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nomer published data that support the steady state theory whereupon mainstream science refused to allow him further access it to the telescopes he needed 8 a variety of observations indicate that earthquakes may be predictable by electromagnetic or other signals but mainstream geology will have none of it 9 cold fusion remains beyond the pale despite intriguing evidence from competent mainstream researchers 10 i learned that even distinguished mainstream researchers who take a distinctly different view from the prevailing majority consensus are treated no better than are those of us accused of espousing pseudo science in fact they often have it worse their unorthodoxies can damage their career whereas most members of sse earn their living by something quite separate from their oddball interests which are more hobbies things pursued in amateur fashion out of sheer fascination and not as a way to earn a living so loch ness monsters led me to sse and sse led me to recognize how widespread throughout mainstream science is the passionately dogmatic even vindictive suppression of minority opinion 6 quite contrary to the popular view of science the idealistic view that remains my own vision of how science should be carried on it seemed natural then in my new academic career in sts to make my special interest the study of scientific controversies and of what exactly distinguishes genuine proper science from what is widely denigrated as fringe alternative or pseudo science 1 my research focus required looking for examples of scientific controversies to study i don t recall what first alerted me that there was dissent from the belief that hiv causes aids that there was ever any controversy about it but i did come across that in the early 1990s that is what eventually taught me that what taken as authoritative institutions nowadays proclaim in the name of science should never be automatically trusted it should be fact checked the dogmatism careerism and institutional as well as personal conflicts of interest that are now rampant in contemporary science have actually brought official public policies and actions that are contrary to the facts of reality have harmed massive numbers of people and threaten to cause yet further damage 1 science or pseudoscience magnetic healing psychic phenomena and other heterodoxies university of illinois press 2001 2 the journal of scientific exploration began publication in 1987 it is now freely available on line 3 examples are discussed and critiqued at p 200 ff in 1 4 the iconic organization was csicop committee for scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal founded in 1976 by predominantly non scientists philosophers psychologists writers amateur investigators but including a few prominent scientists for example carl sagan it publishes skeptical inquirer and includes under matters criticized as paranormal claims of the existence of what would be perfectly natural creatures 5 beyond velikovsky the history of a public controversy university of illinois press 1984 6 dogmatism in science and medicine how dominant theories monopolize research and stifle the search for truth mcfarland 2012 7 fuel s paradise 8 halton arp quasars redshifts and controversies interstellar media 1987 seeing red redshifts cosmology and academic science apeiron 1998 9 on earthquake prediction but more generally about matters that global tectonics continental drift does not adequately explain see the ncgt journal 10 the topic is nowadays thought to be not the fusion originally inferred but the general phenomenon of low energy nuclear reactions lenr nuclear transformations at ordinary temperatures share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin more share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest like loading posted in conflicts of interest denialism global warming medical practices science is not truth science policy scientific culture scientism unwarranted dogmatism in science tagged csicop hiv aids marcello truzzi pseudo skeptics society for scientific exploration sse 2 comments from uncritical about science to skeptical about science 4 posted by henry bauer on 2021 01 05 learning about science from beyond the pale synopsis for this series of posts from post 1 could my opinion be erroneous about a decline in the trustworthiness of science if not why is it that what seems so obvious to me has not been noticed has been overlooked by the overwhelming majority of practicing researchers by pundits and by scholars of scientific activity and by science writers and journalists that conundrum had me retracing the evolution of my views about science from my early infatuation with it to my current disillusionment my interest in the loch ness monster led indirectly to learning about other topics that science similarly ignores dismisses or denigrates often by calling them pseudoscience ufos bigfoot etc trying to understand how studying such matters differs from doing science automatically meant trying to understand what makes science special so by learning about pseudo science one learns as well about science itself as rudyard kipling put it and what should they know of england who only england know from poem the english flag continuing the narrative fortuitously for me several things happened at about the same time in the mid 1970s there was a shortage of potential graduate students because the job market for phds had collapsed my large 5 year grant came to an end and new grant funds were more and more difficult to come by there was a widespread infatuation including at nsf with the supposed value of interdisciplinary work and my university was urging faculty to develop interdisciplinary projects as a way of attracting grant money and some tangible evidence that the loch ness monster is a real animal had been widely publicized underwater photographs of large flipper or paddle like objects apparently appendages on an indistinct large shape 1 so i recruited an eminently interdisciplinary team of faculty members a journalism professor an historian of science a philosopher of science a sociologist to study how scientific understanding or belief changes as evidence accumulates science had long been fairly sure that reports of the loch ness monster were baseless now that substantive evidence was accumulating how would the scientific community accommodate it our proposal to nsf was unsuccessful but one of the reviewers comments set me off in a new direction if we wanted to study how science treats unorthodox claims a reviewer suggested why not look into the velikovsky affair i had never heard of that and obviously i should have so i did look into it and found it very interesting indeed the psychoanalyst immanuel velikovsky had published a popular best seller worlds in collision 2 in which he inferred from legends and myths about heavenly happenings that jupiter had ejected a comet like object that had come close to several other planets producing on earth effects that included such events reported in the bible as the parting of the red sea and the collapse of the walls of jericho several things struck me about the velikovsky affair many a people had found velikovsky s scenario plausible or even convincing that included some quite accomplished historians and social scientists