Chapter 10 - Science Journals that publish falsehoods in cell motility.
This file concentrates on the false papers published in Nature and Science, the most widely read journals in science. It shows the way the editors of these journals patronize complaints and defy their own, publicly declared, standards.
10.1 The Scientific Press
10.2 Nature - Past Practice
10.3 Nature - Maddox, the Correspondence
10.4 Nature - Public Position
10.5 Nature - Response to "A Habit of Lies"
10.6 Response to Nature
10.7 Nature - Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer
10.8 Science - Koshland
10.9 Science - Public Stance
10.10 What does it All Mean?
Summary
Article 10 (of the European Convention on Human Rights) guarantees not only the freedom of the press to inform the public but also the right of the public to be properly informed. (Brownlie 1981, p297)
10.1 The Scientific Press
It would be impractical to correspond with every journal publishing articles about capping and particle movement. However, remembering that papers often derive impact from the prestige of the journal, the most influential results have appeared in a smaller number of organs. British and American respectively, Nature and Science are the two most widely read scientific journals. Both are weekly and combine scientific news journalism with reports of original research. They are the most widely read organs of the scientific press and their responses are most likely to typify science journalism. Since it is British I will concentrate on Nature, but both adopt much the same tone.
Nature, part of McMillan Magazines Ltd., is possibly the most prestigious of all scientific journals. It published many of the most influential articles in the capping field, including the discovery of capping (Taylor et al. (1971), some of the early ideas on membrane flow and Bretscher's lipid flow modifications to it, Koch's experiments showing contact between caps made from transmembrane proteins and the cytoskeleton and many other papers. Articles in Nature have almost never acknowledged the wave model and it has never been mentioned in the many influential discussions it has published. The recent work from Sheetz's laboratory was published in Nature, which simultaneously published a News and Views commentary, describing those papers as resolving this long standing controversy. It found space for a reply from Bretscher. This mode of review is plainly and materially incorrect. Even so, the Sheetz papers are being recognised as resolving the problem of the mechanism of capping, in favour of the cytoskeletal model, by elimination of the flow model. In terms of Popperian logic, only a subset of the available hypotheses is considered which is illegitimate because it fails to cover the known possibility space. The groups involved in the discussion knew of the wave model but eliminated it from debate without ever recording that fact or the reasoning behind it. Much of the impact enjoyed by these invalid papers derives from their being published in so authoritative a journal. They were accepted after normal refereeing and evidently met the journal's quality standards and those of "impartial" referees. Presumably neither the journal, nor its referees, asked the authors to fill the gaps in the paper. Having published materially incorrect papers, the question now arises, will Nature now publish a correction?
a part of what we do is to look after the manners of the scientific community. J. Maddox (quoted in The Sunday Times, Dec 12 1993)The Editor-in-Chief of Nature at that time was Dr. John Maddox, who retired in late 1995. He was asked by letter to contact Prof. Sheetz and Dr. Bretscher for an explanation of their elimination of the wave model from debate. In fact, three letters were written, the third despatched by recorded delivery, but no reply or acknowledgement was received. The Chairman and the Managing Director of McMillan Magazines were then contacted, and Nature, in the person of Miranda Robertson, a sub-editor, wrote indicating that it had previously replied to the third letter, but this must have gone astray. She pointed out that Nature could not force Dr. Bretscher or Prof. Sheetz to correspond but offered to forward correspondence to them. She apparently did so, along with copies of her own letter pointing out that they were not obliged to reply. No further answer from either Dr. Bretscher or Prof. Sheetz was forthcoming. When Nature was asked to consider publishing a correction, Dr. Maddox himself replied, suggesting the normal way of dealing with such matters was via correspondence with the authors. Asked if he agreed these papers reviewed the field in a misleading way, he declined to add to his commentary. Nature was also asked for a copy of its code of practice and procedures for investigating complaints, but there was no response to this.
