Bright Scientists, Dim Notions

NY Times ^ | October 28, 2007 | GEORGE JOHNSON

[neverdem]

AT a conference in Cambridge, Mass., in 1988 called “How the Brain Works,” Francis Crick suggested that neuroscientific understanding would move further along if only he and his colleagues were allowed to experiment on prisoners. You couldn’t tell if he was kidding, and Crick being Crick, he probably didn’t care. Emboldened by a Nobel Prize in 1962 for helping uncoil the secret of life, Dr. Crick, who died in 2004, wasn’t shy about offering bold opinions — including speculations that life might have been seeded on Earth as part of an experiment by aliens.

The notion, called directed panspermia, had something of an intellectual pedigree. But when James Watson, the other strand of the double helix, went off the deep end two Sundays ago in The Times of London, implying that black Africans are less intelligent than whites, he hadn’t a scientific leg to stand on.

Since the publication in 1968 of his opinionated memoir, “The Double Helix,” Dr. Watson, 79, has been known for his provocative statements (please see “Stupidity Should be Cured, Says DNA Discoverer,” New Scientist, Feb. 28, 2003), but this time he apologized. Last week, uncharacteristically subdued, he announced his retirement as chancellor and member of the board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he had presided during much of the genetic revolution.

Though the pronouncements are rarely so jarring, there is a long tradition of great scientists letting down their guard. Actors, politicians and rock stars routinely make ill-considered comments. But when someone like Dr. Watson goes over the top, colleagues fear that the public may misconstrue the pronouncements as carrying science’s stamp of approval.

Kary Mullis, after grabbing a piece of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, dove head first off the platform, expounding on the virtues of LSD and astrology...

[Sherman Logan]

AT a conference in Cambridge, Mass., in 1988 called “How the Brain Works,” Francis Crick suggested that neuroscientific understanding would move further along if only he and his colleagues were allowed to experiment on prisoners.

He was, of course, absolutely correct.

Lots of science involving humans would advance more rapidly if experimentation on humans were allowed.

[wastedyears]

Elementary, dear Watson

[NicknamedBob]

"Invoking his “Scots-Irish Appalachian heritage” and a faith in reason and social justice passed on by his parents, he sounded sad and confused, as though this time he had succeeded in dumbfounding even himself."

Ah, a hillbilly like me.

"We few. We happy few ..."

[Democrat_media]

Humans have rights to not be experimented on by public university and government creeps.

Plus the private sector especially drug companies are the ones that are advancing science not government.

[atomic conspiracy]

We scold eminent scientists for their excursions into nitwittery because the media tend to invest them with a level of authority that is simply not warranted. It is not an attack on science but on those non-scientists who invest scientists with great personal authority.

Science as a method of inquiry is one thing. “Science” as a sub-culture is something else altogether. Science itself is based on method, logic, and observation, not on personal authority. The occasional genius can speed this along with flashes of insight but even Einstein would have been just another daydreamer if he hadn’t backed up his hypotheses with hard fact.

The problem is that our society puts great emphasis on authority, and scientists are not immune to this. When Kary Mullis runs his mouth about astrology or HIV, his ideas are no more worth emulating than those of the first person you meet on the street. Since he won the Nobel Prize, though, many people and especially the media (an authoritarian sub-culture itself) are tempted to believe that he is gifted with infallibility.

I think I have avoided making a fool of myself during my scientific career by regarding it from the beginning as a kind of work, like driving a tractor or cooking hamburgers, and not as an exercise in personal power. I am alleged to be quite good at it, too. To media types, it is dogma that “perception is reality.” This is not the case in science. For instance, if I started claiming that the Earth is flat, flat-earthers might rejoice and cite my credentials in support of their claims, but the shape of the Earth would not change. Nor could I demonstrate that it had.

Al Gore’s case for global warming is based almost entirely on an appeal to scientific authority, an authority that does not really exist among scientists themselves.

[onedoug]

...including speculations that life might have been seeded on Earth as part of an experiment by aliens.

Even accomplished scientists can often be nuts.

[TASMANIANRED]

“The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.”

Sam Harris. “The End of Faith”

[MrEdd]

Prisoners are people. he should have been allowed to experement on lawyers. Nobody will miss a crooked judge or ambulance chaser. The world would be a better place regardless.

And maybe we'll do in a squirrel or two... - Tom Lehrer

[SuziQ]

“Perhaps we should have checked that,” a spokeswoman for the Royal Mail told Nature at the time. “But if he has won a Nobel Prize for his work, that should give him some credibility.”

