Summary
Introduction
Who will be Interested and why
Abstract of a Habit of Lies
Topics Described
What is not Included
Further CommentsAs home pages go, "A Habit of Lies" is a large site and, being about science, it can be rather heavy going. I try to keep it as light as possible but the subject needs precision and precision makes weight necessary. The site is an antiestablishment document, its particular theme being bad science - omission, misrepresentation and malpractice. I believe that the patterns of behaviour to be described are widespread but this site focusses on my own experiences in the shady field of cell capping. This is a part of cell biology and, in many respects, the ideas discussed underlie the whole topic of cell motility - how cells move.
Introduction
Thus it is a large field and a part of mainstream science. The individuals whose behaviour I will describe as "lying" are professional scientists with international reputations. Most work in major institutions, such as Cambridge and I will be naming them. The possible legal implications of this are discussed in the legal notes which form part of the preface. Neither the individuals nor their institutions have yet attempted to challenge any of the statements made here.
The site should interest people involved in or interested in science - scientists, students of science and philosophers and sociologists of science. Some will see this whole topic as just an academic squat; sure, it will certainly concern a few specialists but is it of real interest to us, the general reader? I can only reply that if you are not interested in science, you will not be interested in this site.
Certainly, the behaviour I will describe as lying has parallels elsewhere in the community and some readers may feel they already see enough of it without worrying about science as well. That is fair enough but remember, science ultimately affects everyone in the modern world. The scientific establishment have spent a lot of taxpayer's money in this field -£1 billion world-wide is a fair estimate - and they have delivered pretty poor value for that money. Remember also that events in one field can perfectly well occur happen in others, and perhaps then you will understand that how scientific spending decisions are taken is cause for general concern and deserves critical study. Moreover, the word "lies" in my title is entirely defensible, the word is taken to mean falsehoods that are known to be false by the person uttering them. There is a widespread illusion that scientists either couldn't or wouldn't lie but that is an illusion. In fact, there are numerous demonstrations that deceit is commonplace, the myth of truth persists because the scientific community avert their gaze in response to each demonstration of falsehood. The history of this field demonstrates, if further proof were needed, that in science, as elsewhere, falsehoods can acquire as much momentum as truth - a scientific liar needs only the means and position needed to lie loud and often. Meanwhile, I assert that today's students in biology and related disciplines are being taught falsehoods as facts.
The discussion concerns typical, motile, amoeboid cells. Motile meaning cells able to move under their own steam, usually across surfaces, and amoeboid meaning similar in form to an amoeba. Amoeboid cells include many of the most important cell types in the human body and in most other animal forms on the planet. They do not include plant cells, bacteria or non-motile mammalian cells such as red blood cells. Interpretations of amoeboid cells are relevant to other, non-amoeboid cell types, such as nerve cells, which show parallel properties and/or amoeboid regions.
This field arose from efforts to explain certain experimental facts about motile, amoeboid cells and what those facts are can be summarised quite simply. When some external object - a soot particle for example, small by compared to a cell but large by molecular standards - comes into contact with the cell's outer surface it moves. The particle generally moves backward across the cell surface, backward meaning opposite in direction to that in which the cell is moving. It is clear that this is not some passive process, the cell itself is actually moving the particle. Finally, it is possible to clump groups of the cell's outer proteins together, to form a "patch", and that patch then moves, much as do adherent external particles. Eventually, these patches group together at the rear of the cell to form a "cap."
This site describes the ideas that have been advanced to account for these observations. One is the "cytoskeletal model." This idea is mechanistically unclear and cannot be easily described. It seems to assert that all these movements are caused by direct contact between the moving particle and the cell's internal cytoskeleton of actin/mysosin fibrils. The cytoskeletal model is not really "scientific" in that it makes few clear, falsifiable predictions but, insofar as it does, I review the evidence against it.
The second suggestion is the lipid flow hypothesis, the idea thar the membrane of the cell flows continuously. This idea is perfectly clear mechanistically but generally seen as wrong and in my view, that perception is justified. There has never been any strong evidence to support it and it does seem to have been disproved.
The third model was advanced by myself. It proposes that these observations are best explained by proposing the existence of cell surface waves and that those same waves are also involved in cell motility. I continue to support this idea and review evidence in its favour. I also assert that all the worthwhile evidence in the field points to this last hypothesis being substantially correct.
A key point is that a review of theories in this field needs to report the existence of at least three models. "At least three" because it is perfectly possible that I, myself, have missed some. "At least three" does not permit two to be reported unless workers are unaware of the third, or have previously shown why it is incorrect. Accordingly, it is false to report the field as if only two theories need to be considered. Nonetheless, such reporting has for years been the habitual practice of workers in the field. So far as I can determine, no plausible refutation of the wave model has ever been given. The main policy has been that workers neither indicate their rejection of it nor acknowledge its existence as an alternative to their own views.
