This is the preface to "A Habit of Lies." It makes a few comments on the background to the work and discusses its legal status as a potentially libelous document, though, in fact, none of the people or institutions criticized dispute its accuracy. The preface also gives a brief biography of the author.
Preface
1. Preliminary Comments
2. Legal Matters
3. Autobiographical Note
A half truth presented as a whole truth becomes, in the end, a total lie. (Robert Ardrey)
False authorship or redundant publication is no solitary act. It occurs in an organizational setting that either elicits such behaviour or does nothing to prohibit it. Such a setting creates a climate for malpractice: the combination of silence, lack of monitoring, and unknown rules equals a conspiracy of normlessness. (Daryl E. Chubin)
1. Preliminary Comments
Authors, so I understand, are well-advised to plan their work before they begin writing but I broke this cardinal rule and started with only a desire to commit my experiences to paper. My initial ideas about the work's final shape were vague, even more so than I realised when I began. The result is that this book has not so much been written, as grown organically alongside my efforts to understand the events of my own past.
Even during during the nineteen seventies I believed a text such as this was needed but active work only began in about 1989 to 1990. Starting was hard, as was the writing, like many scientists, I am no great wordsmith. I believe there has been an improvement in my prose style during the years but still feel the need to rewrite everything. As I do so, I comfort myself with Maslow's (1966) aphorism, "what needs doing, is worth doing even though not very well." My literary efforts may be, in his words, "inelegant, imprecise, and crude," but still there is a real need for books, such as this, which explore the forbidden badlands of science. Hopefully, inelegances have been smoothed enough to make the work readable and interesting, therebye stimulating others to contribute their own skills to the problem. Though "A Habit of Lies" focuses on just one area of cell biology, the distortion of science by false and selective reporting is not so confined, it has wider implications both within and beyond science.
My motivations spring from strong personal feelings, which have made it hard for me to commit the issues to paper. Even at the best of times, scientists find it difficult to exclude emotions from the debate required by their calling and I am no exception. The circumstances described in "A Habit of Lies" are not the best of times and there is no doubt my passions intrude upon the content of the book. Even so, it is intended to be a rationalist document and if you, the reader, find in it arguments or conclusions you feel are invalid, inadequately supported or merely polemical, please point them out - constructive criticism is the seedcorn of improvement.
A number of people have been kind enough to read and comment on the manuscript. Some have found it too cold and dispassionate; they suggest it needs a personal side to explain the motivations of the author, where he is coming from, why he is saying these things. There is truth to that and, although not in the idiom of science, the autobiographical note is included in response. Ian Coulter, Sarah Fletcher, & Richard Hewitt all made extensive suggestions that changed and improved the text and I am indebted to them all; Sarah, in particular, propelled me to take the steps beginning this long journey and suffered many dialogues with me. Sally-Anne Pye drew most of the cartoons, her interest and originality were striking, while Andrew Dexter added further pictures. Daryl Chubin saved me much time in libraries by sending copies of his papers and a number of scientists did likewise but, for reasons the reader may find obvious, I shall forbear from mentioning them by name.
This book opposes an influential and widely taught conventional wisdom and some of its reporting may seem negative, its points contrary. This is not intentional, merely inevitable, and is, I think, no grounds to dismiss the argument as mere griping, as many influential figures would like to do. My hope is that readers will recognise a positive, constructive side to the work presented here, not least the solution to a real scientific problem. In any case, the work is now directed, not simply to workers in the field but to the community at large. To claim that wider audience, issues must be clearly laid out and their broader significance shown. With science that is not easy; scientific issues do have wider relevance but they can appear narrow and hardly lend themselves to explanations that are both precise and uncomplicated. In this, I beg assistance in correcting my failures and if you, the reader, feel some detail needs improved explanation, please point this out to the author.
In the form circulated to scientific workers, this book began with the title "Cap That!", an invitation those workers declined to take up. The present title originates in the writings of Jacob Bronowski, a scientists, broadcaster and, perhaps, the moral philosopher to whom scientists turn more than any other. He spoke of science and developing "The Habit of Truth", the kind of phrase that generates an aura in which scientists like to bask. An example is Hoagland (1990). That illustrious, Nobel prize winning biochemist has absolutely no involvement in the field we will discuss. My point is simply that he picked out that phrase as the title of his own autobiography. A Habit of Truth is certainly a good thing and, no doubt, Hoagland possesses it. However, it is a phrase that does not fairly describe the behaviour of a significant proportion of the scientific community, including some of its most respected and senior figures. "A Habit of Lies", is closer to that mark and hence the title of this work.
