At the AAS meeting in Seattle, Rob Knop risked his own well-being to get the details on a poster that was, shall we say, waaaay out of the mainstream. Quoth Rob:
Now, don't get me wrong. There will be a lot of posters with data or theory that turns out to be wrong, and there are a lot of posters that disagree with each other and debate and dispute the best interpretation of the data. That's the normal process of science. The nuts here... they think they're participating in the normal process of science, but they do not understand it well enough to realize that they are just cranks, nothing more. "Closed minded" the will call those like me who write them off, or "stuck in the modern paradigm just like those who dismissed Copernicus, Galileo, and Einstein." Well, no. These folks are off their rocker, and we know it.
Nor is this sort of thing an isolated incident; one of Rob's commenters points us to this intriguing abstract from an upcoming APS meeting.
I've been there. Indeed, I've even blogged about it, back in August 2005. Here's what I wrote:
There's scientific knowledge. There are the dedicated scientists who make it, whether slaving in laboratories or in the fields, fretting over data analysis, refereeing each other's manuscripts or second guessing themselves.
And, well, there are some crackpots.
I'm not talking dancing-on-the-edge-of-the-paradigm folks, nor cheaters. I mean the guy who has the crazy idea for revolutionizing field X that actually is crazy.
Generally, you don't find too much crackpottery in the scientific literature, at least not when peer review is working as it's meant to. The referees tend to weed it out. Perhaps, as has been suggested, referees also weed out cutting edge stuff because it's just so new and hard to fit into one's stodgy old referee's picture of what's field. That may just be the price of doing business. One hopes that, eventually, the truth will out.
But where you do see a higher proportion of crackpottery, aside from certain preprint repositories, is at meetings. And there, face to face with the crackpot, the gate-keepers may behave quite differently than they would in an anonymous referee's report.
Doctor Crackpot gives a talk intended to show his brilliant new solution to a nagging problem with an otherwise pretty well established theoretical approach. Jaws drop as the presentation proceeds. Then, finally, as Doctor Crackpot is aglow with the excitement of having broken the wonderful news to his people, he entertains questions.
Crickets chirp.
Doctor Hardass, who has been asking tough questions of presenters all day, tentatively asks a question about the mathematics of this crackpot "solution". The other scholars in attendance inwardly cheer, thinking, "In about 10 seconds Doctor Hardass will have demonstrated to Doctor Crackpot that this could never work!"
Ten minutes later, Doctor Crackpot is still writing equations on the board, and Doctor Hardass has been reduced to saying, "Uh huh ..." Scholars start sneaking out as the chirping of the crickets competes with the squeaking of the chalk.
Granted, no one wants to hurt Doctor Crackpot's feelings. If it's a small enough meeting, you all probably had lunch with him, maybe even drinks the night before. He seems like a nice guy. He doesn't seem dangerous-crazy, just scientifically crazy. And, as he's been toiling in obscurity at a little backwater institution, he's obviously lonely for scientific company and conversation. So, calling him out as a crackpot seems kind of mean.
But ... it's also a little mean not to call him out. You're letting him wander through the scientific community with spinach in his teeth while trailing toilet paper from his shoe if you leave him with the impression that his revolutionary idea has any merit. Someone has to set this guy straight ... right? If you don't, won't he keep trying to sell this crackpot idea at future meetings?
So, in the continuum of "scientific knowledge", on whose behalf scientists are sworn to uphold standards and keep out the riff-raff, where do meetings fall? Do the scientists in attendance have any ethical duty to give their candid assessments of crackpottery to the crackpots? Or is it OK to just snicker about it at the bar? If there's no obligation to call the crackpot out, does that undermine the value of meetings as sources of scientific knowledge, or of the scientific communications needed to build scientific knowledge?
Who'd have thought problems might arise from scientists being too nice?
_______
Originally posted as Crackpottery, etiquette, and ethical duties on August 27, 2005.
Well, there was the time at one forensic meeting when one bigshot (whose name I will not mention) leapt to his feet and shouted "Dr. W, you are a medical whore!" and stormed out. So I have a different perspective. However, I'm a firm believer in the principle of "A thing is what it is", and you do have a duty to throw cold water on the baloney.
