There are many writers who view themselves as iconoclasts in terms of science. They want to render asunder any notions of science being a solid tool of enlightened thinking. Their approach is to gainsay scientific information such as the Anthropogenic climate change in some cases. In others it is either a post-modern or fundamentalist religion that sparks their furor.
In those examples the books and their conclusions are most often filled with banal and subjective tropes. Some books such as those published by Regnery Press, are simply filled with lies. John Grant’s book Corrupted Science does not fall into either of the suggested categories. He states from the beginning that “Facts do not lie”. Their interpretation can be distorted of course.
Grant is clearly motivated by politics however and the corrupted science he proffers as examples are weighing heavily on notions such as Nazi science and global warming denial. He does back them up with solid references but as he admits from the beginning, the pursuit of science starts from the subjective ideas of scientists and those notions are largely culturally based.
With the spate of retractions from major (and minor) scientific publications currently, we are witness to several forms of corruption. They come from several causes ranging from fairly benign data sloppiness to the fear of not publishing enough. They also are extremely egregious in the case of Woo Suk Hwang and his fraudulent publications on cloning in 2004 or Andrew Wakefield’s outrageous claims that vaccines cause autism.
Grant examines reasons form scientific fraud and they include personal grudges and animosity in the case of Arthur Eddington and his feud with former student Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Sometimes they are simply a result of cherry picking data in order to enhance one’s own research, publication numbers and personal status.
These are all part of a crescendo that leads to his main culprit and that is science based on ideology. Twisting or simply creating lab results that bolster for instance Stalin’s reliance on “vernalization” or Hitler’s “Aryan science” have wreaked havoc on millions of people over the years and did not enhance science at all. Grant is particularly harsh regarding Bush’s reliance on industry led research that favored big business.
The book is fairly interesting but is replete with Grant’s own personality. It is a bit outdated given events that have occurred during the eight years since its publication. More of his examples than not, have been written about much so his additional information tends to be somewhat peripheral.
If Corrupted Science were the reader’s first foray into the history of bad science there is much to learn and many ideas to pursue for further research.
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