The Decline of the "Eppur si muove" Spirit in North American Science: Professional Organizations and PC Pressures

John J. Furedy is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS). He presented a version of this paper at a symposium sponsored by the SAFS and the National Association of Scholars on "The Effects of North American Political Correctness on Neuroscientific Progress: Emerging Principles, Problems, and Priorities," at the 26^th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) in Washington, D.C., November 1996.

Abstract

Galileo's sub-voce and probably appocryphal denial of the geocentric position represents the value of disinterestedness--that what governs enquiry is the search for truth. This attitude has come to govern the physical sciences, and, to a certain extent in the 20th cnetury, the biological ones. However, the social sciences and humanities are more obviously influenced by politically correct (PC) pressures. Still, the PC-derived culture of comfort has affected even scientific organizations in North America, and this note presents four relatively simple stories that illustrate this abandonment of the eppur si muove spirit. The stories, which recount how orgnizations have handled controversial and (to some people) uncomfortable issues, suggest that it is not only the humanities and social scientists that have to worry about the PC virus; physical and biological scientists and their organizations are not immune.

Galileo, following his recantation of the heliocentric theory, was said to have uttered, sotto voce, "Eppur si muove" ("And yet it moves"). The story is probably apocryphal, but the moral behind it is important. The significance of the story lies not in the correctness of Galileo's theory as a whole-the sun may be the center of the solar system, and, in that sense "stands still," but it is far from being the center of the universe, and, like the earth, moves within it-rather, the significance of Galileo's remark is the attitude it has come to represent.

The remark implies that no matter what an authority may say, even if that authority has power over life and death, it has no power over truth. In the context of current North American political correctness (PC) within academia, if the presentation of a particular scientific view produces "discomfort" or strong feelings of being "offended" in many people, there is a trend for even scientific organizations to play a church-like role in trying to exercise power over truth. Those who are not governed by such tenets would insist that considerations like discomfort or offensiveness are not criteria for the validity of the view being proposed. Moreover, even the successful suppression of discomforting views does not have any impact on their actual truth or falsity.

Galileo's remark represents the value of disinterestedness [1]--that what governs inquiry is the search for truth. The disinterested approach was first systematically practiced among the pre-Socratics, a group of Ionian philosophers (of whom Thales was the first) who discussed the question of what is common to all things. The "Greek way of thinking about the world" [2] is in many ways epitomized by the life and death of Socrates. He was devoted to the search for truth even if this brought him into conflict with prevailing social values. Socrates' opposition to the PC of his era included his noting that "although that many can kill us, that is no reason to value their opinions over the knowledge of the wise." This attitude should apply throughout inquiry, ranging from the humanities, through the social sciences, to the "harder" biological and physical sciences.

It was to astronomy that Galileo applied his epistemological values, and soon after his death, the approach gained widespread acceptance for all the physical sciences. Similarly, soon after Darwin's death, support grew for the disinterested approach to the biological sciences, although that support was far from universal, especially outside the academy. With respect to the humanities and possibly the all social sciences as well, however, a proportion of academic thinkers argue that "value free" inquiry cannot be attained, and so disinterested research is impossible.[3] Out of the arguments about the nature of values in scholarly analysis in the humanities, an emphatic relativism has emerged. Where this relativism has been accepted, scholarship has become markedly susceptible to PC pressures.

While scholars in the harder sciences mostly believe that they have avoided the pitfalls of relativism in its various forms, they should not be complacent. The harder sciences are not immune pressures that undermine the "eppur si muove spirit." The biological sciences are especially vulnerable, as many of their propositions impinge on the "comfort" of contemporary society, just as the propositions of astronomy impinged on the "comfort" of many of Galileo's contemporaries. The "culture of comfort" that has so affected North American institutions of higher education [4] has certainly begun to influence, if not biological science, then some biological scientists.

The most compelling evidence for this trend can be found in some recent actions of the formal organizations of these scientists in North America. While the public mission statements of the organizations are usually consistent with their scientific orientation, the ways in which the organizations behave when it comes to dealing with "uncomfortable" topics that are raised by their members frequently reveals a bowing to PC influences.