Not facing a tenure fight, I have published a fair number of borderline-crackpot papers myself. I have also been referee for science conferences, and been squarely faced with the dilemma that you describe.
Once, at a space engineering conference, I was scheduled into the miscellaneous and weird session. The most distinctive speaker started out by declaring: "Everybody here is talking about how to get from the Earth to the Moon. Wrong approach! I alone want to explain why we should bring the Moon to Earth. The best place to land it is at Antarctica. Then one can drive or sled to the Moon."
After he finished, he asked for questions. Loooooong silence. Finally, I raised my hand.
"Why stop with the Moon?" I asked. "Why not figure out the best places to bring Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Pluto? I'm not so sure about the gas giants."
He practically leaped back to the microphone.
"Exactly! I'm pleased to see that there's at least one scientist in the audience who can see the implications of my theory."
He had a young attractive grad student who thanked me for not leaving his paper without a question.
Poor old man. Was that the right thing for me to do?
What about the person who arranged for the crackpot to give a talk, or who accepted the crackpot poster? How does this actually happen? And does the arranger have a responsibility to speak up (not necessarily in public) if they are surprised by crackpottery?
Jonathan Vos Post,
I think you did the right thing.
When I was in college - oh, so many years ago - an elderly historian came to speak, accompanied by his son, who helped him to the stage. Though he had in his younger days made a number of useful contributions to the study of local history, the speaker just rambled incoherently from one subject to another, making a number of obviously inaccurate comments. When he finished, there was only a little hesitant applause until one of the students who was something of a loner, but intelligent and known not to suffer fools gladly, suddenly stood and applauded loudly. I looked from him to the old man looking out hesitantly over the audience, and remembered that there really are occasions when showing compassion is more important than pointing out failings. I also stood, and then some of my friends followed, and then other students, until almost everyone in the room was standing. As the applause continued, the speaker appeared overwhelmed with surprise and pleasure. His son came to the front, mouthed "thank you, thank you" to the audience, and with tears in his eyes led his smiling father away. It was the historian's last public appearance. I think we did the right thing, too.
I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, a couple of years ago, having been sponsored as a graduate student by ORNL. The meeting format has Nobel Larueates speak in the morning in lecture-hall style, then afternoon small-group sessions for questions and answers.
Most of the laureates talked about their Nobel work, or things they'd done since. Two lectures memorably stood out to me. One was a discussion of science vs. pseudoscience. Ironically, that lecture was shortly followed by another one of similar theme. Unintentionally similar theme.
The Laureate who spoke, obviously someone intelligent and capable, ranted about his work in cold fusion and how the science community was blackballing him and the energy companies were pressuring the government to shut him down. He seethed at the peer review publishing system. I believe, as you mentioned, the peer review system was working correctly in not publishing the kinds of results this particular gentleman was discussing. He explained that while nobody else could duplicate his work, and many had tried (even under his aegis at his facility), it should still be given every consideration as it was revolutionary.
It was evident to everyone I spoke with that he was a crackpot, but the audience listened politely; not in respect for his ideas, but in respect of the Nobel prizes and what they represent, and in respect of what he had already accomplished. I didn't attend his small-group session, so I cannot report directly on what occurred there (nor did I go to the small-group on pseudoscience, as there was a prominent crystallographer, and, well, one never passes up the opportunity to pick the mind of someone whose work is influential on one's own graduate thesis). I was told by other attendees that the crackpot laureate defended his beliefs most passionately. Indeed, the questions and even attacks that some lobbed at him only entrenched him furhter in the belief that he was right.
I think if it is evident to all that the guy is a lunatic, sometimes public humiliation is not necessary. It is sufficient, I believe, to let the peer review system work and to engage in frank discussion anyone you hear naive enough to buy into the absurd ideas. Unless they have significant funding/prestige (see the Nobel Laureate above), they will fade into obscurity on their own. Science is not weakened by radical, absurd ideas that come and go, and we shouldn't be threatened by them because science itself has very good ways of dealing with them and sorting through the ideas for truth.
Besides, who knows... maybe that crackpot will stumble onto just one thing that is true, and that we can use. I think we should be prudent and kind, and accept that even in science we have crazy uncles, at whom we smile before we shake our heads, and sigh.