[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] 'A systematic resistance to discovery'

[Terry W. Colvin]

[It ain't a perfect world. -twc]


< http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1230153,00.html >

Author takes swipe at scientific elite

Researchers forget that making errors is path to knowledge

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday June 3, 2004
The Guardian

The upper echelons of the scientific community were yesterday accused of
"usually being wrong" and guilty of "a systematic resistance to discovery",
at the Guardian Hay book festival.

The attack came from Nigel Calder, author of Magic Universe: the Oxford
guide to modern science, a tome weighing more than the latest Harry Potter
book and shortlisted for the 2003 Aventis science book awards. Calder, whose
swipe was a rare example of a science writer biting the hand that feeds him,
was among the first journalists to work on New Scientist magazine when it
was launched in the mid-1950s and went on to become its editor.

During his talk at the festival, Calder criticised leading scientists for
having forgotten that big new scientific discoveries, which remain to be
uncovered in many fields, can overturn widely held beliefs.

"In any branch of science there are only two possibilities. There is either
nothing left to discover, in which case, why work on it, or there are big
discoveries yet to be made, in which case, what the scientists say now is
likely to be false," he said. "The problem is, the top scientists seem to
have forgotten that."

The result is a generation of scientists who have become a little too
confident that their understanding of the world is more scientifically
accurate than it will be proved to be.

Historically, some of the biggest brains have been off the mark with some of
their theories. For everything he got right, Einstein maintained a quirk of
physics known as quantum entanglement - where information seemingly travels
instantaneously from one particle to another, regardless of how far apart
they are - was impossible. Scientists have since proved him wrong.

The accusations went further than simply knocking scientists' confidence in
their understanding of the world, though. Calder said the use of peer
review, where established scientists decide what research gets published,
and the use of review panels that hold the purse strings of university
research, were exclusive and had the effect of hindering rather than
encouraging new discoveries.

"It amounts to a systematic resistance to discovery," he said. Such
"self-appointed clubs that claim to be experts" supported the publication
and funding of mainstream work, rather than innovative science.

He said scientists were wilfully resisting pursuing certain lines of inquiry
because they could upset the balance of science research. "The vast number
of scientists are not even trying to do research that could lead to a Nobel
prize because they don't want to rock the boat."

In other words, maverick researchers, by making discoveries that undermine
the work being pursued by the scientific elite, could cause ripples many at
the top would rather not witness. "The top people may be toppled from their
perches and people may lose their jobs," Calder said.

Frank Close, the Oxford University astronomer and vice-president of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, said while scientists
were far from trying to hinder new discoveries, it was possible review
panels might at times be too conservative.

"Are there blue skies research projects that are not getting funded, but
should be? Are we being too conservative? There's always a chance of that,
though I've not seen any convincing examples," he said. "And you have to
bear in mind, this is taxpayers' money."


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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