Although, in concrete terms, the journal's code of practice remains unclear, there are a number of editorial statements about Nature's policy on ethical matters. See for example Nature 356 730-731 (1992), Nature 357 2 (1992), Nature 357 614 (1992). Nature apparently believes "deliberately misleading publication" to constitute fraud. Nature broadly supports a definition of misconduct as being the "fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in proposing performing or reporting research". This definition was put forward by the US Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI). The OSI has now been replaced by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) who use much the same definition. It is certainly useful, though not entirely satisfactory. The key words are falsification and reporting. Seemingly, Nature feels it is not false to report capping as if only two mechanisms had been suggested. Nature has also expressed the view that, "Journals should be prepared to publish retractions of invalid research reports in a form which is bibliographically mated with the original." It also feels that "journals cannot confidently arbitrate in cases where, after publication, authors disagree about the validity of what they have published," adding that "they can and should report the disagreement." These last statements seem reassuring at first sight but on examination are unimportant. There are very few cases where a scientist will ask a journal to correct one of his own previous papers. When he does, he will usually dress the correction up as an advance. Moreover, once workers publish a paper together, they rarely, publicly, disagree about the meaning of their work. In real life disagreements come from other workers. The question is, do scientists have a duty to recognise dissenting opinions, not just from their own groups, but generally? Should a journal or its referees, require such recognition from authors? Does a Journal have a duty to report dissenting opinion in a form bibliographically mated with articles failing to do so? Does Nature think it has such duties? Many people would suggest it does, what is more, Nature seems to think other journals have such duties. Nature published an article (Menger and Haim (1992)) about the difficulties experienced by the authors in publishing corrections to an incorrect article in JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society). One of the points made is that journals have a duty to publish corrections of misleading papers and its publication by Nature suggests that this is Nature's own policy. The reader can judge Nature's conformity to the principle. Firstly, it seems unwilling to deal with matters at all and was reluctant to reply to or acknowledge correspondence. While Nature ultimately passed letters on to Prof. Sheetz and Dr. Bretscher, it simultaneously pointed out to them that (in Nature's view) they were not obliged to reply. Finally, despite they knowing these workers were unwilling to reply, and declaring that they were not obliged to, it advises this author to write to the workers concerned. Nature declines to correct the misleading aspects of these papers and has never discussed dissenting opinions. To Nature it seems acceptable to review a field in which three hypotheses have been advanced as if there were only two - apparently this is not false, or misleading - but when asked to say this in so many words, Nature is not willing to respond. Nature's editorials expound its views on misconduct at some length; openness is the best way of dealing with issues involving misconduct (Nature 357 614); Dr. Maddox reportedly favours disclosure of conflicts of interest (Science 257 618). Where capping is concerned however, Nature (in the shape of its Editor- in-Chief Dr. Maddox) is not prepared to add to what it has already said which was very little and very private. It is difficult to see how a public position supporting openness can be reconciled with unresponsiveness to complaints and a refusal to publicly acknowledge even the existence of dissenting opinion.
Like all of the people criticised in this book, Dr. Maddox was sent an early draft under the title "Cap That!", along with a request that he indicate any inaccuracies in the reporting of Nature's position. The following reply was received, which was marked WITHOUT PREJUDICE. The term "without prejudice" has the legal connotation that, in the event of litigation, the writer would not be bound by the position taken in the document so marked. In other words Nature might take a different position in court if it sues about the comments made in "A Habit of Lies". Dear Dr. Hewitt,
I have read the document you sent and also (again) your 1979 paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Reading your text, I wonder whether I and others have been over-polite in our correspondence with you.That you have formulated a hypothesis is not gainsaid. Briefly it is that if there are travelling waves on the surfaces of the cells forming caps, if the direction of the waves is from front to back and if the position of a patch is determined by the potential energy occasioned by its enforced curvature, then that could account for capping. I agree it is distinct from Bretscher's and the cytoskeletal hypotheses.That said, in my opinion you totally misinterpret Popper on hypotheses. What you say about falsification supposes that all hypotheses are equally interesting, but that is the opposite of the truth. For any problem at any time, the most interesting hypotheses will be those that have been most often tested and not falsified. But it also matters that a hypothesis should be grounded on previous understanding or observation: even before the Apollo project, the hypothesis that the moon is made of green cheese had few followers because it flew in the face of what was even then known about the Solar System.The weakness of your hypothesis, which you appear to acknowledge, is that there is nothing to suggest that the travelling waves on cell surfaces