The purpose of this note is to focus on the reactions of these North American scientific organizations to ideological and social pressures. I suggest that, in some cases, the organizational reaction to "uncomfortable" topics is PC-influenced, resulting in an abandonment of the "Eppur si muove" spirit. In this paper, I comment on four recent incidents that I believe illustrate this abandonment. All the stories are quite simple to understand from the perspective of disinterestedness, although understanding the details of the relevant scholarly controversies requires expertise in a number of disciplines.[5]

The Stories

Avoidance of "too overt" controversies-The first tale of abandonment pertains to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It began in late 1995, when a professor of psychology at a major Canadian research-oriented university submitted an abstract for poster presentation to the AAAS annual meeting. This professor is best known for his controversial views on behavioral group race differences in such aspects as intelligence, criminality, and sexual promiscuity. Few, if any, submissions for poster presentation are rejected in AAAS, the refereeing of poster abstracts being minimal. The professor's abstract indicated that he would present his views on the relation between intelligence and brain size, but did not mention that he would also discuss the relation between intelligence and race. Following a confrontation between the professor and some of his critics at the poster session, the AAAS Program Chair said in a radio interview that in future the AAAS would "more carefully edit" poster abstracts, because the organization did not wish "too overt" controversies to be discussed at its meetings. The program chair also indicated that, in his view, had the professor mentioned race in his abstract, that would have "raised a red flag," and the program committee might well have not allowed the poster to be presented. . . .

These are astounding public policy statements for any modern scientific organization to make. It is clear that the question of whether the professor, who is J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario, is right or wrong is not at issue here.[6] The facts are that: (a) he is a qualified AAAS member, and has actually been a fellow since 1988; (b) the race/intelligence issue is of scientific interest; © a poster presentation is generally regarded as the lowest-profile format of scientific meetings, it being easiest to get a poster presentation onto the program.

"Preventing "misunderstandings"-The second and third tales concern the activities of an organization specifically devoted to neurosciences, the Society for Neuroscience. At the 1995 meeting, the topic of "What's the Biology of Violent Behavior?" was presented in a session devoted to the discussion of social issues. The chair began on a high note, stating that controversial issues have to be discussed at scientific meetings like this one. He then went on to state that the purpose of such discussion was to prevent "misunderstandings" and "distorted presentations of the issue" that the media engage in, and followed this up by citing recent media coverage of the Bell Curve as an example of such "distorted presentations." After this preamble I looked forward to sharp, if civilized, discussion of the issues.

Following presentations by the panelists, the discussant raised this question: "Should neuroscientists suppress findings that may lead to evil consequences?" When none of the panelists provided an answer to this question, I commented as a member of the audience that the moment that an organization starts down this path, it has transformed itself from a scientific organization to a religious or political pressure group. This answer was applauded, but that was the end of it. The panelists politely ignored the question that the discussant had raised, and failed to challenge my contention with counter-arguments.

The third tale concerns the selection of the topic to be discussed within the context of a social issues session, during the 1996 meeting of the same organization. These sessions usually cover topical and controversial issues. There was a plan to discuss "Sex differences" and this was announced in the 1995 meeting. In late 1995, however, the program committee decided to change the topic to that of "funding."

The subject of funding is hardly new, and has been discussed at previous meetings in some form; in 1996 it will be receiving special prominence. Funding as a topic is certainly more "comfortable" and less controversial than the sex differences; the discussion usually focuses on how to raise funds for research. Could it be that, possibly unintentionally, the scientists are leaving controversial issues like sex differences for the non-scientific media to cover (and perhaps distort)? This raises the question of how seriously the society is committed to the discussion of genuinely controversial issues at its meetings.