who had ventured strong criticisms of the scientists who had unceremoniously dismissed velikovsky s scenario as utter nonsense scientists had indeed been arrogantly dogmatic making the declaration of nonsense without attempting to address the substantive details in velikovsky s book indeed famously saying that they had not bothered to or needed to read the book they had behaved unscientifically in other words i was struck particularly that everyone was quite wrong in several respects about the nature of science not only media pundits and humanists but also scientists including social scientists so i resolved to write a book to be titled velikovsky and the loch ness monster setting out the realities about science and illustrated by one example of science getting it right about an unorthodox claim the velikovsky affair and an example of science getting it wrong the loch ness monster altogether i had found all this so interesting and the prospects for well funded scientific research so gloomy that i decided to make a permanent change of academic career from chemistry to something like history or philosophy or sociology of science it was a very good time for such a move historians and philosophers and sociologists of science were teaching interdisciplinary courses together sometimes establishing joint centers or departments together with some political scientists engineers and scientists interested in science policy the intellectual zeitgeist was presaging an integration of disciplines that is now the actuality usually named science technology studies or science technology society the acronym sts works for both earlier incarnations included science studies science and society and the like these developments in the scholarly world were another sign that the role of science in the wider society was undergoing significant changes following world war ii the vannevar bush report to the president had resulted in dramatic increases in funding of research the bulletin of the atomic scientists had been founded in 1945 by some of those who had worked on the manhattan project and were very conscious that policy makers needed information and insights from the technical community for sound planning to make my intended change of academic field possible i needed time to learn at least the basics of the history and philosophy of science but as member of a chemistry department it was my obligation to garner grants and support and mentor graduate students too time consuming to allow for much new learning and thinking so i applied for administrative jobs which would be undemanding intellectually and leave ample time for reading and learning subjects new to me after a couple of dozen failed applications i lucked into what turned out to be perfect for me dean of arts and sciences at virginia polytechnic institute and state university vpi su formerly vpi but now everywhere known as virginia tech it was easy for me to gather an informal group of people interested in interdisciplinary projects and coursework combining humanities and social sciences with engineering and physical and biological sciences the agriculture engineering and science departments at virginia tech were long established with strong research components and several of the faculty in history and philosophy in particular had already been teaching some interdisciplinary courses with faculty from technical fields soon we created a center for the study of science in society a few years later came interdisciplinary degrees initially undergraduate but soon graduate as well more recently the center was replaced by a full fledged department of science technology and society i learned a great deal about science from the discussions leading to the establishment of that center but my belief in the trustworthiness of science or at least the fundamental potential trustworthiness of science was not at all shaken indeed it may have been enhanced by learning how uncertain by comparison is the knowledge commanded by social science 3 i also learned a great deal about differences between the various subjects professed in a college of arts and sciences 4 but first i want to concentrate on what i learned about science what can in general be learned about science by looking into matters like the velikovsky affair my planned volume of velikovsky and the loch ness monster proved far too ambitious and eventually emerged as two separate books 5 6 i was again extraordinarily fortunate that the velikovsky manuscript had been sent by the publisher for review by marcello truzzi a sociologist of science long interested in scientific unorthodoxies after world war ii there had come much public interest in topics like velikovsky the yeti of the himalayas ufos unidentified flying objects at first flying saucers psychic phenomena and more 7 on all of those topics of great public interest but ignored or dismissed or denigrated by authoritative science there were some quite well established scientists engineers and other scholars who believed that there was sufficient substantive evidence enough sheer facts to warrant proper scientific investigation a group of these mavericks was in the process of founding a society for scientific exploration to exchange experiences and learn from one another because truzzi had read my velikovsky manuscript i was invited to join in founding that society 1 reprinted in many places for example the case for the loch ness monster the scientific evidence journal of scientific exploration 16 2002 225 246 2 immanuel velikovsky worlds in collision macmillan 1950 3 p 128 ff in scientific literacy and the myth of the scientific method university of illinois press 1992 pp 151 5 in science is not what you think how it has changed why we can t trust it how it can be fixed mcfarland 2017 4 to rise above principle the memoirs of an unreconstructed dean under the pen name josef martin wipf stock 2012 1 st ed was university of illinois press 1988 5 beyond velikovsky the history of a public controversy university of illinois press 1984 6 the enigma of loch ness making sense of a mystery university of illinois press 1986 7 the literature of fringe science skeptical inquirer 11 2 winter 1986 87 205 10 share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin more share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest like loading posted in funding research politics and science resistance to discovery science is not truth science policy scientific culture tagged fringe science loch ness monster pseudo science velikovsky 3 comments from uncritical about science to skeptical about science 3 posted by henry bauer on 2021 01 03 from more than ample funding to stifling competition in the middle 1960s in the united states i observed more of the consequences of the enormous infusion of federal resources into scientific activity that i had glimpsed as a postdoctoral researcher in the late 1950s moving from australia i was appointed associate professor at the university of kentucky in 1966 just when the university was spreading its wings towards gaining recognition for research excellence i was expected to help that along given that i already had several dozen publications to my name kentucky was far from alone in its ambition the flood of federal money designed to stimulate scientific research and the training of fu...