are as common as they would have to be to account, on your view for capping. But it should not be beyond the wit of you and others to set out to look for them; I guess that your 1979 paper would allow some estimate of the frequency of the waves, suggesting that even a stroboscope might help you find them.By contrast, Bretscher's hypothesis is a kind of kinetic theory of the constituents of the membrane (with the intracellular recycling an optional inference). It is not surprising that the cytoskeletal hypothesis appeared on the heels of the discovery of the cytoskeleton.Your text implies that the scientific community has a responsibility promptly to test all hypotheses put into circulation, and to give all hypotheses what might be called equal time in what they write. That is emphatically not the case. People do the experiments that interest them and refer to the ideas they believe to be interesting. Naturally, if they judge wrongly in either role, their reputations will wilt.I believe you also seriously underestimate the extent to which problems that seem interesting at one epoch are often made less so at another by the pace of discovery. Capping was an interesting issue in the 1970s because the migration of patches showed the malleability of the membrane surface. Now it is less interesting. So much more is now known of membranes and their constituents that it can only be a short time before there is a much fuller understanding of the constituents and dynamics of cell membranes (capping included) than people would have dreamed of 20 years ago. So if you do nothing but let a little time pass, you should be able to tell by inspection whether you are right or wrong.My impression of your text is that it is likely to give serious scientists into whose hands it falls an impression of a querulous person unreasonably demanding that the scientific community should pay urgent attention to a theoretical speculation about a phenomenon quickly being subsumed into a broader and more interesting field of science.I should also say that I have not taken legal advice on your document and that, while I do not believe it to be libellous of Nature (but others mentioned might think differently) I would have no hesitation in doing so if I believed it were being distributed widely.I have written at this great length because it is clear from your text that you do not appreciate how your claims are regarded. But I do not wish to correspond with you again on the substance of your text. If by chance you do find evidence of travelling waves on the surface of cap forming cells, by all means think of Nature as an outlet.
Yours Sincerely
John Maddox
Editor
This letter does not give the information needed and its emotive and rhetorical tone is disappointing and inappropriate. Most of his substantive comments had been addressed at length by the draft which Dr. Maddox had read. Even so, section 2.4 "Probable and Improbable Hypotheses," in chapter 2 of this work was partly written in response. Chapter 7 was also extended, to present more clearly the evidence supportive of the wave model, though it contains little or nothing that should be unfamiliar to experts on cell membranes and motility.
It is surprising that Dr. Maddox does not seem to understand scientific logic in general or what Popper had to say about hypotheses in particular. He says that, "a hypothesis should be grounded on previous understanding or observation". This is the coherence criteria, section 2.19, which philosophers have identified and support, but they treat it with care, noting that it can lead to closed systems of thought - the capping field appears an example. Moreover, in reality, Dr. Maddox is asking the wave model to be consistent, not with previous understanding, but with an idea that it sets out to replace - the cytoskeletal model. This demand is absurd, the cytoskeletal model is substantively wrong, and where it is not wrong it is vacuous. Any useful model must be inconsistent with it.
It is true that the most interesting hypotheses are those which have been tested and not falsified but Dr. Maddox does not seem to grasp that all experiments test all hypotheses. Even experiments undirected to a particular theory, may still prove a critical test of it. The experimenter's intentions are irrelevant, provided he reports his results, and the field, accurately. When Nature published Sheetz's papers, the cytoskeletal model and the membrane flow model had both already been falsified by experiment. The wave model had not been so falsified and still has not been. The questions actually raised with Nature and its authors concern the evidence leading to the implicit, but undeclared, conclusion that waves do not drive capping. These questions are not sensibly addressed by allusions to the moon being made of green cheese and if the wave model were really so absurd articulating reasons to reject it would be a simple matter. A short list would suffice, rather like those given in section 6.3, rejecting the cytoskeletal flow model, or in section 2.21, refuting the idea that the moon is made of green cheese.
Popper's held that knowledge was a "well-founded" belief, that is, a belief that had been exposed to and survived a process of rational criticism. Thus, the cytoskeletal model is not knowledge, it is not supported by having survived rational criticism. Claims that it has done so could only be valid if that model had survived tests that all other alternatives had failed. The authors of these claims simply decline to say what tests their notions have survived that the wave model failed. The processes of rational criticism are impossible under these conditions. Consequently, the views put forward in Nature are not well-founded and the papers published there are materially false and misleading. They are made so by the behaviour of their authors and, indeed, of the journal itself. This logic is not difficult to follow, it is as Quine (1986) says about logic, "obvious," - unadorned common sense says you cannot ignore alternatives.
