The Proper Place for Science in Modern Societies

The role that science plays in contemporary society has been my main intellectual interest since the 1970s. Contrarian, minority, or unorthodox opinions are what interests me particularly, and how the majority, the mainstream, the so-called “scientific consensus” responds to such challenges.

I made a specialty of studying cases controversial enough that they were noticed by non-specialists and the popular media. In frontier research, controversy is the usual thing at first, and most often gets resolved as research matures. But in recent decades it has become increasingly common for a “scientific consensus” to become enshrined while there are still a significant number of dissenting experts. I found more and more instances where the “consensus” became rather like a dogma, with differing views ignored, or dismissed out of hand, even sneered at.

Where the topic is of public interest or importance, the mass media just follow the lead of the “consensus”. The result is that the general public and the policy makers and regulation enforcers remain unaware that “science” may be leading them astray.

 In a few cases, I have found that the actual facts, the demonstrable evidence, nevertheless make the dissenting views more likely to be correct than the mainstream consensus[i].

One of those cases is the extinction of the dinosaurs. While “everyone knows” that it was an asteroid colliding with the earth somewhere east of Mexico, many experts in the most pertinent field, paleontology, continue to point out that the extinction did not happen as abruptly and quickly as that scenario implies. They argue that the causative event more likely was continuing massive volcanic activity at the so-called Deccan traps in Southeast Asia. Indirect support for that when other massive extinctions occurred,  there was also massive volcanic activity; and at the extinction of 250 million years ago, the volcanic activity seems to have been associated with thinning or weakening of the ozone layer[ii].

But HIV is the most startling case where the facts are at odds with the scientific consensus and with what “everyone” believes is: AIDS was not caused by HIV, and HIV is not the cause of immune deficiency and associated “opportunistic” diseases. Anyone who cares to delve into those facts can find them collected at the website, “The Case against HIV[iii] where several dozen books  and more than 900 articles are cited, almost all of them in mainstream, peer-reviewed sources.

One of those books is my own[iv], which focuses primarily on showing that the data from HIV tests quite clearly demonstrate that those tests do not track a sexually transmitted infectious agent. My essay, “Confession of an AIDS Denialist”[v], describes the emotional turmoil I experienced as it became increasingly clear to me that those test results disprove the officially held and publicly believed view.

That a scientific consensus, and thereby popular belief and official policies and actions around the world, could be so wrong on a matter that affects such huge numbers of people and enormous expenditures of money and devotion of human resources will seem inconceivable to most people — as indeed it had seemed to me before the data made me recognize it.

It seems simply incredible that the “scientific consensus” could be so wrong for so long on so publicly important a matter.

Why does it seem incredible? Because the nature of science is so generally misunderstood. My aim in this blog is to set out an accurate and easily understood description of what contemporary science is and what its capabilities are.

In a nutshell: “Science”  is a human activity, which makes it unavoidably, inevitably, potentially subject to errors: honest errors through incompetence or through ignorance or through sheer bad luck; but occasionally there are also errors because of cutting corners or plain dishonesty.

Further, “science” is not a single entity. It is a collective word for a huge range and variety of enterprises that are given the name of science.

Those many “sciences” include physical science (chemistry, physics, astronomy), social sciences (economics, political science, psychology, sociology), medical science, and quite a few other pursuits to which some people add the word “science”. None of these is an impersonal, unbiased, objective process governed by the so-called scientific method[vi], which is described as though it were an infallible mechanism: set up an hypothesis; devise a test for it; get the evidence and see whether it passes or fails the test.

But science doesn’t carry itself out, people do it. And at each step, human fallibility is unavoidable:

Ø      Hypotheses are inevitably chosen on the basis of prior beliefs or personal hunches, choices influenced by biases, preconceptions, conflicts of interest, ambitions for personal advancement or commercial applications.

Ø      Devising the most critical test for an hypothesis that seems interesting for the subjective reasons just listed is by no means easy. Human psychology pulls us toward finding evidence for and not against something we would like to be true.

Ø      Gathering the critical evidence is beset by innumerable potential pitfalls. Some are technical — capabilities of instruments; availability of materials; influence of unknown, unsuspected forces and factors. But also, again, human psychology may interfere with recognizing where or how to get the most potentially decisive evidence.

Ø      And assessing what the evidence says about the hypothesis is again subjective: even if the test seems completely straightforward and simple, something not known might nevertheless have played a role.

Does hydrochloric acid always combine with sodium hydroxide to yield common salt and water? Every chemist will confidently say, “Yes, of course”.

But when students do the experiment in practice, one may learn the need for purity of the substances; the possible influence of the vessels containing the active substances; and so on.

Of course, in this example, since the answer is known beyond reasonable doubt, the presence of things other than salt and water can usually be explained. But “science” is of interest for gaining new and reliable knowledge, and in all research there are innumerable potentialities for making mistakes and mis-interpreting evidence.

The best way to think about “science” is as something that human beings do. Of critical importance is their competence; their honesty; the possible presence of conflicts of interest; the possible influence of outside forces: commercial, religious, political; and there are often also personal ambitions and biases.

And in even the very best possible circumstances, there cannot be 100% perfection, because everything of possible influence cannot be known or controlled.

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[i]     Dogmatism  in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth Jefferson (NC): McFarland 2012 https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/dogmatism-in-science-and-medicine/

[ii]    Feng Liu et al., Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction; https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo6102

[iii]

   http://thecaseagainsthiv.net/

[iv]    The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, McFarland 2007

[v]     http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/CrankDISINFO.pdf

[vi]    I  pointed out that the scientific method is myth and not reality 30 years ago in my Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method . In a lead review in Science magazine, David Goodstein recommended that anyone who did not yet know that the scientific method is a myth should read the book. 30 years later that book remains in print, but too many people have not read it, including media pundits and supposed experts.