An article in Salon.com ("Science, Semi-science and Nonsense") posted today
(8/27) features an interview with Michael Shermer, ed-in-chief of Skeptic
Magazine. His latest book was just released.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/08/27/shermer/index.html
Here's an excerpt:
What about when big business funds science? How can you be so sure that there
isn't an agenda behind someone's research?
For example, I don't worry that the American Medical Association is heavily
influenced by drug companies. You know, it is. Drug companies give a lot of
money for research. If you go to conferences sponsored by the AMA, the drug
companies are there giving away stuff. Recently, I was paid fairly well to
give a talk at a Pasadena medical association. The whole thing was sponsored
by a drug company. There they were, handing out samples. And before I spoke,
the guy from the drug company was up there plugging his wares! But, while I
worry about that, there are a lot of medical researchers out there --
post-docs and Ph.D. and M.D. students -- who are not influenced by the drug
companies. They would love nothing better than to show that, in fact, a
particular drug doesn't do what the company claims. Those are the checks and
balances that keep me confident that science really works.
The difference between science and nonscience is somewhat subjective. You
have a boundary detection kit. I'm wondering if other scientists agree with
your methods of assessment of what's science and what isn't.
The questions that I ask -- the quality of evidence, who's doing the
research, what else do they believe, what else have they done, have they
tested their own claims -- is the way of science. All skeptic stuff is
science. Scientists are skeptics. It's unfortunate that the word "skeptic"
has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and
cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it's just thoughtful
inquiry.
....
All things that are now considered science were once nonscience or
borderlands science. Does that hang over your head when you're thinking about
new ideas?
Sure, I always wonder if what I believe is going to be bunk next year. But "I
was wrong" is a big part of science. Those are three really important words.
I would be totally shocked if some things turned out not to be true -- like
the theory of evolution. Big bang is now pretty solid as the origin of the
universe. I'm much shakier in the social sciences. What ever happened to
[B.F.] Skinner and behaviorism and Leon Festinger and cognitive dissonance?
They're in Psych 101.
Well, nothing really happened, they didn't get debunked, they just kind of
went away and something else came in. The social sciences are mushier.
What does it take for something to get locked down in the science category of
things?
For example, when Alfred Wegener first proposed continental drift in the
1920s, he had a lot of interesting evidence. You could see that Africa and
South America fit together like pieces of a puzzle. He marshaled quite a bit
of data, but no one believed him. How the hell would continents move? Come
on, they're huge! They're heavy and hugely big! Then, in the 1960s,
geologists discovered plate tectonics -- continents sit on massive plates
that are driven from underneath by these big vortices of moving lava.
If we asked, what would it take for me to believe in ESP? Would it take a
single experiment? How about 10 statistically significant experiments in
which the guy picked the right playing card? That still wouldn't quite do it
because there's no way to understand how this could possibly happen in the
brain. We understand how neurons and brain centers work but we don't know how
something would transmit through space out of your skull into somebody else's
skull. So those guys need to come up with some mechanism to explain it.
.........
Anyway, the article covers a lot of ground in addition to the above,
including revisionist history, creationism, the politics of cloning and
environmentalism.
If anyone needs the entire article e-mailed (if you only have e-mail and not
web access,) let me know off list and I'll send it along.
Jon