Another feature of Dr. Maddox's letter is that it seems, intentionally and personally offensive about me (this author). For example, he opines that I "clearly do not understand how (I am) regarded." It is true that I cannot read the minds of my former colleagues but I also consider unspoken, personal insinuation to be an improper mode of scientific dialogue. How I, or anyone else, am regarded has nothing to do with the reasoning leading to the rejection of the wave model. Is Dr. Maddox asking me to understand that he regards as a clod is undeserving of a sensible reply? Was the wave model rejected because I am regarded as stupid?
My reply to that is firstly that I do not think myself stupid. Moreover, the wave model was published in the scientific literature after normal refereeing and has been supported by other scientists. Even if this had not been so, the kind of position implied by Dr. Maddox's comments would be unacceptable. He seems to be saying that scientists in general, and Nature in particular, may reject alternative theories proposed by people whom he dislikes, or because one or another of his personal favourites regards the proposer as daft. This is scientifically invalid relativism of the most blatant kind. The social standards to which a scientist does or does not conform to are irrelevant to an assessment of his theories and Dr. Maddox should know that. The personal dislike he has taken to me, its originator, is simply no reason to reject the wave model. He seems to have known full well that three models had been advanced in this field but, nonetheless, the journal of which he was editor, published major papers as if there were really only two. That was false reporting and he has been asked to correct that falsity. The issue that Nature should address is the right of the public to be properly informed and the concomitant duty on the journal to correct false publication. That is a duty that cannot be escaped by declarations that the victims of such behaviour somehow deserve it.
The editor of a journal is tasked with responsibility for maintaining quality, and Dr. Maddox might have been concerned to ensure that knowledge claims made in Nature were well- founded. He might have wished to spark the missing rational debate, but not so. Instead he sets out to pretend that the wave model is just supposition, to which end he performs on it what might be described as an if analysis, a process creating the rhetorical impression desired. In fact, the wave model is no mere speculation it was, and is, a carefully considered proposal. This is how his analysis proceeds :-
If there are waves on cells - this is not an if unless Dr. Maddox wishes to ignore dozens or even hundreds of scientific papers, including some published by Nature itself.
If the waves travel from front to back. Actually he should say if the particles travel in concert with the waves, for which he could read his own authors.
If the position of the patch is determined by the potential energy occasioned by its enforced curvature. Well actually the wave model does not quite say that. The wave model only requires that the potential energy of the patch will vary depending on its position on the wave. Such dependency would be expected for any type of wave. This variation is the energetic origin of surf-riding which is a common observation when a wave and particle interact. Can Dr. Maddox, with a Ph.D. in physics, seriously believe that the cell is so different from the rest of this universe that on its surface surf-riding will not occur? In fact, even there, the reported correlation of wave motion with the movement of the particles gives evidence of just this.Just to make the rhetoric character of an if analysis clearer, let us apply it to the membrane flow model. If the membrane of the cell flows. (There has never been real grounds to think it might or substantive evidence to suggest it does. There is clear evidence it does not.) If the flow is from front to back. (This requires both endocytosis and exocytosis to be very fast indeed and localised respectively at the back and front of the cell; both requirements are contradicted by observation.) If the position of a patch is determined by being caught up in the flow, this would account for capping. Yes, quite right, if the membrane flowed it would.
Nature never performed an if analysis on the flow model, instead Nature published the idea, twice, in major articles, first by Bray, then by Bretscher. The reader is invited to perform if analyses on the cytoskeletal models.
Dr. Maddox suggests sitting back, letting a little time pass and (more or less) letting the experts deal with the matter. The wave model was published in 1979. The scientific community were not asked to do anything "promptly" and this is another example of Maddox substituting rhetoric for reason. Workers, who plainly take a professional, public position rejecting the wave model, are being asked to acknowledge that position and state how they arrive at it. "Serious" scientists would not refuse and would acknowledge the disproofs of their own ideas, especially when those disproofs are on record in the scientific literature. His implication, that the wave model has not been advocated by serious scientists is outrageous, offensive and untrue. Patently, doing "nothing but let a little (more) time pass," will teach nobody anything.
The reference to "equal time" in Dr. Maddox's letter has an emotive subtext. Equal time has been the subject of court hearings in the US, as advocates of creationism have asked for equal time in the school teaching of biology. They assert that the biblical story of creation should receive equal time in teaching with the theory of evolution. The undertone of Dr. Maddox's comment seems to be to compare the wave model with creationism. If this is intended, it is an invalid comparison. The postulates of creationism are theological, not scientific, in origin and qualify as transcendant metaphysics in Ayer's (1971) sense. The postulates of the wave model can be supported by positive evidence, it is less metaphysical in character than the alternatives given time and space in Nature.
