Great Feuds in Science:Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever

by Hal Hellman, 1998

True or False ?

1. One of the nice aspects of science--in contrast with the humanities and the arts--is that new ideas are testable, so it's easy to determine whether a new idea is valid.

2. Science moves logically and inexorably, if sometimes slowly, from old ideas to new truths.

3. Strained relations between science and religion began with the uneven contest between Pope Urban VIII and Galileo in the 1630s.

4. The modern, peer-reviewed scientific paper was invented in the 19th century specifically as a way of helping researchers to share new discoveries with the rest of the scientific world.

5. Lay challenges to such developments as genetic testing and irradiation of food are a recent phenomenon, and can be explained by the explosion of information technologies.

6. If you can measure and calculate something, you'll always get the right answer.

7. The current interest in dinosaurs owes much to a violent feud between two American fossil hunters of the 19th century.

End quiz

The word scientist did not exist prior to 1840.

Before 1840, “natural philosophy” = observational or experimental science.

Science is:

-A Human enterprise

-Organized activity

Feud 1

Pope Urban VIII vs. Galileo

Heliocentricity

1.Anti-religious implications most jarring.

2. Hypothesis is not a fact

3. Made “scientific” hypothesis public- published in Italian so all could read. The church could not ignore.

Clincher of his book “Dialogue on the Great World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632):

Earth’s waters move---> so Earth moves.

Although wrong, he was convincing.

Feud 2

Wallis vs. Hobbes

Squaring the Circle

Hobbes was the last of the deductive science.He was a philosopher/scientist.The father of scientific sociology.

Wallis a mathematician, formed the Royal Society of London. Began the basis of the calculus.

This debate moved scientists in directions they may not

have gone in order to prove/disprove either man.

Afterwards, science moved to more inductive and

experimental.

Key point:

This debate (and feuds 3 and 4) involved a wide-ranging philosopher and generalist vs. a narrower specialist.

Feud 3

Newton vs. Leibniz

A Clash of Titans-Simultaneous Discovery of

Calculus

The Calculus clash spawned the “scientific paper” in order

to establish the priority of discovery.

1. Scientific paper is refereed by author’s peers before it can be published.

2. Scientific paper includes explicit, clear references to what has been accomplished previously as a way of clearly delineating what the author is actually contributing.

Feud was philosophical, religious and diplomatic.

Involved plagiarism.

Newton actually discovered first, but published last. He believed that the scientists’ priority was from having done the work- not

published it.

Newton became a “great administrator of science” in 1703 at the Royal Society. This began the movement of those who “run” science as opposed to those who “do” science.

Feud 4

Voltaire vs. Needham

Spontaneous Generation

A fervently believed idea, even if wrong, dies hard.

Preformationist (Voltaire) vs. Epigenesists (Needham)

Epigenesists = vegetative force, penetrating force,

internal mold.

Voltaire was the master of the pen and nuance. Both wrote letters back and forth about

reputation, not science.

Needham made an error in his experiment that he said proved spontaneous generation.

Spallanzani corrected it, but then incorrectly concluded that it proved preformation. This set back thinking for years.

Other issues:

Static Universe, Continuous Creation, “A watch demands a watchmaker”

Voltaire got his religion mixed up with his science.

Needham used science to defend his religion.

“Unless the creation of living things is assigned to a divine

creator, then somehow life did arise from non-life and the

concept of Spontaneous Generation has not actually

been buried, but rather moved back to an earlier time.”

Feud 5

Darwin’s Bulldog vs. Soapy Sam

Evolution Wars

Thomas Huxley

“Evolutionary Science and Religion can coexist”

Many religious people had no problem accepting the basic ideas of natural selection- as

long as they continue to believe that God is in there somewhere, most logically at the beginning

---> but then the controversy became “Was it only necessary to set the species going, after which everything took care of

itself? Or was periodic intervention necessary in order

for smooth operation?”

After 1920’s evolution was taught in schools- but then the

willingness to pit evolution against religion may have elicited a sort of counter

revolution among a group that just might have learned to

accept evolution.

On going feud:new names for both sides

Creationism-->creative science-->Intelligent Design Theory--->Initial Complexity Model

Evolution-->Initial Primitiveness Model

Feud 6

Lord Kelvin vs. Geologists and Biologists

Age of the Earth

Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) was the first to introduce experiments in his lectures.

We owe the field and thinking of “applied science” to Lord Kelvin.

“Can you measure it? Can you express it in figures? Can you make a model of it? If not, your theory is apt to be based more on imagination, than upon knowledge”

- Lord Kelvin

By developing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he

decided that the Earth was 100 million years old, but this did not support Darwin’s natural

selection theory.

Lord Kelvin was wrong about the age…but he was so

respected that his reputation never waned.

Feud 7

Cope vs. Marsh

The Fossil Feud

Competition breeds dispute, debate and plagiarism.

The date of publication could not be used- so they used the

date on which they shipped off specimens.

Most geologists were embarrassed by the public

debate. Each scientist blamed the other for destroying fossils to prevent others from getting them, of stealing fossils from their workrooms and of being

mentally unbalanced.

“Much of the funding for science comes from the public…If we scientists increase the public excitement about science, there is a good chance of having more public supporters”

-Carl Sagan

Feud 8

Wegener vs. Everybody

Continental Drift

Catastrophism vs. Uniformitarianism

Strong parallel to Galileo’s story

Main Point:

“Not in my backyard” negation of outside scientist.

Feud 9

Johanson vs. the Leakey’s

The Missing Link

Competition between two men became public.

Leaky found fossil #1470, Johanson found Lucy.

“Mr. Leakey is the last great amateur scientist who is right far more often than his better trained rivals in his guesses and interpretations of fossils”

- the London Economist.

Walter Cronkite set up a public debate on his Universe TV

show in 1981.

Leaky claimed that the rivalry was created by the press.

Feud 10

Derek Freeman vs. Margaret Mead

Nature vs. Nurture

Coming of Age in Samoa- 1928

Mead wrote in a way the public could understand..much

like Galileo before her.

“Mead must be regarded as a pioneer whose innovations in research methods have helped social anthropology come of

age as a science.”

Nurturists were cultural determinists= environment

shapes human behavior.

Eugenecists based on human behavior being genetically

determined..

Mead challenged the heredity portion via what has since been called “Negative instance”. She

concluded that adolescent turmoil was culturally

produced.

Her work was a classic example of the use of

fieldwork as the equivalent to the experimental lab.

1983- The Making of an Anthropological Myth by

Derek Freeman.

Claimed Mead’s work was wrong.

“There isn’t an example of such wholesale self-deception in the

history of the behavioral sciences”

“The most spectacular and instructive instance of collective

delusion in the history of the human sciences.”

-Freeman

The Public wanted to accept Mead’s conclusions. It

explained the differences in our teens from their adolescents. Had the book had an opposite ideology- we no doubt would

have ripped it apart for its scientific failings.

So why are controversies not

resolved?

1. The science is recalcitrant- slow to develop

2. Subtle question of beliefs or values that underlies the topic

3. Scientists take role of challenger/challengee

4. The ideas are threatening to the beliefs of the public

5. One scientist is widely respected- although wrong.

6. One scientist is not known or respected- and right!

7. The instinctual longevity of wrong-headed ideas

8. No governing, accepted, study group to intervene and resolve.

Answers to True and False