So DNA might have become “nothing but a hoax and scare tactic" as the lobbyists’ blogs put it. Molecular Biology might have been set back or killed off for a generation. But of course this was pure science and didn't threaten global economic interests.
I have been wondering what the global-warming-deniers would have made of Watson and Crick and Nature in 1953 if they had known how they acquired Rosalind Franklin’s data; if Watson's outrageously politically incorrect views had been outed in hacked emails; if their Central Dogma had been exposed as strictly not true by the discovery of reverse transcriptase in the full glare of the modern media? As for the magazine, this appears in Nature's Wikipedia entry: “John Maddox, Nature's editor, stated that 'the Watson and Crick’s paper was not peer-reviewed by Nature... the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident. No referee working in the field ... could have kept his mouth shut once he saw the structure'."
So DNA might have become “nothing but a hoax and scare tactic" as the lobbyists’ blogs put it. Molecular Biology might have been set back or killed off for a generation. But of course this was pure science and didn't threaten global economic interests. Science in every aspect is now in the sights of Right-Wing deny-everything lobby. I was horrified by Newsnight last night. Nature magazine is now under attack, as well as the East Anglian climate unit, and there is a whiff of McCarthyism or even Lysenkoism in the air. The scientists don't deliver the results the powers would like: let the science and the scientists be changed. Of course, the politicians have officially been on message on climate change but the right wing lobbies are scenting triumph now. Neither the BBC's Science nor Environment editor has tried to explain the process of science in all this and I haven't heard any message from the Royal Society or the international scientific community.
There is no need for an “inquiry” into the East Anglian Climate Unit. Every scientific paper published in a journal like Nature is subject to criticism by the work and the papers that follow it. That is what science consists of: an ongoing criticism of all previous work. Science doesn’t do inquiries: science already IS one big inquiry. Unfortunately, the science community needs to learn that the rest of the world works in an entirely different, sly and deceitful, way. Science has got to lose its innocence and learn to play streetwise in public; if not it’s going to lose everything. There are currently dozens of popular science books on evolution but a new one has joined the essential list: Nick Lane's Life Ascending (Profile), just out in paperback. With great gusto, Lane delivers updates on 10 key topics from the origin of life to ageing. He brings a biochemist's perspective to bear and I defy anyone not to learn something fantastic from this book, however much they think they already know. If you want an antidote to the Jerry Fodor controversy, this is it. Everyone should take the Epilogue - a homage to Jacob Bronowski and the true spirit of science - to heart.
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AuthorI'm a writer whose interests include the biological revolution happening now, the relationship between art and science, jazz, and the state of the planet Archives
March 2016
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