In any case, nobody asked for "equal time." What is sought is "daylight and fairplay" in words that Toulmin (1972) found apt when commenting on the recurrent neglect of new scientific theories. Nature should want daylight on the reasoning in any field but, in this case, actually connives in its concealment and gives no time at all to the wave model. It is not fairplay to report three as if it were two, it is not even true, it is a plain falsehood and the journal is being asked to correct the false and misleading statements it has published. At present it is hard to see the difference between Nature's publication policy and that to be expected from the propaganda broadsheet published by some political party. Both present a biased viewpoint, ignoring rebuttals from other opinion as much as possible, though the reader of a party manifesto is not led to expect something else!
Nobody wants to contest a scientist's right to pursue questions that interest him but that right does not release him from a responsibility to report his results, and his field, truthfully. Nature was again asked for its code of practice concerning false or misleading statements but Dr. Maddox declined to add anything.
Considering his public claims it is hard to see what he could add. In October 1973, a Nature editorial said, "The validity of new concepts is usually established ultimately by processes not dissimilar to those involved in the determination of guilt or innocence in a court of law." Yes, one agrees that theories should be assessed by some form of due process but they seem not to be in Nature. The procedural rules of a courtroom are carefully defined and are available to litigants. They, in turn, have a duty to disclose relevant information and all parties get a hearing. They must give their arguments openly, are subject to cross-examination, during which they are obliged to reply and it is a crime to knowingly giving false evidence. Higher courts hear appeals and will overturn decisions made by lower courts that fail to follow procedures. There seems to be absolutely no point of resemblance between this due process, as claimed by Dr. Maddox, and the capping debate conducted under him in Nature.
Nature is a very old journal and in 1994, to celebrate its 125th anniversary, it sponsored a conference in Japan reviewed under the title, "how to pursue academic excellence" (Maddox (1994a). An address was given by Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer a former Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge and former head of the UK's University Grants Committee. His title was, "The Importance of Academic Freedom," and Nature subsequently published the text (Swinnerton-Dyer (1995)). Sir Peter explained the need for academic freedom, its character and some of the duties associated with it. The publication of this paper by Nature, alongside the stature and history of its author, make it a significant document in relation to Nature, Cambridge, British higher education in general and the kind of standards these institutions claim to espouse.
In teaching Sir Peter holds that, "So far as teaching is concerned, an academic's duty is to his or her pupils. One part of it is to present the truth as he or she sees it, but it goes much further than that. ....... when controversial issues are addressed, the academic has a duty to acknowledge clearly views other than his or her own."
According to Swinnerton-Dyer, the duty to clearly acknowledge other views applies to teaching. On the face of it, Drs. Metcalfe, Hesketh, Bretscher and Koch were in breach of this duty in the way they taught capping in Cambridge, even in the Department from which the wave model was published. The principle is essentially the point made by "A Habit of Lies" but this author would moderate it somewhat. Teaching, as true, one's own belief in an unconventional theory may do students a disservice. Perhaps the consensus of opinion should be central to all teaching, with alternatives clearly laid out for consideration. The individual academic could express his beliefs within that framework.
However, that caveat on teaching need not apply to reporting research. It seems to this author that the requirement to acknowledge alternatives, and seriously consider them, should apply more strongly to research than teaching. Academic freedom, taken in isolation, may permit false reviews but academic responsibility demands accurate and balanced reporting. Actually Swinnerton-Dyer does not address the duties involved in reporting research and clarification was sought from him. In the reporting of research, do scientists have an academic duty to acknowledge alternative theories to those they themselves hold? A draft of "A Habit of Lies" was sent in order that he would understand the context of the question. Unfortunately, no reply was received.
Science is an American journal, published by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) and in many ways similar to Nature. The Editor-in-Chief was Prof. D.E. Koshland and correspondence with it concerned papers from Jacobsen's group. Generally, Science either does not reply to letters at all, or replies only after the elapse of a considerable period of time. A number of acknowledgements were received from the letters editor, Christine Gilbert, who noted that they could not force Prof. Jacobsen to correspond. In response to a draft copy of this book, the following Dear Dr. Hewitt, 14 May 1993
Thank you for letter of 23 January and the enclosed review. It is not clear to me how the review reflects SCIENCE policy in any way other than the extent to which it reflects the process of science in a general sense. Many scientists would like their ideas to be accepted by their peers, but that does not mean that the peers are guilty of "false or misleading publication" if they do not accept an idea.With respect to the "correction" you propose, we generally do not consider comments on a paper after 6 months have passed since publication.We appreciate your taking the time to write.
