tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48373548123266549662024-03-05T15:53:13.612-08:00Medical HypothesesBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-44922907789884202572013-07-04T21:57:00.000-07:002013-07-04T21:57:28.023-07:00Declining Impact Factor of Medical Hypotheses since 2010*<br />
<br />
Since I was sacked from editing Medical Hypotheses in May 2010, the Impact Factor... <br />
<br />
(citations
to Medical Hypotheses in the target year for papers published in the
preceding two years - so that the 2012 IF is citations in that year for
papers published in 2010 and 2011 - which means that the 2012 IF is
still not free of the effect of papers I accepted while still editor in
the first four months of 2010)<br />
<br />
...has declined from being above average for all <i>medical</i> journals (and therefore <i>considerably</i> above average for all journals) to, well, mediocrity: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdNRjhifOEfuiXGvK61Wdj1uSiNMvBC8RktwSVrs4nFp9LMgreI5FeNcdIXnM1lZ4Q0ci5qmxhm06ozYZcN0eiYe7q-w2jJ-erQ4BXfXENXfbr6zybFND8YOa8pljine04uIYSRDnMZJW/s1600/IF.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdNRjhifOEfuiXGvK61Wdj1uSiNMvBC8RktwSVrs4nFp9LMgreI5FeNcdIXnM1lZ4Q0ci5qmxhm06ozYZcN0eiYe7q-w2jJ-erQ4BXfXENXfbr6zybFND8YOa8pljine04uIYSRDnMZJW/s320/IF.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I do not note this fact <i>merely</i> from <i>schadenfreude</i>
but also because the journal which currently styles itself 'Medical
Hypotheses' is a dishonest fake and a travesty of the vision bequeathed
by the founder David Horrobin; and as such it ought to be closed-down
- and on present trends it surely will be. <br />
<br />
Which is nice. <br />
<br />
*Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-85770708299699115962011-03-31T02:10:00.000-07:002011-03-31T02:10:31.004-07:00David Horrobin's letter handing-over Medical Hypotheses editorship<h3 class="post-title entry-title"> *</h3><div class="post-header"> </div>E-mail from David Horrobin to me, dated 3 March 2003.<br />
<br />
It was the letter in which he offered me the editorship of Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
This was posted on my Miscellany blog last year - but I am copying it here for the record.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Dear Bruce,<br />
<br />
Although I am slowly recovering from the latest recurrence of my mantle cell lymphoma, I have to be realistic and accept the probability that I have only a year or so to live. Rather than leave everything to the last minute, I would rather put things in order now.<br />
<br />
[Note: in fact David had less time than he hoped, and he died just a few weeks later on 1 April 2003. We had a chance to speak a couple more times on the telephone - once while he was actually having chemotherapy - but that was all.]<br />
<br />
I am therefore writing to ask whether you would be willing to take over as Editor-in-Chief of Medical Hypotheses? Frankly you are the only person I really trust to take it over and run it in an open-minded fashion.<br />
<br />
(...)<br />
<br />
The primary criteria for acceptance are very different from the usual journals. In essence what I look for are answers to two questions only: Is there some biological plausibility to what the author is saying? Is the paper readable? We are NOT looking at whether or not the paper is true but merely at whether it is interesting.<br />
<br />
I now make most of the editorial judgments myself unless I am really puzzled as to whether the paper is a lot of nonsense. I have found most referees far more trouble than they are worth: they are so used to standard refereeing which is usually aimed at trying to determine whether or not a paper is true that they are incapable of suspending judgment and end up being inappropriately hypercritical. <br />
<br />
In the early days I used to spend a lot of time editing and rewriting papers which were poorly written or where the English was inadequate. However, I am now quite ruthless about not doing that which has greatly reduced the editorial burden. I simply return papers which are poorly written, suggesting that they are rewritten in conjunction with someone whose native language is English. If that does not produce a result then the paper is simply rejected.<br />
<br />
I do very much hope that you will be willing to take up this proposal. Overall Medical Hypotheses is a lot of fun and it gives one access to a very wide range of interesting medical science. Since I started the journal in Newcastle in the 1970s there is an appropriateness in the possibility of it returning there.<br />
<br />
Very best wishes, David Horrobin.<br />
<br />
*Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-44923672131869153952011-02-12T03:54:00.000-08:002011-02-12T03:54:47.296-08:00Leigh Van Valen's letter of support for Medical Hypotheses*<br />
<br />
The late, and in my opinion almost-great, Leigh Van Valen was one of only a handful of eminent scientists who publicly supported the principles of Medical Hypotheses - indeed it was apparently one of the last things he did before dying a few months later:<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/us/31valen.html<br />
