At The Fringes Of Science

Michael W Friedlander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780813322001
• eBook ISBN: 9780429981791
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

Scientific discoveries are constantly in the news. Almost daily we hear about new and important breakthroughs. But sometimes it turns out that what was trumpeted as scientific truth is later discredited, or controversy may long swirl about some dramatic claim. What is a nonscientist to believe? Many books debunk pseudoscience, and some others present only the scientific consensus on any given issue. In At the Fringes of Science Michael Friedlander offers a careful look at the shadowlands of science. What makes Friedlander's book especially useful is that he reviews conventional scientific method and shows how scientists examine the hard cases to determine what is science and what is pseudoscience. Emphasizing that there is no clear line of demarcation between science and nonscience, Friedlander leads the reader through case after entertaining case, covering the favorites of "tabloid science" such as astrology and UFOs, scientific controversies such as cold fusion, and those maverick ideas that were at first rejected by science only to be embraced later. There are many good stories here, but there is also much learning and wisdom. Students of science and interested lay readers will come away from this book with an increased understanding of what science is, how it works, and how the nonscientist should deal with science at its fringes.

1
Science and Its Imitators

"Taming H-Bombs?" was the column head that the Wall Street Journal supplied when it carried the first published report of the claimed discovery of cold fusion in March 1989.¹ The previous day, at a press conference at the University of Utah, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, two chemists, had announced that they had carried out experiments in which they had achieved hydrogen fusion at room temperatures.

This discovery was potentially revolutionary, holding out the prospect for an almost limitless supply of environmentally clean energy, in addition to fame and wealth. Fusion of hydrogen nuclei is the source of energy in the sun and many stars, but there it occurs at temperatures above 10 million degrees. At such high temperatures, the hydrogen nuclei move so rapidly that they can overcome the repulsion of their electric force and get close enough for the stronger nuclear force to take over. The result is fusion, the formation of a heavier nucleus. A complex chain of nuclear reactions transforms hydrogen into helium with the release of large amounts of energy accompanied by neutrons and gamma rays (more energetic versions of X-rays). A critical ingredient is the initial high temperature.

Accordingly, in their continued search for methods of fusing hydrogen under laboratory conditions for a controllable supply of energy, scientists have for many years concentrated their efforts on high-temperature processes. Room-temperature fusion, if proven, would be truly revolutionary. One exotic form of low-temperature fusion is already known, but it is mediated by muons, radioactive particles produced in high-energy nuclear collisions. And that is not what the Utah chemists were seeing.

Sadly (because of our hopes) but not surprisingly (because of our earlier experiences), after months of independent, costly, and exhaustive checks by hundreds of scientists around the world, the excitement over cold fusion cooled off, and the claim is probably destined to take its place alongside monopoles, N-rays, polywater, and other fly-by-night "discoveries" that flash across our scientific skies to end up as part of our folklore. That folklore includes a remarkable range of claims, optimistically announced, sometimes with the initial endorsement of noted scientists. Independent and more critical scrutiny usually illuminates weaknesses in the experimental procedures or mistaken assumptions, outright errors, or in a few cases (and regrettably) fraud.

Sometimes the announcements are more apocalyptic than was the case with the Utah experiment. "It may well turn out to be as epochal as The Origin of Species by Darwin or the Principia of Newton," was Clifton Fadiman's evaluation of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision when it appeared in 1950.² Based on his psychoanalytic analysis of the legends and epics of a wide range of peoples, Velikovsky had put forward an unorthodox theory of the behavior of the planets during the second and first millennia B.C. He had also proposed radical changes in the accepted chronology of events in the ancient world. Fadiman, a respected journalist but no scientist, was not alone in his praise of Velikovsky's book. Glowing reviews (some preceding actual publication) appeared in Reader's Digest, Atlantic, and Harper's. Eric Larrabee, Harper's music critic, praised Velikovsky for undertaking "an awesome task of making an inquiry in the architectonics of the world and its history."³ Fulton Oursler, religion editor of Reader's Digest, said that Worlds in Collision "opens up a vast new debate"⁴—which it certainly did, but not in the way that Oursler had believed it would.

In another example of a well-staged presentation, the Drake Hotel in Chicago was the scene of a 1951 press conference to announce the discovery of Krebiozen, which the 106-page brochure distributed on that occasion called "an agent for the treatment of malignant tumors." The booklet mentioned a "secret ingredient" and made sweeping claims for the drug's effectiveness as a cure for cancer. Krebiozen had been developed by Dr. Stevan Durovic, a Yugoslav physician, during the years that he worked in Argentina. Now in the United States, and present at the press conference, Durovic was supported by Dr. Andrew C. Ivy, at that time distinguished professor of physiology at the University of Illinois. After its dramatic announcement, Krebiozen never showed the claimed effectiveness and faded from view, though not without some protracted court cases. Its launch and decline have been chronicled by Patricia Spain Ward.⁵