Sincerely,
Christine Gilbert
(Letters Editor)Here, as so often, there is the feeling of an issue deflected into ritual rather than addressed. These papers, like those in Nature, are false but not because they fail to accept the wave model. They are false and misleading because they fail to reject it and pretend that it does not exist. Anyone has the right to reject the wave model, but they also have a duty to acknowledge its rejection and a refusal to do so is not a normal process of science. It would be normal to openly dismiss the wave model and accept the discipline of rational explanation. The false and misleading quality of these publications stems from a failure to acknowledge or explain a rejection that is writ plain between their lines. This distinction appears quite clear and it does not seem believable that Miss Gilbert, Prof. Koshland or any other person capable of editing a major journal, would be unable to appreciate it. Moreover, false publication is not a victimless crime and six months is an abnormally short period for a statute of limitations.
Science has a stated editorial policy of publishing minority views, not just those of the majority.
All the correspondence described in "A Habit of Lies" is with people who take an adversarial stance toward the wave model. That stance is reflected not in any cogent argument rebutting it or even an openly stated opposition. Instead, one sees a refusal to cooperate in any dialogue. That is the stance of scientists who ignore the wave model in their papers, it is the stance of institutions who connive with their staff in committing such falsity and it is the stance of the journals who publicised their work. In each case, there is an absolute refusal to take part in any meaningful exchange concerning the wave model, even to the extent of transparently invalid logic and false publication. These practices are a clear violation of the norms of science to which these institutions publicly declare themselves committed.
In capping, false and misleading articles have been published. The journals are aware of it, yet do nothing, and the falsehoods stand uncorrected. The two most prestigious and influential journals in the world have both published materially false and misleading papers but neither is prepared to make any correction. Neither journal is prepared to disclose their code of practice or their policies with regard to false publication. It is hard to see this as maintaining scientific standards. If there are rules here, they are ad hoc rules, made up by editors to suit circumstance and convenience. Whatever journals say about standards (and they editorialise much and imply even more), in practice they pay only lip service to critical rationalism and open debate. However valid the dissent and genuine the differences of opinion, the scientific literature parrots an establishment view and sees no reason to reflect any other. At best, journals are mouthpieces for one side of a debate or the other. At worst, they collaborate in suppressing the truth.
In the wider world the press is often portrayed as a bastion of freedom, constraining establishment abuse of power and protecting individual liberty. The freedom of the press to challenge those in power is important and individual liberties depend upon its willingness and ability to do so. Unfortunately, in science the press is no counterbalance to the power of the scientific establishment. The links between scientific press and scientific authority are very close and journals serve merely as mouthpieces for the establishment. When dissenting voices are raised in science, a press so constituted is an ideal instrument to attach labels such as "junk" science, pseudoscience etc. to the dissenters and their work.
Journals recruit editorial staff from scientists and appoint those with high reputations as editors. A distinguished editor lends credence to a journal and attracts good articles from his contacts. The editor selects broadly like-minded referees who have a virtual veto on the publication of a paper. Their identity will be unknown to authors. All this is claimed to ensure the quality of scientific publications. Whether it does so in fact is arguable but it certainly creates control. In practice "quality" is simply the establishment position. Critics point to the links between press and establishment, observing that this alone will account for the huge preponderance of papers reaffirming the prevailing conventional wisdom, the accepted paradigm, of any field. It was to describe this process and its exponents, that Milton (Forbidden Science, (1994)) coined the term "paradigm police". His phrase encapsulates the central problem. Contrary to its claims, the scientific press does not support scientific process, it supports scientific orthodoxy. It suppresses dissenting views and hounds and abuses dissenters, while offering no challenge to false orthodoxy or establishment abuse of power.
This Chapter has :-
- Reviewed Nature's publication history, the correspondence with Nature's Editor and its public position on scientific malpractice and given a response.
- Outlined the correspondence with Science and given a reaction.
- Pointed out that with journals, as with institutions, there seem to be no discernible rules.
- Indicated how and why the scientific press fails to counterbalance establishment abuse of power.
© Copyright John A Hewitt.
For contact information, see copyright page.
Last Modified 21 October 2005