Science can be just as corrupt as any other activity
My old tutor, A.J.P. Taylor, used to say, ‘The only lesson of history is that there are no lessons of history.’ Not true. History does not exactly repeat itself, but there are recurrent patterns. And the historian learns to look for certain signs. He asks, What is the prevailing orthodoxy, in any field, at a particular time? And his training teaches him: it is almost certain to be wrong. That is one reason why I am so suspicious of the Darwinian establishment today, and in particular its orthodoxy that natural selection is the sole form of evolution. This establishment still has enormous power. It controls the big university biology faculties, and such leading journals as Nature and Scientific American. It condemns any critics of its dogma as ‘flatearthers’ or ‘creationists’, and ensures their books are not reviewed in what it calls ‘reputable journals’. Members of the establishment have a rule not to debate on TV or on public platforms with those they dismiss as ‘pseudo-scientists’. All these signs, so characteristic of academic authoritarians through the ages, confirm me in my view that the Darwinian fundamentalists are wrong, know they are wrong, and are scared.
I recall the time when Soviet biology was dominated by the orthodoxy of Trofim Lysenko, who preached his theory of ‘creative Darwinism’, taught in Soviet universities and schools. Stalin approved of him and backed him: that was enough. Easy to say now that it was all nonsense and that Lysenko was a fraud. But during Stalin’s heyday Soviet science was highly esteemed by many Western scientists, not least top Darwinians like J.B.S. Haldane (a lifelong, uncritical communist) and Julian Huxley, author of Evolution: the Modern Synthesis, boss of Unesco and much else. One leading scientist, J.D. Bernal, hotly defended Lysenko.
History is always on the move, slowly eroding today’s orthodoxy and making space for yesterday’s heresy. A spectacular new example of this process is provided by the award of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to Professor Barry Marshall, an Australian physician. More than 20 years ago Marshall suggested that peptic ulcers were caused by bacteria and could be treated accordingly. Orthodox science then taught that they were caused by stress, and should be treated by rest, drinking milk, diets and, in extreme cases, by removing stomach linings. Marshall’s view was dismissed as ‘preposterous’ and he was cold-shouldered by the elites. Fortunately, he teamed up with another Australian, Dr Robin Warren, who had isolated a thing called Helicobacter pylori, which turned out to be the villain. The work of the two men led to the overwhelmingly successful treatment of such ulcers by antibiotics, and the Nobel, which they share, is confirmation of their courage in outfacing the establishment and bringing effective relief to millions of sufferers. So truth moves on.
So does obfuscation, too, not least in the scientific world. In 1996 a Californian utility company paid an out-of-court settlement of $333 million in response to a fierce lawsuit claiming that Chromium 6 in the local water supply had led to illness and death in the town of Hinckley. The case (which never, of course, came to trial) was made the subject of a Hollywood movie. Its heroine was based on the lawyer who obtained the settlement, Erin Brockovich, thus making her very famous indeed. It might be thought that the baleful stars of America’s litigation culture do not need any further encouragement. But that is not the view of Harvard University. Its School of Public Health has now awarded Brockovich its Julius B. Richmond prize. It will be presented during the annual conference of the school’s leadership council, largely a meeting of big donors. A leader in the Wall Street Journal voices the suspicion that the timing is designed to extract more money out of rich people and foundations. Harvard is now by far the richest university in the world — twice as rich as its nearest competitor. This is mainly due to its success in founding the first big school of business, whose countless millionaire alumni have shared their wealth with their old college. But it is also due to a fund-raising mentality which is incongruous with high academic standards.
What makes the matter worse is that this particular lawsuit is regarded by expert public-health scientists as a shocking example of ambulance-chasing and the fuss over Chromium 6 as a classic case of junk science. For Harvard thus to give it a sensational endorsement for the sake of fund-raising publicity reflects badly on the integrity of this ultra-rich but politically correct university. Hence, among others, Dr Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, decided to boycott the ceremony. It should be noted that Johns Hopkins, which has a much better medical school than Harvard’s, does not make awards to this kind of dubious recipient.
Hence those in the West who, in retrospect, sneer at Russia for its Lysenko scandal and claim it could not happen here are too complacent. It could. It has. It does and it will again. Science is just as liable to error as any other field, particularly in areas where the dogmatists and the bigots have seized power, and perhaps especially today. The only safeguard is to subject those who rule it to constant scrutiny and to give the greatest possible freedom and publicity to iconoclasts who question the prevailing orthodoxy.
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