"A Habit of Lies" levels charges, charges of unfair, inaccurate and misleading reportage against scientists, generally, of displaying a habit of lies. It names them and their institutions. Such charges should only be made carefully and, throughout the development of this work, it has been a major concern to report fairly, accurately and with balance. However, that does not mean this book actually is fair, accurate or balanced, merely that the author believes it so. Undoubtedly, inadvertent errors and omissions have crept in and readers finding one, whether reading the document on paper or via the internet, should kindly draw it to my attention.
In his letter, quoted in section 10.5, Dr. John Maddox (now Sir John), as Editor-in-Chief of Nature, suggests that "A Habit of Lies" may libel those it criticises. Further, the Medical Research Council (MRC) policy statement on malpractice indicates that it may act in law against anybody who makes allegations damaging to its reputation and this work certainly makes serious allegations. Nobody is intentionally libelled but the possibility must be treated seriously and this section briefly summarises relevant law. It is subject to the caveat that the author is not a lawyer and no legal counsel has been sought. Therefore, what follows is indicative only and should not be relied upon by anyone involved in litigation.
Libel is defined as recorded statements likely to bring down the victim in the eyes of right-thinking people. Recorded means anything written and distributed, it would include electronic writing and distribution such as the internet. Notwithstanding the definition, the law is firm that true statements are not libellous except in the rare circumstance of being reported with the sole purpose of damaging the victim's reputation. Thus an academic report may damage the reputations of other workers by criticism but could be libellous only if it reported falsehoods. Accordingly, my reply to Dr. Maddox is that "A Habit of Lies" is not libellous of him or anyone else, for the simple reason that it is true, fair comment and a matter of public interest. If it contains any inaccuracies, they are inadvertent and would be willingly corrected.
Should anyone believe that "A Habit of Lies" libels them, they should consult their legal advisers; I await their testimony with interest and will defend any action they bring. Nature and the MRC are reminded that, to proceed in law, they would need to present a rational argument and be willing to respond to the same in court. "A Habit of Lies" would be unnecessary were their staff willing to do likewise in the forum of scientific debate. Alternatively they may raise any point in question with this author, enabling any errors to be corrected.
The scientific reporting to be described is not only false and misleading but is demonstrably known to be so by the authors and agencies standing by it. This raises serious questions concerning their work and behaviour, which might themselves be raised before a court. However, I believe that neither primary law nor legal precedent will explicitly address questions of false reporting and responsibility in science. Whether a scientist can be libelled by false or selective reporting, without his name even being mentioned, would be an interesting question to pursue but it would also be costly.
Publicly at least, scientific institutions are emphatic about the need for truth as an overriding value in all deliberations, establishing quality control procedures purportedly to ensure just that. In those circumstances, a court might enforce such responsibilities under the law of Tort, or common law. Again, no precedent would exist, and trying to establish a new Tortious liability applicable to scientists, would be complex and expensive.
Britain has indicated an intention to adopt the European convention on human rights as its own law and scientific journals could be actionable under the provisions which require the press to properly inform the public. Here also, cost would be a major obstacle. To pursue such litigation, an ordinary man must spend his own money seeking justice, while institutions defend misrepresentation by their officers with funds from the public purse. For ordinary people, recourse to law is extremely hazardous and, in practice, the law offers no final justice for scientists. Still, law courts are not the only courts, there is a court of public opinion and the law emphatically defends accurate and fair reporting. To the best of the author's knowledge and belief, based on considerable research and enquiry, every word in this book and the associated internet site is true.
One final legal point, note that "A Habit of Lies" uses copies of photographs taken from scientific journals (Science and The European Journal of Cell Biology), which are copyright to those journals. British copyright law permits the use of such materials in fair-comment criticism and review, but in any case permission to so use them will be sought.