In the three stories presented, the individuals raising "uncomfortable" topics were not prominent members of the organization in question. However, my fourth and final story involves a very prominent individual-the organization's past president. The tale, which needs to be told at some length, is about the actions of the Board (also called executive committee) of the Behavior Genetics Association (BGA), following an outgoing presidential dinner address in the summer of 1995 by an eminent psychology professor, Glayde Whitney. The occasion was special for BGA, because it was the organization's 25^th anniversary of annual meetings. Whitney's title for that evening's speech was "Twenty-five Years of Behavior Genetics.[7]

In his speech as outgoing BGA president, Whitney suggested that just as the study of individual differences has advanced in the past several decades, so too should the study of group differences be advanced by the examination of genetic and environmental factors (and their interaction) that contribute to those differences. At this level of abstraction it is possible that few of his listeners were offended. What apparently generated great offense is that he chose to use race as an example for group differences, and focused on violent criminal behavior (murder and robbery) as the phenomenon of interest. He noted that in the United States, there is a significant and sizable correlation between race and violent crime; and he argued that the correlation could have a genetic as well as an environmental component.[8]

It is an understatement to say that the talk was not received with unalloyed enthusiasm by the audience, some of whom walked out immediately. This in itself is curious, given that the "offended" audience comprised scientists whose area of interest-behavioral genetics-is relevant to the talk's topic, and whose methods of inquiry are quite "hard" in the sense that the analysis of data involves a considerable degree of quantification. However, this reaction was mild compared to the later actions of the BGA's Board.

According to Dr. Whitney, he was "shunned and castigated" at the meeting of the executive committee the following morning, where the changeover of officers was arranged. Documentary evidence of the determination of the executive committee to placate those offended by his address is contained in the communications from the committee to him and the membership. In the first of these missives, the incoming president of the BGA, Dr. James Wilson, e-mailed an open letter to Dr. Whitney on 16 June 1995. The letter not only asked him to retire from the position of chair of the Awards Committee (a customary post for the outgoing president), but also urged him to resign from the BGA itself. Several other Board members wrote open letters in support of the new president's action, including president-elect Pierre Robertoux, who ended his 22 June letter by stating that "As elect-president, I have presented my apologies to our black brothers after your talk, but it is not enough, I urge you to resign as past president AND as BGA member."

The editor of BGA's official journal, Dr. David Fulker, was at the Board meeting to discuss journal issues. At that meeting he stated categorically that he refused to consider publishing any version of the Presidential address in the journal. In a subsequent 27 June letter to the Board (of which the past president was still a member), Dr. Fulker clearly maintained this anti-publication position, when he wrote that . . .

. . . for my part as editor I have to say that I could not publish such an inflammatory, insulting, and divisive piece in our Journal. It does not in any way represent an official position of the Association or even a position that most members would wish to see expressed unless I am very much mistaken. . . . In my view publishing this piece would tear us apart and destroy the Association.

Dr. Fulker's comments could be appropriate were BGA a political or religious organization, but for a scientific organization issues of "divisiveness" created by differing interpretations of data should be secondary. And, whether positions are expressed or not should be determined by the relevance of those positions to the discipline, rather than by what "most members would wish." [9]

The past president's reaction to these demands in a 5 September letter was to accede to his removal as chair of the Awards committee, "in the interests of collegial cooperation," it being clear that the majority of members were unable or unwilling to work with him on activities that usually fall to the past president. However, he refused to resign either from the Board or the BGA. President Wilson's 3 September 1996 letter reiterated the demand that Whitney resign from the Board, and now produced a new threat to force this resignation. There were by-laws, he said, that authorized the removal of an officer from Board "for the good of the Association," and "plans are presently being made, in accordance with the by-laws, to meet and vote on removing you from the board." The letter urged the past president to voluntarily resign from the Board before such a vote, offering to allow him to stay on as a member of the BGA. Somewhat disingenuously (given his previous open letter) Dr. Wilson now wrote that "to my knowledge there is no strong pressure that you should resign from the association-just the Board." The letter concluded with the ultimatum that "we will wait until noon (your time) Wednesday, 6 September[10] for your resignation. After that we will continue to arrange for the vote."

The time of the ultimatum passed without surrender, so the Board went ahead. A 25 October letter from President Wilson, on behalf of the Board, informed all BGA members that the Board "plans to hold a special meeting in Washington D.C. on 5 November to discuss the possibility of removing Mr. (sic) Whitney from the Board," this being "in the best interests of the Association," and that out-of-town Board members were eligible for reimbursement of expenses. The letter also informed members that "if we are unable to agree on appropriate action at this meeting," some members of the Board might resign.