<br />
I would like to preserve his comment from the online edition of Nature:<br />
<br />
<div class="wrap" id="9753">*<br />
<br />
A more conspicuous statement in such a journal (perhaps with each paper) that it doesn't use peer review should be adequate warning for those who can't evaluate a paper themselves. For those who can, there are sometimes gems among the (often unintentionally humorous) matrix.<br />
<br />
Genuine conceptual originality is by definition outside the accepted way of looking at things. It often has rough edges that can be easily refuted, thereby making its core seem suspect. And, indeed, most conceptual deviants are justifiably discarded.<br />
<br />
Originality at the conceptual level can come from empirical discoveries. However, it can also come from looking at the world in a different way.<br />
<br />
It's commonly recognized in the metascientific literature that conceptual originality is inversely related to publishability. As someone who has made some conceptually original contributions, I've noticed the same phenomenon myself.<br />
<br />
More specifically, there are indeed occasional gems in Medical Hypotheses that would be difficult to publish elsewhere.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses does have mandatory publication charges, which discriminate against those without such money wherever such charges occur. Otherwise, though, I wish the journal well and hope that it will survive its current crisis.<br />
<br />
2010-03-19 12:04:12<br />
<br />
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100318/full/news.2010.132.html <br />
<br />
Posted by: <span class="user">leigh van valen</span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">* </span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">Note: "</span>there are indeed occasional gems in Medical Hypotheses that would be difficult to publish elsewhere" - that satisfies me as an obituary for MeHy.<br />
<br />
<span class="user">In fact, contrary to what LVV said, the mandatory publication charges for Medical Hypotheses had been abolished about a year before this letter, by Elsevier. The subsequent Medical Hypotheses Affair, and this action taken by the publishers (without consulting me), was therefore *in part* probably an unfortunate side effect of the resulting large (albeit self-inflicted) loss of income from the journal - which went at a stroke from being very profitable to only mildly so. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">The editorial review system (and that the journal was not peer reviewed) was very prominently noted on the title page of the journal, which included exerpts from and a link to an essay by me describing the rationale. A note on each paper could easily have been added, if the publisher had wanted to preserve the journal's true nature: but they wanted (and got) peer review and a mainstream, non-controversial journal - an anti-Medical Hypotheses.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">Water under the bridge...</span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">Van Valen had accepted my first evolutionary paper for publication in his own journal - years before this: http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/endopara.html </span><br />
<br />
<span class="user">* </span></div>Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-19052468871065430722010-12-22T23:57:00.000-08:002015-01-02T04:10:18.282-08:00Im-Personal reflections on the Medical Hypotheses Affair: Editors of major medical and scientific journals- The Dog that didn'tbarkA brief account of the Medical Hypotheses Affair may be found here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2010/05/medical-hypotheses-affair-times-higher.html">http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2010/05/medical-hypotheses-affair-times-higher.html</a><br />
<br />
But there is one general aspect which I learned from the experience, and which is - I think - worth further emphasis. <br />
<br />
This is the aspect of The Dog That Didn't Bark.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
The Dogs whose silence throughout this episode was so highly significant were the editors of the major medical and scientific journals, indeed editors of all academic journals were silent.<br />
<br />
Twenty five years ago there would, without any shadow of doubt, have been vigorous comment on the happenings at Medical Hypotheses from (say) the editors of Nature, Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and others. <br />
<br />
And the gist of this would have been: publishers must keep their hands-off editorial independence.<br />
<br />
Instead: silence. <br />
<br />
Tumbleweed. <br />
<br />
<i>Crickets...</i> <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
The MeHy Affair was a very explicit and highly public example of a publisher intervening directly to over-ride the editor of an established scholarly journal. <br />
<br />
This was not merely affecting the <i>conduct</i> of academic discourse, but directly shaping the <i>content</i> of published academic discourse. <br />
