Guest post by Henry H. Bauer
WUWT readers might find some interest in my new book, Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6301-5
Here’s a synopsis:
Unwarranted dogmatism has taken over in many fields of science: in Big-Bang cosmology, dinosaur extinction, theory of smell, string theory, Alzheimer’s amyloid theory, specificity and efficacy of psychotropic drugs, cold fusion, second-hand smoke, continental drift . . . The list goes on and on.
Dissenting views are dismissed without further ado, and dissenters’ careers are badly affected. Where public policy is involved — as with human-caused global warming and HIV/AIDS — the excommunication and harassment of dissenters reaches a fever pitch with charges of “denialism” and “denialists”, a deliberate ploy of association with the no-no of Holocaust denying.
The book describes these circumstances. It claims that this is a sea change in scientific activity and in the interaction of science and society in the last half century or so, and points to likely causes of that sea change. The best remedy would seem to be the founding of a Science Court, much discussed several decades ago but never acted on.
Reviews so far have been quite favorable, see http://henryhbauer.homestead.com/Dogmatism-Reviews.html
I am uncomfortable with the list of critiques of conventional science given above.
I’m satisfied that most of the critiques will turn out to be mere crackpottery.
One should keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. With Climate Science the forecasts have been proven wrong, and I am satisfied that the errors were produced by documented incompetence and political partisanship pretending to be objective science. I have not seen these same errors repeated in medicine or most other fields.
For myself, the deciding factor with statins was the observation that my brother, a medical professional made. The United Kingdom trained many cardiac surgeons in anticipation of increased demand from their aging population, but since the introduction of statins, these surgeons are a glut on the market. I’ve been taking statins since.
I don’t deny that extrra exercise would be good for me- but in fact the little I do is almost as much as I can manage. The statins may well be a life-saver for me as for so many other people.
That particular approach to argument is rather invidious, if one disputes “consensus” science on empirical grounds, one is not respectable. If one is not respectable, then one’s arguments are not worth attention, regardless of how well founded they are empirically. That appears to be either religious or philosophical logic.
It implies that if one, as a scientist, prefers empirical content to empty theories, one is out of step and no longer respectable? You need to reexamine the standard model and note the various patches and reversals that have been introduced over the decades to deal with its failings. For instance, dark matter, dark energy, inflation, … Every one of these is a “patch” on the theory to try and bring it into agreement with empirical observations. Even so, there are empirical observations that simply are not discussed. Arp’s paired high z and low z objects with apparent matter streams connecting them are a good example. One might argue that the “connections” are the result of image processing, but to do so calls into question other images where gas streamers are considered “real.”
In addition to the big three critiqued by Bauer (CAWG, HIV/AIDS, and the Big Bang), these other dogmas were presented in ch. 4 of his new book:
* The efficacy of anti-depressant drugs
* The Clovis People as the first Americans
* Cometary Dinosaur extinction
* Rejection of Cold Fusion
* Second-Hand smoke as dangerous (but he should have distinguished between intimate and casual exposure to such smoke. The case against the former is stronger than against the latter.)
* Plate techtonics (the theory needs revising–which the mainstream won’t accept. Perhaps the earth is expanding (!))
* Molecular-shape theory of the sense of smell
* Amyloid theory of ALzheimer’s disease
* Brain-based theories of schizophrenia (he favors genetic ones)
* The supposed Innocuousness of mercury in dental fillings & vaccines (He must be wrong about the last being potentially a danger, IMO–but he mentions it only briefly)
* String theory
* Special theory of relativity (Wow–out on a limb there!)
* Misc. Physics & Astronomical heresies catalogued by Corredoira & Perelman (2008)
* The frequentist approach to statistics (in ch. 7, which I haven’t reached yet)
The one striking example he missed was the monopolist / intolerant dominance of “behaviorism” in American psychology for decades.
oops–in the penultimate entry in my list of Bauer’s collection of monopolistic thinking (above), I meant to say,
“” Rejection of misc. Physics & Astronomical heresies …”
Quoted above:
http://www.duesberg.com/
Welcome to Peter Duesberg’s HIV/AIDS research web site.
Peter H. Duesberg, Ph.D. is a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Biographical Sketch
He isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his subsequent work in the same field, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He is also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health.