Nah, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Algore showed that isn't necessarily the case.

[Sherman Logan]

Nowhere did I say that such advantges to science outweigh the ethical reasons why such experimentation should be forbidden. I didn’t say anything about governments or public universities, either.

[Sherman Logan]

Capitalism would also function more efficiently, with considerably greater average production of wealth, if each year we executed the 1% of people who produced the lowest amount of wealth for that year.

Efficiency and the advancement of knowledge are not the most important values.

[Brilliant]

“many people and especially the media (an authoritarian sub-culture itself) are tempted to believe that he is gifted with infallibility.”

No kidding. The media thinks that anything that has the word “science” associated with it is incontrovertible.

[expatpat]

The Nobel Peace prize is awarded by politicians, a very different process than that used for the scientific selection.

[syriacus]

I’m waiting for the announcement that Watson is in the early stages of dementia.

[betty boop]

Though the pronouncements are rarely so jarring, there is a long tradition of great scientists letting down their guard. Actors, politicians and rock stars routinely make ill-considered comments. But when someone like Dr. Watson goes over the top, colleagues fear that the public may misconstrue the pronouncements as carrying science’s stamp of approval.

Oh my, someone's "holy writ" is being gored here.... And the high priests at the NYT are calling it to our attention. Evidently maintaining lockstep consensus around the "holy of holies" of Liberalism is more important than following the scientific trail wherever it may lead.

No wonder Dr. Watson has retired. Public discourse today is vicious, poisonous, and increasingly irrational.

Thanks for posting this (annoying) article, neverdem!

[armydoc]

Even accomplished scientists can often be nuts.

Actually, Crick's advocacy of "panspermia" was his most logical move, given that his world view would not allow creationist alternatives. Crick was indeed intelligent; when the incredible complexity of even the simplest living cell was shown shortly after his DNA discovery, he realized that spontaneous generation was just not plausible. Panspermia was the next logical alternative, though in the end it just pushes off the necessity of spontaneous generation to another time/place.

[Democrat_media]

You didn’t say that but most of these silly,useless studies and experiments are done by government and government public universities , for example all the fake global warming studies.

However those who are advancing real science not fake science like the government global warming and those who are advancing technology are the private companies like the drug companies.

It’s not just that’s it ethically wrong but the constitution and laws protect people from the government using force to force someone to be experimented on. So to experiment on people government would have to change the constitution and or laws. It is these new oppressive laws which will cause more problems for everything including science than any “scientific” value which will never come anyway. Science isn’t advancing in Cuba partly because their citizens have no rights and because of socialism which doesn’t work. You can’t take away people’s rights and then have advancing technology and science . it’s because of freedom, individual rights and capitalism that science and technology are advancing. Look at how many new life saving drugs like Lipitor, diabetes drugs,AIDS drugs, antibiotics, blood pressure drugs , cancer drugs etc. that American and British companies have created lately. government hasn’t created these but tried to stop these drugs from coming to market.

[SuziQ]

The Nobel Peace prize is awarded by politicians, a very different process than that used for the scientific selection.

Oh, I know that, but it doesn't seem that some of the Science winners are any brighter than Algore.

[Democrat_media]

What you are preaching is collectivism/socialism.

You said:
“Lots of science involving humans would advance more rapidly if experimentation on humans were allowed.”

You seem to be in favor of sacrificing an individual for the advancement of science(”the common good”). That’s collectivism. What your statement said to me was that humans should be experimented on like “scientists” experiment on monkeys or rats now. And the reason your statement means that is that now some people can volunteer for some experiments. So you want more advancement ( “the common good”) so that means that you may want people to be forced into being experimented on like animals. But then people would lose their rights in the bill of rights and constitution and we would be a totalitarian state. So people would be slaves then.Slaves do not advance science. Slaves only follow orders to stay alive and do not innovate.

You wish to put in place laws that kill people for not being productive or for being drafted into experiments. That would make people slaves . And slaves do not advance science and do not innovate. It’s those laws that you want and many others want (for other “good” reasons) to put in place that make people slaves that take away freedom . Freedom and human rights are needed for capitalism and innovation and rapid advancement of science to happen. This is why America became the greatest nation that advanced technology and science more than any other nation in history , because of the freedom,liberty and rights granted to the American people in the constitution and the bill of rights.