What struck me the most is that the critiques that've emerged from the email snooping and the work Mazur's generating seem to be grounded in a pre-Kuhnian understanding of how science works... and the science studies world has moved far beyond Kuhn in the almost half century since the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolution.
Somehow, these folks forget that the intrusion of institutional reproduction, hierarchical power relations and efforts to defend scientific orthodoxy and hegemony are normal parts of science - something we've known for a long time, even Merton understood that objectivity was the production of the institutions of science not of the individuals.
Where Kuhn went wrong, of course, was in the functionalist account of hegemonic paradigmatic normal science leading to the gradual accumulation of explanatory gaps which generate a weakening edifice eventually producing theoretical crisis followed by competition between (usually) youthful and underestablished scientits and theorists - often at least initially suppressed by some of their more established mentors - before that competition leads to the establishment of a new hegemonic paradigm and subsequent stage of normal scientific practice.
While there are still problems with Lakatos' variously Venn-like overlapping research programs, and I'm not a fan of Feyerabend's anarchistic embrace of pragmatism (if it works, even just a little, it is science and ought to deserve respect and funding), these approaches almost immediately engaged with the ambiguity and differentiation resident within Kuhn's assumedly homogeneity of practice within hegemonic paradigms.
Larry Moran's argument ought to clear up a few things. First, while there is a dominant modern synthesis, Lakatos' work alone ought to indicate that any claims to it reflecting a hard, fast, established and complete truth are wildly overwrought. The same would be true about climate change. It is not a critique of the science behind the anthropogenic roots of a large portion of climate change that 98% of climate scientists embrace that there are still debates within that 98%, that there are still power relations informing the science, refereeing and publication of results, that people producing lousy science - particularly within the 2% of skeptics - are not smiled apon individually or institutionally by the 98%, or that there are still things to be worked out (duh, the more you know, the more you ought to know you don't know).
Second, the "problem" Mazur and climate change skeptics attribute to 99.5% of evolutionary scientists and 98% of all climate scientists is perfectly recapitulated by Mazur and climate change skeptics. If evolutionary and climate scientists are resistant to critique, intolerant of (especially crappy) science outside the box, and overstate the incontrovertability and totalizing nature of their account, at least they do so as part of a long-established majority that is the product of multiple rounds of internal disagreement, uncertaintly and sub-paradigmatic developments and "revolutions". Mazur and ecoskeptics, on the other hand, make wildly overblown claims about the illegitimacy of the modern synthesis and climate science based on the claims and publications of scientists, journalists and politicians that have almost always garnered devastating methodological critiques - critiques rarely coherently responded to - from the realm of modern science.
This is NOT to say that evolution is taught well or operationalized in a just manner or that the policy ramifications drawn by most climate scientists, environmentalists, bureaucrats and politicians are the right ones or the just ones. It is furthermore NOT to say that many avenues of evolutionary and climate science that might generate or support more fair and just policy perspectives and planning have not been rejected, forestalled, undermined or suppressed by folks within dominant scientific-political institutions, many have. It is, however, to say that Mazur and skeptics might want to be better journalists, scientists and advocates before overstating the strength and misrepresenting the foundation of their work and perspectives.
On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Bryan Atinsky <bryan at alt-info.org> wrote:
> Andy wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Secrecy and Bias in the Old Boys' Network
>>> The Peer Review Prison
>>>
>>> By SUZAN MAZUR
>>>
>>> While the hacked emails episode several months ago revealing attempts by
>>> scientists to withhold information about global warming from publication
>>> has put the matter of *peer review under scrutiny* like never before,
>>> secrecy in peer review continues to be upheld by the science
>>> establishment as a good thing rather than seen for what it is – a brake
>>> on the flow of ideas, a reminder that rogue scientists face rejection by
>>> powerful forces, ostracism and other tortures.
>>>
>>>
>> http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2009/10/expos-of-evolution-industry.html
>
> An Exposé of the Evolution Industry?
>
> Susan Mazur is a science writer. A few years ago she got wind of a
> conference that was planed for Altenberg in Austria. This was going to be a
> small meeting for 16 biologists who were promoting some unusual perspectives
> on evolution.
> She started to write about this meeting, promoting the idea that there was
> some sort of conspiracy to overthrow modern evolutionary theory. She managed
> to raise enough of a stink that the odor reached Science and Nature. [See
> The Altenberg 16 Make It into Nature.]
> Of course, by the time Nature got on to the story it was easy to debunk the
> conspiracy theory and demonstrate that some of the Altenberg 16 were, how
> shall I put it? ... not in the mainstream of biological thinking [Biological
> theory: Postmodern evolution?].
> Susan Mazur contacted me at the beginning of this episode and I tried to
> help her understand the difference between legitimate controversies in
> science and pseudo-controversies promoted by kooks. For a while I thought
> she was making progress but this turned out to be an illusion. She soon
> discovered that there was more fame and glory to be had by associating with
> the kooks than by siding with good science.
>
> But here's the problem. There really are some important issues in
> evolutionary biology that need to be worked out. I think the so-called
> "Modern Synthesis" (hardened version) has to be extended in order to
> incorporate a more pluralist ic view [We Need to Soften the Modern
> Synthesis]. In that sense, I agree with some of the participants at the
> Alternberg meeting. However, they made a big mistake by including other,
> not-so-legitmate, controversies. That allows many evolutionary biologists to
> dismiss the entire exercise; as reported by Elizabeth Pennisi, in Science
> [Modernizing the Modern Synthesis].
> ... SNIP...
> Susan Mazur has now published the book that we all expected. As you can see
> from the title, the theme is still conspiracy, plus the idea that evolution
> is in trouble. It would have been great if Mazur had focused on the real
> problems in evolutionary theory and helped the general public understand
> that some of the "controversies" are not legitimate.
> Alas, that lofty goal is too difficult for her. We'll have to wait until a
> better science writer picks up the baton.