On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European AIDS diseases are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS. See The AIDS Dilemma: Drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus.
——————————————————–
Sorry, Duesberg is a nutter.
What on earth is a ‘cancer gene’? There is no such thing.
And, if he seriously suggests that people who got HIV/AIDS from contaminated blood transfusions were all secret long-term recreational drug users, he has several screws loose.
Well said, Johanna. I guess Duesberg believes Rhesus monkeys that die of AIDS aftering being infected with SIV must be drug addicts as well. And thank you for being one of the few reasonable voices on this thread.
Sadly, this type of article will do a great job of reinforcing the idea that climate change sceptics are a bunch of nutters in the minds of moderate people who are scientifically literate.
“Even so, there are empirical observations that simply are not discussed. Arp’s paired high z and low z objects with apparent matter streams connecting them are a good example.”
An interesting article on this subject by Dr. Rob Knop is found here – http://scientopia.org/blogs/galacticinteractions/2011/01/14/one-of-astronomys-pet-crackpot-theories-non-cosmological-quasar-redshifts/#comments
drjohngalan says:
November 5, 2012 at 7:43 am
You might be interested in a somewhat (less severe) example from the other end: Ultra-hot fusion, restrained by a “kink” in magnetic effects which produce a quantum window of opportunity. LPPhysics.com . Tiny fusion events in the bn-degree range, held back from dispersal by giga-Gauss transient fields. Allowed by current theory, but previously neglected.
@johanna and Spence_UK
Strawmen arguments and accusations of insanity are very familiar responses to climate scepticism too.
I don’t think either of you have actually read any of his stuff. Some of it is very interesting and worth a read.
Also, google has some interesting results for cancer gene.
tobyglyn:
There is no such thing as a ‘cancer gene’ or an anything else ‘gene’. A gene is not a particle with specific characteristics. Please educate yourself about this before putting your foot further into your mouth.
No doubt, google has interesting results for the ‘cancer gene’, just as it has for ‘alien abduction’ and ‘faked moon landing.’
The title should have been:
Nonsensus: Sanctioned Science’s Groupie Groupthink, Dodgy Dogmas, and Managed Mainstream
This isn’t as accurately descriptive as the current title. But to make a sale, one must sell the sizzle—and my version sizzles. The current title doesn’t. (If desired, append the current title as a second-level sub-title. Some books have them.)
Other possible title-fragments are:
Designated Dogmas
Dug-In Dogmas
Waist-Deep in the Mainstream (or “Waist-Deep in the Big Bunker”)
Groupies, Grants, and Gamesmanship: The Swinging Science Scene Today
Bureaucratized Science
Sciency
The book was published in May 2012, one month after Donna LaFramboise’s Delinquent Teenager . . . . , so it unfortunately didn’t cite the terrific ammo for his thesis provided by her book.
More later.
This is probably better–shorter and more pointed:
Dominating Dogmas and Guided Groupthink: Sanctioned Science’s Nonsensus
This is a variation on the above, but “sanctified” may be too much of a sneer:
Dominating Dogmas and Guided Groupthink: Sanctified Science’s Nonsensus
Here’s my latest, and best, title suggestion. Its subtitle is more descriptive and incorporates phrases from the current title. I changed certain words in the interest of alliteration, to create a sizzler of a title:
Sanctioned Science: Dominant Dogmas, Rote Research, and Trampled Truth
“Sanction” means “1 the act of ratifying, ratification, confirmation by superior authority.”
“Sanctioned Science” implies that scientific bureaucracies at the national and international level (superior authorities) either:
1) issue pronuncimentos on certain scientific issues thereby establish or reinforce dominating dogmas that marginalize dissenters, and/or
2) restrict funding to “rote research” (that consistent with the dogma), thus
3) trampling on the search for truth. (I had to shorten that phrase for brevity’s sake.)
Final version—I hope:
Sanctioned Science: Designated Dogmas, Rote Research, and Trampled Truth
I changed the third word from “Dominant” to “Designated” in order to mesh better with “Sanctioned” (sanctioning designates the anointed dogma) and because the phrase “designated dogmas” has got pizzaz.