<br />
In their actions towards Medical Hypotheses, the publishers (Reed-Elsevier - who publish about 20 percent of the world scholarly journals, and a higher proportion of those journals with high impact in their fields) decided what went into the scholarly literature and what did not. <br />
<br />
More exactly, specific managers employed by a publishing corporation decided what went into the scholarly literature and what did not. <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Precisely, the publishers of Medical Hypotheses acted unilaterally to withdraw two already-e-published papers from a scholarly journal and delete them from the online records. <br />
<br />
And then (in the period of time leading up to the editor being sacked) Elsevier managers continued to filter-out papers that had been formally accepted for publication by the editor (in other words the papers were officially 'in the press') - but which these managers regarded as unacceptable in some way, and therefore withdrew from the publication process. <br />
<br />
In other words, managers took <i>direct control</i> of the content of the published academic literature.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Why was The Silence of the Editors so significant? <br />
<br />
In an abstract sense, Elsevier's behaviour contravened the basic established conduct of academic discourse - which is supposed to be independent of publishers and a matter decided between editors and scholars. <br />
<br />
Indeed, this was, by a strict 'legalistic' definition, a direct breach of the principle of academic freedom.<br />
<br />
So - even abstractly considered - it would be expected that leading journal editors would have raised objections to the corruption of academic discourse.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
But there is a much more direct and personal reason to expect leading editors to comment. <br />
<br />
Which is that condoning Elsevier's actions set a precedent for further instances whereby managers employed by publishers will simply over-ride editorial independence: managers will decide what gets into journals and what does not.<br />
<br />
So, by remaining silent, each editor of each major journal made it more likely that in future their publisher would do the same to them as Elsevier did to me!<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Why would leading editors of major journals condone such a thing?<br />
<br />
There is a simple explanation: that they are afraid.<br />
<br />
As in Vaclav Havel's Poster Test: the Silence of the Editors was a coded statement unambiguously (but deniably) meaning: "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient".<br />
<br />
<a href="http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/08/vaclav-havels-poster-test.html">http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/08/vaclav-havels-poster-test.html</a><br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
So now we know that the editors of leading scholarly journals are not independent. <br />
<br />
That editors of leading journals are already doing what publishers want. <br />
<br />
That the editors of leading journals have accepted this situation as a <i>fait accompli</i>. <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
This particularly applies to The Lancet, which is published by Elsevier. <br />
<br />
In the past, the Lancet was a fiercely, indeed aggressively, independent journal. <br />
<br />
Past editors of the Lancet would not have imagined <i>for a moment</i> acceding to managerial pressure from publishers.<br />
<br />
Clearly things have changed, and the current Lancet is happy to operate as a smokescreen for the publishers influence on the medical science literature.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Yet the current Lancet editors went one step further than merely <i>acceding</i> to pressure from the publishers, they actually <i>assisted</i> the publishers in over-riding editorial independence in a quasi rational manner. <br />
<br />
The Lancet arranged a 'show trial ' whereby the papers which Elsevier management had withdrawn from Medical Hypotheses were 'refereed' by a group of anonymous persons such that it could be claimed that for the papers had been rejected by peer review. <br />
<br />
This sham process was implemented by The Lancet, despite the blazingly obvious paradox that the main point of Medical Hypotheses was that it was an <i>editorially</i> reviewed - not peer reviewed; on the rationale that MeHy provided a forum for papers which would probably be rejected by peer review, but which justified publication as hypotheses for <i>other reasons</i>.<br />
<br />
There is only one coherent conclusion: that the modern Lancet is a lap-dog of its publisher. <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
What did I conclude from the Dogs That Did Not Bark? <br />
<br />
I realized that science was in an even-worse state that I had previously recognized. That the level of corruption and deception went both deeper and further than I had previously recognized. <br />
<br />