Dr. Whitney's open letter of 29 October noted that although, as a current member of the Board, he had been invited to come and "defend myself," and had heard that there was in circulation a "list of charges" or a "statement of my wrongdoing," he had received no such list or statement. He also pointed out that even the Inquisition of Rome "informed its victims of its charges." He further requested permission for science writers such as Constance Holden to be allowed to come to the meeting as an observer.

From the beginning of this affair, Dr. Whitney had, of course, received support from BGA members and others who still upheld the distinction between a scientific and other sorts of organizations, even if they did not agree with Dr. Whitney's scientific opinions. However, the Board's 25 October special-meeting notification elicited a new wave of criticisms. In a 30 October e-mail, Dr. David Lykken (a distinguished psychological researcher, perhaps best known currently for his twin studies at the University of Minnesota) signed himself as a "former member" of BGA, and wrote of being alarmed to "discover that a scientific society that one has valued for so long has fallen to the governance of a lynch mob."

Eminent author Jared Taylor drew on the Galileo analogy when he stated, in a 30 October e-mail, that to claim that Dr. Whitney was "insensitive" was like arguing that Galileo should have been "sensitive" to the geocentrists rather than trying to prove them wrong. Further, he suggested that so-called scientists who want to "silence or expel their colleagues, or who avert their faces from awkward data, are the intellectual heirs to Stalin, Beria, and Lysenko." He concluded his message with: "tyrannical orthodoxy in the sciences is both contemptible and ridiculous." > Yet another e-mail on the same day came from Dr. Csaba Vadasz, who, amongst other things, argued that spending the organization's funds on such a special meeting was inappropriate, because the meeting would indicate that the Board "disregards scientific principles in favor of open censorship, political manipulation, and lack of social responsibility." The Board, in Dr. Vadasz's view, should "apologize to the membership for valuing ill-perceived political correctness more than objective and impartial rigorous research in a socially important and sensitive area." On the next day (31 October), a brief e-mail from president Wilson stated that "After telephone conversations, the members of the Executive Committee have, for the good of the Association, decided to postpone indefinitely its planned meeting."

Envoi

The tales I have told are simple partly because they involve blatant abandonment of the 'eppur si muove' spirit by these scientific organizations, or, rather, by those members who are in positions of authority in these organizations. I suspect that there are many less blatant instances of abandonment which may be more difficult to document and analyze, but which, nevertheless, are of a cumulative significance in eroding the 'eppur si muove' approach. For example, I wonder whether invitations to participate in high-prestige invited symposia are influenced not only by a scientist's contribution to the discipline, but also by whether that contribution is consistent with prevailing ideology with regard to such issues as the relative contribution that nature and nurture plays in determining such behavioral phenomena as intelligence and criminality. If my last tale concerning the treatment of BGA's past president is any guide, my guess would be that such more subtle anti-scholarly influences are at play. However, without systematic research, my opinion is no more than a guess. But such research is necessary, if we are to understand what is going on in current scientific organizations.

Even these simple examples, however, are sufficient to suggest that PC is having a significant effect on North American scientific organizations. This influence, especially when not explicitly examined, can have considerable detrimental influence on inquiry, especially with respect to the "teaching" of research. If younger researchers in the biological sciences accept implicitly the attitudes represented in my four tales, then the next generation of biological scientists will not even be aware of how far they have strayed from the principle of disinterestedness, a principle that should be central in scientific activity. At least in the social science and humanities, where the influence of PC is often crude, these issues are now being openly discussed. So, in this sense, the dangers from an "unexamined" PC influence in the harder sciences may be even greater than that in the social sciences and humanities.

Disinterestedness or the 'eppur si muove' spirit has always had to contend with its enemies, be these the tools of torture of the Inquisition, or the policy of avoiding "too overt" controversies by established organizations that seem to have forgotten the scientific "raison d'etre" for their existence. It is not only the humanists and social scientists that have to worry about the PC virus; physical and biological scientists and their organizations, at least in North America, are not immune.