We have become accustomed to reading extravagant claims like these on the front pages of the tabloids at our supermarket checkout counter, but who takes them seriously? Scientists, in contrast, expect major discoveries to be announced through professional journals and in sober prose. So, for example, Francis Crick and James Watson's famous 1953 article in Nature describing their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule is now recognized as one of the most important scientific papers of the century. Their report carried the solemn title "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids" and began, "We wish to suggest a structure for the salt deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest."⁶

In their different ways, the claims for cold fusion, for Velikovsky's theory, and for Krebiozen illustrate the gray area that surrounds the science of popular illusion, the science of brilliant discoveries and instant recognition from other scientists and a grateful public eager for the revelations that lead to medical miracles or sweeping syntheses and insights. What these examples also illustrate is the widespread misunderstanding of the way in which scientific progress arrives and in which scientific facts are presented and established. This confusion has been demonstrated by scientists as well as by nonscientists, and by entrepreneurs and legislators who are often influenced by nonscientific preferences.

This gray zone is the focus of this book. It covers the ways in which claimed advances, modest or revolutionary, are put forward, examined, and accepted or rejected. Some claimed advances become parts of scientific knowledge, but some are pseudoscientific: They appear to be scientific, make assertions that they are scientific, but on closer examination turn out to be fatally flawed in content, in method, or in both. Between outright error and obvious correctness is an untidy arena—but even the "obvious" nature of something does not become obvious at the same speed to all people. What is obvious error to a physicist or astronomer was by no means clearly so to Velikovsky and his supporters. What was obvious to critics of Pons and Fleischmann was brushed aside as quibbles by officials from the University of Utah who sped to Washington to demand $25 million from Congress to fund a new institute for cold fusion research.

How does science distinguish between the potentially genuine and the probably pseudoscientific? Examples can surely be found that will not fall neatly into either category. Faced with this fuzziness, one might be tempted to ask whether any classification at all is necessary or even useful. Instead, surely all new ideas should be treated as potentially fruitful and carefully examined. Science should be open, willing to embrace new ideas no matter what their origin, for only in this way will progress be made.

As is so often the case, reality intrudes. It is simply not practicable to give serious attention to every new idea. Many scientists receive unsolicited mail and phone calls from nonscientists who have (so they think) discovered or developed a new theory that shows the error of accepted ideas, and in physics this usually means relativity or quantum theory. I have on my shelf complete books, produced at considerable expense and distributed in the thousands, that are sad testimony to their authors' lack of understanding. Relativity and quantum theory offend the common sense of many people—sometimes physicists, too—and are the major targets of pseudophysicists. We do not find comparable rearguard guerrilla campaigns against James Clerk Maxwell, Isaac Newton, and others whose work may be less open to popular misconception. The second law of thermodynamics is the only other physics topic that draws fire, though inventors of perpetual motion machines often do not realize that this is what they are challenging. Evolution, of course, has been the target of sustained attacks for many years. I have more to say about that later.

The flaky nature of new theories of relativity or quantum effects or perpetual motion machines is quickly apparent. To take them seriously would take time away from other, scientifically more useful tasks. Experience shows that the proponents of these monotonously unconventional ideas can never be persuaded of their errors. Some time ago, a colleague and I were engaged by a would-be relativist. After I had written several letters setting out in great detail the error in his reasoning and giving him the correct approach, I had to terminate our correspondence by pointing out that we had gone around the loop several times, that the weight of professional opinion was against him, and that although he was free to believe whatever he wished, I would not respond to further letters.

Most scientists generally refuse to be drawn into this sort of discussion. It is almost certain to be unrewarding, a waste of time, though one hesitates to be totally silent and give offense. There is no reason to treat such misguided people rudely. There is also the terrible example of a deranged crank who, unable to get his manuscripts published, invaded the offices of the American Physical Society and shot a secretary. And one of my own frustrated correspondents predicted, "If I can't get you in this world, I'll get you in the next."

Challenges to accepted scientific ideas can come from many directions. The issues raised can be equally diverse and often unpredictable. The initial reception accorded new ideas depends almost entirely on the credentials of their originators. Known scientists are more likely to be taken seriously, as were Pons and Fleischmann and their claims for the demonstration of cold fusion. In this context known implies recognized professional status, usually via a Ph.D., a publication record, and an institutional base. In contrast, someone with no scientific credentials, or none in the subject under discussion, will usually get a very skeptical reception. This was the case with Velikovsky, a psychoanalyst who ventured into celestial mechanics, ancient history, and astronomy, displaying a woefully uneven understanding of all areas. His innovations required intermittent disregard for the reliability of Newton's laws of motion and only episodic acceptance of the well-tested theories of gravitation and electromagnetism, with the invocation of speculative and totally qualitative suggestions for the operation of some new force. To just about every physicist and astronomer, Velikovsky's central ideas were patent rubbish, and professional reviews were vehemently critical. Yet Velikovsky drew continued support from humanists, social scientists, and some philosophers.