And that the role of major journals had moved beyond acquiescence with the forces of darkness and into actual collusion. <br />
<br />
That, in fact, science was not just sick but in an advanced state of dissolution: and that indeed the head of the fish was by-now dead and already putrefied.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
Note added: Glen P Campbell - who (seemed to be - the senior Elsevier manager responsible for the Medical Hypotheses Affair, (presumably) including over-riding of editorial autonomy, was subsequently appointed to be American director of the British Medical Journal in late 2013. This is consistent with the above argument.<br />
<br />
From: International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers- The Voice of Academic and Professional Publishing:<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>GLEN P. CAMPBELL, US Managing Director, The BMJ </b>Glen has been in STM publishing for more than 34 years, starting with
Alan R. Liss in 1980. In 1984, he was appointed an Editor for books and
journals in the life sciences, and continued at John Wiley & Sons
after they acquired Liss. In 1990, Glen joined Elsevier as a Biomedical Journals Editor. Over
more than 23 years at Elsevier, he held a number of positions with
responsibility for setting strategies for the growth and development of
biomedical journals in print and online. In his roles as EVP, Global
Medical Research, he oversaw more than 435 journals in the health
science, including <i><b>The Lancet</b></i>, and many
premier society journals. In his role as EVP, STM Society Publishing,
Glen worked with many of the most prestigious societies in the health,
life, physical, and social sciences. Glen joined BMJ late in 2013 as Managing Director the US, and is thrilled to be working on the development and growth of <b>The BMJ</b>, BMJ Journals, and BMJ Clinical Improvement Products in North America. Glen is a past Chair of the Executive Council of the Professional and
Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) of the Association of American
Publishers (AAP). In addition, he serves on the American Medical
Publishers Committee (AMPC) of the PSP and the AMPA/National Library of
Medicine Subcommittee of that group. Glen is currently Chair of Board of
Directors of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine.</span>Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-2918287755684216722010-06-29T01:13:00.000-07:002010-06-29T01:13:16.841-07:00This blog is completeNote: <br />
<br />
Since I am no longer the editor of Medical Hypotheses, I now regard this blog as complete, and do not intend to add to it. <br />
<br />
I am continuing blogging at Bruce Charlton's Miscellany <br />
<br />
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-31889542772370067162010-05-11T11:01:00.000-07:002010-06-29T01:11:08.542-07:00RIP Medical HypothesesJust to note that I was sacked from the editorship of Medical Hypotheses today. <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses was very much a 'one man band' as a journal - its content being selected by the editor (occasionally after seeking advice from a member of the editorial advisory board) over a period of some 35 years. <br />
<br />
The journal's essence was that it was editorially reviewed (not peer reviewed), and favoured revolutionary science over normal science; that is, it favoured ideas on the basis that they were (for example) radical, interesting, dissenting, or sometimes amusing in a way likely to stimulate thought. <br />
<br />
The journal had just two editors during its lifespan: the founder David Horrobin from 1975 to his death in 2003; and his chosen successor: myself from 2003-2010.<br />
<br />
As a consequence of mergers, Medical Hypotheses fell into the hands of Elsevier in 2002. <br />
<br />
Aside from a few issues still in the pipeline, the real Medical Hypotheses is now dead: killed by Elsevier 11 May 2010. RIP.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-69347812372734465262010-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:002010-05-06T06:43:19.595-07:00The Medical Hypotheses Affair - Times Higher Education"Without prejudice" - 6 May 2010 - Times Higher Education<br />
<br />
Bruce G Charlton<br />
<br />
"Bruce Charlton explains why he published a paper by 'perhaps the world's most hated scientist' and the importance of airing radical ideas"<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
On 11 May, Elsevier, the multinational academic publisher, will sack me from my position as editor of Medical Hypotheses. This affair has attracted international coverage in major journals such as Nature, Science and the British Medical Journal.<br />
<br />
<br />
How did it come to this? Last year I published two papers on Aids that led to a complaint sent to Elsevier.<br />
<br />
<br />
This was not unexpected. Medical Hypotheses was established with the express intent of allowing ideas outside the mainstream to be aired so that they could be debated openly. Its policy had not changed since its founding more than three decades ago, and it remained unaltered under my editorship, which began in 2003.<br />
