Galileo's Middle Finger: Persecuting Scientists Whose Findings Are Seen As Politically Incorrect

[HuckleB]

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/persecution-of-scientists-whose-findings-are-perceived-as-politically-incorrect/#more-40844

"It dates back at least to Galileo. A scientist finds evidence that contradicts a cherished popular belief. Instead of a rational examination of his evidence, he is subjected to vicious personal attacks. Alice Dreger examines the phenomenon in her book Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science. She is eminently qualified to do so. She is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics, a historian, a gifted writer, an activist for patient rights, and an indefatigable investigative journalist who has herself been a victim of the kind of persecution she describes.

The histories she recounts are horrifying. She gives example after example of activists using lies and personal attacks to suppress evidence they don’t like. She reveals dirty linen in the most unexpected places.

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A pattern repeats itself. The scientist’s message is distorted; critics often don’t bother to read the book or the article in question, but are content to rely on someone else’s garbled misinterpretation. They are not angry about what the scientist actually said, but about what they thinkhe or she said. When E. O. Wilson wrote his book Sociobiology, his intent was to help humans understand their own nature. His message was misrepresented as an attempt to exonerate people from responsibility for crimes or social problems, and even as supporting “the eugenics policies which led to the establishment of gas chambers in Nazi Germany.” Hatred of Wilson escalated to the point that a group of his detractors rushed onstage and doused him with a pitcher of water at a scientific conference.

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Good people with the best intentions can do bad things. Dreger concludes that we need both scholars and activists; we need people pushing for truth and for justice if we’re going to get both right. She is fair to both sides: she exposes the sins of activists and the sins of scientists and scientific institutions. Highly respected thinkers like Jared Diamond, Edward O. Wilson, Elizabeth Loftus, and Steven Pinker have endorsed the book. Diamond says it would be “this year’s most gripping novel” except that her stories are true. Wilson says she “reveals the shocking extent to which some disciplines have been infested by mountebanks, poseurs and even worse, political activists who put ideology ahead of science.” A good read, valuable information, a cautionary tale, and plenty of food for thought."

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The reviewer gives some amazing examples of the persecution in the title. I can't wait to read this one. It looks good.