PREFACE:
I am very thankful to Springer-Verlag for publishing a collection of
some of my non-mathematical works—I call them political works, in the broad
sense of the word political. Three of these have appeared in print:
- My article on the Ladd-Lipset survey, which appeared in the New
York Review of Books,18 May 1978; and also in The File (Springer-Verlag, 1981).
- My article on the Baltimore case, which appeared in the Journal
of Ethics and Behavior, February 1993.
- My articles on HIV and AIDS, which appeared in the Yale Scientific
(Fall 1994 and Winter 1995), reprinted updated in the book AIDS:
Virus—or drug induced?. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, pp. 271-307.
- The first item, "Academia, Journalism, and Politics," is itself
a book based on my Huntington file. The "Background and Motivation"
section of this sub-book can be used as a foreword for all my "political"
works, and also contains an explanation of how I use the word "political."
In that section, readers will find a general discussion of the way I process
information and some criteria I use in discourse.
- For another discussion in a different case, readers can refer to my
essay "Questions of Editorial Responsibility." The exchange with
the American Association for the Advancement of Science and its reviewers
provides a unique opportunity for a direct confrontation of irreconcilable
differences in the conception and exercise of editorial responsibility.
At stake is what constitutes legitimate discourse and what gets published,
by whom.
- My New York Review of Books article on the Ladd-Lipset survey,
like the Huntington file, deals among many other things with problems in
the way some social scientists practice their field.
The remaining parts of this book concern several other cases of questionable
academic, scientific, or political behavior, in various combinations. All
pieces this book reflect my fundamental interest in the area where
the academic or scientific world meets the world of journalism and the
world of politics. The pieces deal with various questions of responsibility
in all these areas. It turns out that the National Academy of Sciences
happens to be involved in all of them in some way or another.
One recurrent problem has been the difficulty I have experienced in
getting published. Examples of this difficulty arise throughout. The existing
difficulties of getting criticisms of established figures or institutions
printed in standard scientific or scholarly journals is one of the fundamental
issues dealt with in this book. For concrete examples, see:
- In the Huntington case, the refusal to publish by Discover (a
national magazine); by scholarly journals such as PS and Footnotes (American
Political Science Association and American Sociological Association, respectively);
or by publications in between such as the Chronicle of Higher Education,
and the Washington Update of the Consortium of Social Science
Associations.
- In the Baltimore case, the refusal to publish by Issues in Science
and Technology (a publication of the National Academy of Sciences),
by the American Chemical Society and by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
- In the Gallo case, refusal to publish by Nature.
- In the HIV/AIDS case, refusal to publish by major scientific journals,
which engage in suppression and manipulation, obstructing challenges to
the orthodox view.
Because of pressure from the media and Congress, over the last few years
there has been developing substantial interest in scientific or academic
ethics. Courses on scientific ethics are increasingly being taught, but
the recommendation to have such courses by various offficial bodies which
have refused to take position in concrete cases is to some extent hypocritical,
because the evidence shows that it is not students who need such courses,
but senior scientists who have provided recent examples of transgressions
of the classical standards of science. The sole existence of such courses
implies nothing about their effect, which depends on who teaches them,
and what is covered or suppressed in them. Ironically, the courses provide
an opportunity to inform students of some failures of the scientific establishment
around them. I hope the present book will be useful in such courses, but
I also hope the impact of this book will not be limited to such courses.
I thank Springer Verlag once more for giving me an opportunity to bring
into the open profound academic, journalistic, political, and philosophical
differences with some dominant aspects of our society.
CONTENTS:
- Preface
- Academia, Journalism, and Politics: A Case Study: The Huntington Case
- Strange Survey of U.S. Profs: The Ladd-Lipset Case
- Questions of Scientific Responsibility: The Baltimore Case
- Questions of Editorial Responsibility: Publication of the Baltimore
Article
- The Gallo Case
- The Case of HIV and AIDS
- The Shafaravich Case and the National Academy of Siences
- Maintaining Scientific Standards
- Index