<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, managers at Elsevier sided with those who made the complaints and against Medical Hypotheses. Glen P. Campbell, a senior vice-president at Elsevier, started a managerial process that immediately withdrew the two papers - without consulting me and without gaining editorial consent. After deliberating in private, the management at Elsevier informed me of plans to make Medical Hypotheses into an orthodox, peer-reviewed and censored journal. When I declined to implement the new policy, Elsevier gave notice to kick me out before my contract expired and without compensation.<br />
<br />
<br />
One of the papers, by Marco Ruggiero's group at the University of Florence, (doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.002) teased the Italian health ministry that its policies made it seem as if the department did not believe that HIV was the cause of Aids. The other paper, by Peter Duesberg's group at University of California, Berkeley (doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.024), argued that HIV was not a sufficient cause of Aids.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Ruggiero paper seems to have been an innocent bystander that was misunderstood both by those who made a complaint and by Elsevier. The real controversy focused on Duesberg's paper.<br />
<br />
<br />
Why did I publish a paper by Duesberg - perhaps the world's most hated scientist?<br />
<br />
Peter Duesberg is a brilliant and highly knowledgeable scientist with a track record of exceptional achievement that includes election to the US National Academy of Sciences. However, his unyielding opposition to the prevailing theory that HIV is a sufficient cause of Aids has made Duesberg an international hate figure, and his glittering career has been pretty much ruined.<br />
<br />
<br />
I published Duesberg's paper because to do so was clearly in line with the long-term goals, practice and the explicitly stated scope and aims of Medical Hypotheses. We have published many, many such controversial and dissenting papers over the past 35 years. Duesberg is obviously a competent scientist, he is obviously the victim of an orchestrated campaign of intimidation and exclusion, and I interpret his sacrifice of status to principle as prima facie evidence of his sincerity. If I had rejected this paper for fear of the consequences, I would have been betraying the basic ethos of the journal.<br />
<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses was founded 35 years ago by David Horrobin with the purpose of disseminating ideas, theories and hypotheses relating to biomedicine, and of doing so on the basis of editorial review instead of peer review. Horrobin argued that peer review intrinsically tended to exclude radical and revolutionary ideas, and that alternatives were needed. He chose me as his editorial successor because I shared these views.<br />
<br />
<br />
Both Horrobin and I agreed that the only correct scientific way to deal with dissent was to publish it so that it could be debated, confirmed or refuted in an open and scientific forum. The alternative - suppressing scientific dissent by preventing publication using behind-the-scenes and anonymous procedures - we would both regard as extremely dangerous because it is wide open to serious abuse and manipulation by powerful interest groups.<br />
<br />
<br />
Did I know that the Duesberg paper would be controversial?<br />
<br />
Yes. I knew that Duesberg was being kept out of the mainstream scientific literature, and that breaching this conspiracy would annoy those who had succeeded in excluding him for so long.<br />
<br />
<br />
When I published the Duesberg article, I envisaged it meeting one of two possible fates.<br />
<br />
<br />
In the first scenario, the paper would be shunned or simply ignored - dropped down the memory hole. This is what has usually happened in the past when a famous scientist published ideas that their colleagues regarded as misguided or crazy. Linus Pauling (1901-94) was a Nobel prizewinner and one of the most important chemists in history. Yet his views on the medical benefits of vitamin C were regarded as wrong. He was allowed to publish them, but (rightly or wrongly) they were generally ignored in mainstream science.<br />
<br />
In the other scenario, Duesberg's paper would attract robust criticism and (apparent) refutation. This happened with Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), a Fellow of the Royal Society whose work on the "steady state" theory of the Universe made him one of the most important cosmologists of the late 20th century. But his views on the origins of life on Earth and the Archaeopteryx fossil were generally regarded as eccentric. Hoyle's ideas were published, attracted much criticism, and were (probably) refuted.<br />
<br />
<br />
So I expected that Duesberg's paper either would be ignored or would trigger letters and other papers countering the ideas and evidence presented. Medical Hypotheses would have published these counter-arguments, then provided space for Duesberg to respond to the criticisms and later allowed critics to reply to Duesberg's defence. That is, after all, how real science is supposed to work.<br />