I am a Yorkshireman, born 1947 in Bradford, West Yorkshire of a working class family. After attending a local grammar I went up, as they say, to Trinity College, Cambridge to study science, duly graduated and took a Ph.D. at the MRC laboratory for Molecular Biology also in Cambridge; I continued in research, in the US and England. The work from which "A Habit of Lies" grew, was done during the early part of 1978, following the beginning of my time as a university demonstrator in biochemistry at Cambridge. In the language used by most institutions, demonstrator means junior lecturer or assistant professor.
I had been aware of capping and particle movement for some time, indeed, while a Ph.D. student, I had seen Martin Raff speak on it (capping was discovered in his laboratory) and previously attended talks on particle movement. I never found the explanations mooted believable but one needs an alternative to offer and I did not have one, though it did seem to me that the problem was more one of physics than biology.
With a first degree specialising in physical chemistry, I felt my knowledge of the physical sciences was better than most workers in the field. In addition, I knew about Durham's ideas on cell waves, some data on cell oscillations and had attended talks on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction - the extraordinary chemical reaction able to oscillate or produce wave patterns. The kinetic arguments used to explain that reaction, made it seem very likely that biochemical pathways would commonly produce similar behaviour. I had already published two theoretical papers on membranes, which I felt were my best published work, and wanted to develop that area so, in 1978, my experiments not working as desired, I set myself the theoretical task of devising a better explanation of capping. I believed I had every chance of succeeding.
Scientists need more than just alternatives to suggest, they also need credit for their innovations. I had already seen how easily such recognition becomes detached from the real innovator and is appropriated by some scientific prince. Accordingly, my intentions and ideas were not discussed with workers outside my immediate laboratory until I had them in a draft manuscript form. (The original draft differed from the final paper in that it had no mathematics. The published paper contained a mathematical analysis of wave particle interactions asked for by a referee. Considering the uncertainties in the numbers that must be used, I still doubt its value.)
I showed this preprint to the laboratories in Cambridge but was rather taken aback by the response. To a man, they acted as if nothing had been said to them. One person told me "I don't feel the field needs a new model at the moment", another thanked me for showing him this "interesting" paper, informing me he had nothing else to say. Even after the publication of the paper, this unruffled surface was maintained both in the way research was reported and in teaching. As far as could be discerned, no alternative to their views had ever been suggested or published.
That sums up the spirit of the atmosphere I experienced in Cambridge at the time and was more general than just workers in capping. Scientists are people and need even more than just alternatives and credit, they need a certain level of respect, cooperation and courtesy from their surroundings, things that did not seem available to me. I became disillusioned - not only were my colleagues unable to see something which appeared to me perfectly obvious, it seemed the whole institution could think of no basis for dialogue other than to be patronising. In 1983, my contract was ended and I needed to find a post elsewhere. One would not have thought that would be a problem, after all, even if Cambridge were not too fond of me, the post was fairly prestigious and would be expected to produce an entrée elsewhere. Actually, I do not recall receiving a single reply to my job applications and presume my former colleagues did not speak well of me.
To my mind I had solved an important problem, then been judged and removed from my career by those who had failed in their attempts at the same problem. It seemed an unbalanced way of doing things. What is more, my belief was that the field was being falsified to their benefit and to my detriment. Certainly, their work has brought many of these workers successful careers and high academic honours.
My perceptions of those events, and of the scientific process generally, have changed radically during the writing of this book. Now I see science less in black and white, and see the social scientist's point much more. I might even offer psychological interpretations of the behaviour of my former colleagues but, for natural science, I have also come to believe that attempts to analyze intentions should be irrelevant. The important things are concrete actions, clear reasons and due process. Unexplained exclusion of alternatives is a clear breach of scientific process; it is never valid, no matter how many people support it, no matter how great their influence.
The sense of injustice and disquiet remains with me and I believe the obvious questions should be answered and true descriptions published. These things should be attainable by rational argument but that requires respect for some basic ground rules of communication, for example truthfulness, and a serious intent to transmit and receive meaning. It is simple reality that many people live their lives with no respect for those groundrules and readers must judge for themselves whether such approaches work with the scientists and institutions described here. In my experience reason is unproductive, which motivates this book. I hope you will read it, even that you might enjoy it and feel you have learned something.
This is the preface page to "A Habit of Lies - How Scientists Cheat" by John A. Hewitt
© Copyright John A Hewitt.
For contact information, see copyright page.
Last Modified 14 November 2005