The cold fusion saga provides the clearest demonstration of the difference in reactions to revolutionary science that comes from inside or outside the scientific community. Within a week of the cold fusion announcement, and despite considerable skepticism, hundreds of scientists had dropped other tasks and were in their laboratories, devising new experiments or trying to replicate the Utah system. Others were busy reexamining nuclear theory. There was no similar reaction to Velikovsky. A small number of people made simple calculations to illustrate the extent of his errors, and a few of these refutations were published, but that was the extent of the reaction (apart from the responses of a few inveterate letter writers). There was, however, a nonscientific reaction that was notable, and I describe this when I review the whole episode in more detail in the next chapter.

Beneath the reactions of the varied participants and spectators are some fundamental questions and working methods and sets of assumptions. How can one tell the difference between science and pseudoscience, between genius and crank, between a great idea and a foolish conjecture? In some cases the confusion between science and its imitators is exploited, as with Krebiozen, where the "discovery" came from a doctor of uncertain provenance who had the strong endorsement of a major figure in American academic medicine (but not a cancer expert). Sometimes the distinction is clear (at least to the expert), accepted by all who have the same set of assumptions.

In other cases the acceptance comes almost as rapidly, as happened with the confirmation of predictions from Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity through observations during the 1919 solar eclipse. But in the case of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, acceptance was long delayed because conclusive evidence was not at hand. The weight of professional opinion was strongly negative for decades. Wegener put forward his idea in 1912, but it took more than fifty years before accumulating evidence led to a professional flip-flop and plate tectonics (as it is now termed) became an accepted feature of geophysics. (Geophysicists in the Soviet Union, however, continued to resist this idea for another ten years.) The particular example of Wegener has led to a view among some critics of science that can be paraphrased something like this: "If the experts can be wrong (as with continental drift), and after many years a novel idea has finally been shown to be correct, then this current idea (erroneous though you may think it is) is correct, and it is only a matter of time before you come around to accepting it."

The inclusion of theories and their foundation of experimental results into the body of accepted science does not necessarily follow the route of popular impression. Philosophers and sociologists of science have explored this territory in great detail, and I draw on some of their writings. But I must add a word of caution: Most scientists remain blissfully unaware of that literature (or else disregard it). My views, as they emerge in this book, should be seen as representative of the views of typical working scientists, with whatever shortcomings this implies. So it will be necessary to review the workings of mainstream science—its methods, its own system of checks and balances, the criteria adopted by mainstream scientists—for these are the standards by which these researchers judge fringe science Only then will we be able to understand the ways in which scientists view the subclassifications within the gray zone that surrounds the unquestionably genuine science. The analyses of many philosophers and sociologists of science may or may not be correct, but they play essentially no role in everyday science.

My current interest in fringe science was stimulated in 1967, when Immanuel Velikovsky was invited to Washington University to deliver the annual Sigma Xi Society address at our honors day. I am not sure now why I did not go to hear his talk, but the critical reaction of one of my colleagues prompted me to look into the subject. Seven years later and through the invitation of a friend in the philosophy department, I found myself alongside Velikovsky in a panel discussion at a biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association at the University of Notre Dame, debating his theory and its reception. It was a fascinating experience, one I describe later.

Velikovsky and his theory represent far more than simply one pseudoscientific episode among many; they illustrate typical aspects as well as some that are unique. The Velikovsky case has become a crusade, a continuing saga with a vast literature, much of it as nutty as the original thesis. He still has passionate defenders; there is still the occasional unanticipated eruption or aftershock as some innocent person strays into the minefield of writings and unexploded claims to draw fire from defenders of the faith and from those who are better informed. We do not have the space to explore all of the Byzantine intricacies of this fascinating case. If you wish to pursue it, I strongly recommend Henry Bauer's Beyond Velikovsky, which provides a good survey and an exhaustive bibliography. In the next chapter I focus on the essentials but also allow myself to indulge in a few digressions.

These cases and others like them may seem like little-known border skirmishes that do nothing to detract from science or deflect it from its current directions. Why then the fuss? One answer is that as long as the general nonscientific public cannot distinguish between science and pseudoscience, the possibility will exist for far more serious confusion, as will the possibility for consequent meddling and misuse of science. There can be great commercial and political pressure for the legalization of fake cancer cures like Krebiozen and the more recent Laetrile. After all, why should terminally ill and desperate people not be able to take any medication they wish? A ban on medications of unproven efficacy raises genuine ethical...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Science and Its Imitators
• 2 Oldies but Goodies
• 3 Hesitant Revolutions—Successful and Failed
• 4 Science and Its Practice
• 5 The Machinery of Science
• 6 Respectable Maverick Ideas
• 7 Walking on Water or Skating on Thin Ice
• 8 Tabloid Science
• 9 Pscience
• 10 Fraud: Yes, No, and Maybe
• 11 Political Pseudoscience
• 12 Taking Stock
• 13 Responding to Fringe Science
• Epilogue
• Works Cited
• Further Readings
• About the Book and Author
• Index