This practice culminated in very prominent publications in both "Nature" and Science" which claimed to establish the truth of the cytoskeletal model by reporting experiments which eliminated the flow model. These seemed entirely compatible with the wave model but, although the principal advocate of the flow model was allowed to reply in those journals I, the primary advocate of the wave model, was not permitted to do so.
I consider this state of affairs to be disgraceful. It seems to me a level of scientific incompetence so flagrant it can only be deliberate and a violation of recognised standards of scientific practice and the ethics of dialectic - the "Habit of Truth" that science publicly claims to follow. Neither, can I make this charge solely against individual scientists, it is clear that their behaviour is sanctioned by the journals in which they publish and institutes in which they work. It amounts, in short, to nothing more than "A Habit of Lies." Hence the title of my site.
Though it is as yet unpublished, I have written a book on this topic, about half which is given here. This half forms, I believe, a fairly self-contained read; it reviews the capping field, describes the relevant theories and summarises the way they are reported in the literature. It indicates what I think should be said in response and indicates the line taken by established workers and scientific institutions when confronted by the issues. I am, myself, a scientist , with all the qualifications and experience needed to form a judgement, and to me the arguments and evidence presented in chapter 7 seem strong to the point of being overwhelming. This information is well-known to workers in the field, yet these powerful arguments and evidence are knowingly ignored by the scientific establishment. This behaviour breaks the rules of scientific logic, hence my view that their conduct amounts to cheating. "A Habit of Lies" corrects, and criticises, misleading articles prominently published in the scientific literature. The work includes a lengthy summary of scientific philosophy and logic. The weight of this section is needed to explain, with precision, just why these publications are false and misrepresentative. The site also archives some fairly boring material that a few readers will want to see but which will not be worth putting into print.
Parts of my book are not presented here. During the writing my own interests have moved away from cell biology toward an examination of science itself, its people, its institutions and its practices. The chapters omitted from the internet site reflect this change, they review social aspects of science and synthesise my views on relevant social and philosophical issues. Their purpose is to help incorporate the reality of establishment malpractice into scientific philosophy and sociology. They are not specific to any one field of science and I have no immediate plan to make them available on the internet. However, I can say that scientific institutions permit arbitrary, unsubstantiable and even manifestly wrong, assessments to be imposed by their establishment figures, while practices and procedures adopted with the supposed intent of maintaining quality, actually operate to suppress criticism and conceal such establishment cheating. In short establishment science, like institutions everywhere, responds to dissent with suppression, while establishment scientists can and do develop "A Habit of Lies." The phenomenon described here in just one field, seems just a manifestation of a wider socio-scientific syndrome in which establishment self-interest routinely overrides truth.
I am happy to be attacking these malpractices but I confess to feeling the duality of my own position. I have strong feelings about these matters (otherwise this would be an anodyne work) and I myself have a vested interest, with no claim to be neutral. Perhaps my attacks would be more persuasive were they made from a posture of noble objectivity but the hard fact is that the noble and the objective rarely delve deeply into the workings of science. I can make these charges precisely because the main subject matter comes from my own experience and I do make them precisely because of my vested interests. I hope, and I do believe, that the strength of my personal feelings has not infected my own argument with the same "Habit of Lies" of which I complain in others. My aim, like that of any science writer, is to give readers all the factual information needed to form a well-balanced judgement of their own. I believe that readers will gain such a balanced set of information by reading this site but I charge that they could not do so by reading the scientific literature.
Much antiestablishment discussion of science derives from fields that professionals generally, and offensively, call pseudoscience or crank science. Subjects such as the paranormal, homeopathic medicine or creation science spring to mind. These, and similar topics, will be little discussed here or in my book. This is neither a negative nor a positive commentary on those fields, it is a recognition that spending time on subjects not generally recognised as legitimate science would distract attention from the primary aim, which concerns science proper. With that aim in mind, there is a list of links to relevant sites addressing related topics, readers knowing such, please contact me.
If these topics interest you, dip a toe in, the main contents is a good starting place. Please note that all text published on this site is copyright to the author, John A. Hewitt; all rights are reserved. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and fairness of all statements made here but errors can creep in; workers are welcome to use short textual extracts, with attribution, but if you want to rely on a statement or conclusion presented here, you should check the cited sources whenever possible. Any person, and this applies especially to anyone mentioned in the text, who disputes the factual accuracy, balance or fairness of any comment, is invited to contact the author detailing the point at issue. Constructive criticism guides improvement and is always welcome. My address is on the copyright page. All parts of "A Habit of Lies" are subject to continuous review and may be revised without notice.
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My E-mail address is on the copyright page.
Updated 21 October 2005