actually a
good example of science doing a good job policing itself. Broad
and Wade are both on the staff of Science magazine (or used to
be), probably the premier english language scientific journal.
Portions of the book appeared in articles in Science and were
read with relish by the scientific community.
I have to disagree. If science did a good job of policing itself the
book would never have been necessary. Members of the scientific
community make the assumption that science is inherently self policing--
that attempts at fraud and deception would be exposed in the natural
course of events. This is the myth that the book seeks to expose.
The authors make the point that there is an important difference between
the image of science left to us by the Logical Empiricists an how science
actually works. Science tends to be viewed as a purely logical process
by those both within an outside the scientific community. Chapter 7,
"The Myth of Logic" makes the point that there are other very significant
factors that influence science. The preface to the book begins:
"This is a book about how science really works. It
is an attempt to understand better a system of knowledge
that is regarded in Western societies as the ultimate
arbiter of truth. We have written it in the belief that
the real nature of science is widely misunderstood by both
scientists and the public."
The book is not the natural outcome to the way science functions. It is
an *active* attempt to expose fraud and deceit in science.
As for the book being accepted with relish by the scientific community,
this is not completely true. The following is a recent article from the
Columbus Dispatch:
JOURNALIST ENRAGES SCIENTISTS
Nicholas Wade ignored his lunch as he listened intently
to a well known physicist tell of his only experience
with cheating in science.
Wade, a journalist, occasionally interrupted the
researcher with questions posed in that wonderfully
British sort of way, questions that challenged the
unspoken code of conduct among scientists.
Wade's book "Betrayers of the Truth", had brought on
the wrath of scores of scientists the day before at a
symposium on fraud and dishonesty in science. The
symposium was one of several hundred during the American
Association for the Advancement of Science's annual
meeting held recently in Detroit.
This particular symposium had rapidly changed from an
intellectual debate to a which hunt...
"Betrayers of the Truth", written by Wade and a colleague
William Broad, is one of the first books to look at what
appears to be a growing incidence of fraud and dishonesty
in scientific research.
The authors' credentials are impeccable. Before joining
*The New York Times*, both had written for the News and
Comment section of the journal *Science*, perhaps the most
respected operation in science journalism. Much of the
research that went into their book came from their reporting
for both *Science* and the *Times*.
The symposium was to be a debate between Wade and Norton
Zinder, a highly respected professor of microbial genetics at
Rockefeller University.
Although the problem of fraud was to be the subject of the
discourse, it was Wade and Broad's book that quickly became
Zinder's target. And then the geneticist's aim shifted to
the authors themselves.
With no-so-subtile innuendos, Zinder attacked the style of
writing, the choice of words, the title, validity of the
reporters' research, the quality of journalism as a whole--
everything but the basic premise that fraud could exist
within the scientific community.
And while Wade attempted to respond, Zinder was whispering
to colleagues, shaking his head in dissent and dismay or
impatiently tapping the table in distraction.
In short, Zinder acted like a spoiled child. His behavior
changed the main point of the symposium.
The other three speakers, while well behaved, chose to follow
Zinder's lead, for the most part, and denounce the book. One
an elder philosopher of science, suggested that a book on this
topic might not be objectionable had it been written by a
scientist like himself.
And therein lie the main objections to Wade and his book: As
a journalist he is looked upon as an outsider, and his critics
maintain that the airing of science's dirty linen should
be done by one of the field's own, if it is to be done at all.
Ironically, it was this attitude that convinced the two
reporters that the book must be done.
Zinder's tirade had effectively polarized the 100 or more
onlookers into two camps, scientists and non-scientists, while
the purpose of the symposium had been to offer solutions to
an obvious problem for researchers.
Wade's reaction the next day over lunch remained one of astonishment.
The episode had been hardly what he expected. He had expected
scientists striving for the truth, not a tendency to cover up
cases of suspected impropriety.
But while Zinder had practically bulldozed his way through the
symposium, Wade may get he last word. Last year, the professor
reviewed the book for the magazine *Science 82*. Following
Zinder's scathing commentary on the book, Wade said sales rose
dramatically. He expected another surge following the symposium.
Zinder would succeed, Wade said, in advertising the book he so
despised.
by Earle Holland June 5, 1983
Paul Dubuc