Notes

1. For a more detailed account of disinterestedness, see John J. Furedy, "Daniel Berlyne and disinterested criticism: Inter- and intra-disciplinary discourse," in G. Cupchik and J. Laszlo, eds., EMERGING VISIONS OF THE AESTHETIC PROCESS: PSYCHOLOGY, SEMIOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
2. John Burnet, EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1930), v.
3. For this constructionist view see, for example, the assertion of an eminent social psychologist, that "we do not discover facts; we invent them" Scarr, "Constructing psychology: Making facts and fables for our times," AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST 40 (1985): 400-512 (esp. 499).
4. For a more detailed analysis, see John J. Furedy, "Academic freedom versus the velvet totalitarian culture of comfort on current Canadian campuses: Some fundamental terms and distinctions," INTERCHANGE, in press, (1996). The culture of comfort, moreover, encompasses both intellectual and emotional discomfort, and many put these considerations ahead of disinterested inquiry. As a Canadian historian concerned with academic freedom has noted:

   Many people, not a few of them teaching in universities, find a threat in the unhindered discussion of ideas or the implications of "certain" lines of research. Such people wish to control or eliminate sources of intellectual or emotional discomfort, or to end the 'waste' of money that is implied by the term 'idle curiosity,' and wishing to restrict academic freedom, will warn that 'excessive' freedom turns into license, with harmful consequences for the university and the public.

   See: Michiel Horn, "Academic freedom and tenure. Part one: an academic good, a societal benefit," SOCIETY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND SCHOLARSHIP NEWSLETTER, No. 15, December 1996, 4.

5. Moreover, to actually "argue" about any of the controversies requires not only expertise in the cognate disciplines, but also a detailed familiarity with the recent relevant literature. As neither I nor most readers can satisfy the joint requirements of background and familiarity, I have deliberately not offered any evaluation of the merits of the rival positions in each controversy.
6. For a relatively uncommitted psychological perspective on this aspect of the nature/nurture controversy, see John J. Furedy, "Race studies: Contentious but legitimate science-review of J.P. RUSHTON'S RACE, EVOLUTION AND BEHAVIOR: A LIFE HISTORY PERSPECTIVE, and R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, THE BELL CURVE: INTELLIGENCE AND CLASS IN AMERICAN LIFE, in "Book Section," TORONTO STAR, 12 October 1994.
7. This presidential talk, with a new title ("Ideology and Censorship in Behavior Genetics") and a brief new introduction, has been published by Glayde Whitney in THE MANKIND QUARTERLY, vol. 15, No. 4 (1995): 327-42. For brief accounts of the sequel in leading scientific journals, see Declan Butler, "Geneticist quits in protest at `genes and violence claim,'" NATURE, Vol. 378, 224; and two reports by Constance Holden in SCIENCE (1995), "Specter at the Feast of Science" (Vol. 269, 35), and "Behavior Geneticists shun colleague" (Vol. 270, 1125). My account here is based on letters circulated on e-mail by BGA members on a list serve (bganet@lists.colorado.edu), where every message is signed by an individual, and includes the disclaimer that the message, "does not necessarily represent the opinions of the Behavior Genetics Association, its members, or the maintainers of BGAnet." I am grateful to Glayde Whitney for providing me with this material, but of course, I accept full responsibility for my interpretation of it.
8. A commentator on an earlier version of this paper indicated that, in his view, the reader will probably need to know a bit more of what Glayde Whitney actually said that so infuriated his colleagues, and he further noted that I have given "considerable space to the aftermath, but very little to the incident that occasioned it." However, in my view, the information I have provided (together with the reference above to a published version of Whitney's address) is sufficient. Just exactly what may have caused Dr. Whitney's fellow scientists to get so angry is a matter of psychological speculation. It may also be that Whitney did not convey his material with sufficient "sensitivity" to satisfy so-called experts in sensitivity training. All this, however, is not only speculative, it is also irrelevant for determining whether the BGA's treatment of this controversy constituted an abandonment of the "eppur si muove spirit."
9. Nor did the Board make any effort to scientifically investigate "what most members would wish to see expressed" at any time during this controversy, although, as Dr. David Lykken's 30 October e-mail (see below in text) noted, the wording of appropriate questions would be an embarrassing task. For example, given that in his talk Dr. Whitney referred to data from FBI Uniform Crime Reports, a question suggested by Dr. Lykken was: "Do you agree that any officer of BGA who publicly cites data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports shall be deposed and defamed?"
10. One is reminded of Chamberlain's 1939 September ultimatum, but his deadline to Hitler was for an hour earlier.