QandO

June 25, 2004

Book Review
Posted by Dale Franks

Science/Hard SF writer James Hogan has a new book out, Kicking the Sacred Cow, and it's a doozy.

The central point Hogan attempts to make--and he makes it well--that science is becoming increasingly hidebound. Rather than being an open-minded search for knowledge, he presents a mass of evidence that indicates that the scientific community is transforming itself into an ecclesiastical priesthood whose main criterion for success and recognition is the uncritical acceptance of the received wisdom of the elders.

Hogan believes that the pervasive scope of government-related funding of Big Science is corrupting. Scientists who question the scientific/political status quo find their grants terminated, their access to peer-reviewed publication closed, and their tenure denied. Scientists are increasingly afraid to question the status quo, if for no other reason than to do so is a near guarantee of government grant money drying up.

Hogan is troubled not only by the fact that Big Science increasingly refuses to listen to innovative ideas that threaten the status quo, but that the methods used by its practitioners to heap scorn on views that deviate from the mainstream consist of increasingly dishonest or ad hominem attacks, rather than unbiased reference to the scientific evidence.

To illustrate this, Hogan takes a tour through every major idea current with Big Science, and proceeds to gleefully present alternatives that the scientific community would prefer you not hear. By the end of the book, he leaves no stone unturned, and, by turns critical, humorous, and bitingly sarcastic, Hogan highlights the alternative theories. By the end of the book, practically no discipline is spared.

Hogan lists the flaws in the currently accepted neo-Darwinist evolutionary account. He taunts the Einsteinian physics community with intriguing hints about the failures of both General and Special relativity, and the existence of privileged frames of reference. He presents evidence of electromagnetic, rather than gravitic explanations in astronomy and cosmology. He presents the evidence for Velikovsky's catastrophist solar system history. He discusses the history and science behind the DDT ban, global warming, and the worldwide AIDS crisis.

His point is not that the alternative theories he presents are necessarily true--though he is careful to present the scientific evidence for them--but to point out the increasingly hidebound and intolerant attitude of Big Science to being questioned skeptically, even by its most respected members.

As he quotes one acquaintance, a physicist as telling him, "You don't understand. Einstein can't be wrong." That, notes Hogan, is the attitude of an acolyte, not a scientist. Or, at least, the attitude of scientist who knows what side of the bread his tenure, grant funding, and publication opportunities are buttered on.

Hogan argues that the single most useful trait of real science is its willingness to skeptically question its most closely-held beliefs, and to reject theories, no matter how popular or venerable, if other, less popular theories explain the facts better and more simply. He argues that these are the traits that have made science so phenomenally central to Western progress for the past two centuries. If science devolves into a priesthood constrained by the received wisdom of the past, then its usefulness will end, leaving us all the poorer for it.

Kicking the Sacred Cow, is well-written, informative, and extremely accessible to the average reader. For those who are interested in the state of science--or the future of human progress--this book is a must-read.

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