<br />
<br />
What I did not expect was that editors and scientists would be bypassed altogether, and that the matter would be settled by the senior managers of a multinational publishing corporation in consultation with pressure-group activists. Certainly, that would never have happened 25 years ago, when I began research in science.<br />
<br />
<br />
The success of Medical Hypotheses<br />
<br />
Nor did I not expect that I would be sacked, the journal destroyed and plans made to replace it with an impostor of the same name. I did not expect this because I had been doing a good job and Medical Hypotheses was a successful journal.<br />
<br />
<br />
Elsevier managers in the UK had frequently commended my work, I got a good salary for my work as editor, and I was twice awarded substantial performance-related pay rises. The journal was expanded in size by 50 per cent under my editorship, and a spin-off journal, Bioscience Hypotheses (edited by William Bains), was launched in 2008 on the same principles of editorial review and a radical agenda.<br />
<br />
<br />
The success of Medical Hypotheses is evidenced by its impact factor (average citations per paper), which under my editorship rose from about 0.6 to 1.4 - an above-average figure for biomedical journals. Download usage was also exceptionally high with considerably more than 1,000 online readers per day (or about half a million papers downloaded per year). This level of internet usage is equivalent to that of a leading title such as Journal of Theoretical Biology.<br />
<br />
<br />
But Medical Hypotheses was also famous for publishing some rather "eccentric" papers, which were chosen for their tendency to provoke thought, trigger discussion or amuse in a potentially stimulating way. Papers such as Georg Steinhauser's recent analysis of belly-button fluff have polarised opinion and also helped make Medical Hypotheses a cult favourite among people such as Marc Abrahams, the founder of the IgNobel Prizes. But they have also made it the subject of loathing and ridicule among those who demand that science and the bizarre be kept strictly demarcated (to prevent "misunderstanding").<br />
<br />
<br />
It is hard to measure exactly the influence of a journal, but some recent papers stand out as having had an impact. A report by Lola Cuddy and Jacalyn Duffin discussed the fascinating implications of an old lady with severe Alzheimer's disease who could still recognise tunes such as Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'. This paper, which was discussed by Oliver Sacks in his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, seems to have helped spark a renewed interest in music in relation to brain disease.<br />
<br />
<br />
The paper "A tale of two cannabinoids" by E. Russo and G.W. Guy suggested that a combination of marijuana products tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) would be valuable painkillers. This idea has since been widely discussed in the scientific literature.<br />
<br />
<br />
And in 2005, Eric Altschuler published in Medical Hypotheses a letter outlining his idea that survivors of the 1918 flu epidemic might even now retain immunity to the old virus. A few 1918 flu survivors were found who still had antibodies, and cells from those people were cloned to create an antiserum that protected experimental mice against the flu virus. The work was eventually published in Nature and received wide coverage in the US media.<br />
<br />
<br />
What is my own position on the cause of Aids?<br />
<br />
As an editor of a radical journal, my position was resolutely agnostic - in other words, I was not pursuing an agenda. I would publish papers presenting both sides of the debate. Most of the papers I published on Aids were orthodox ideas relating to HIV as the main cause. However, as well as Duesberg's article, I published some other papers challenging the HIV causal theory and proposing different mechanisms, such as work by Lawrence Broxmeyer arguing that some Aids patients actually have tuberculosis.<br />
<br />
<br />
As for my personal opinions on the cause of Aids, these are irrelevant to real science because the subject is too far away from my core expertise and I do not work in that area. It is clear that Duesberg understands far more about HIV than I do, and more than at least 99 per cent of his critics do. Therefore, the opinions of most of Duesberg's critics, no matter how vehement, are just as irrelevant to real science as are mine.<br />
<br />
<br />
But for me to collude with prohibiting Duesberg from publishing, I would have needed to be 100 per cent sure that Duesberg was 100 per cent wrong. Because even if he is mostly wrong, it is possible that someone of his ability may be seeing some kind of problem with the current consensus about Aids that other people of lesser ability (that is, most of us) are missing.<br />
<br />
<br />
And if Duesberg may be even partially correct, it is extremely dangerous that the proper scientific process has been so ruthlessly distorted and subverted simply to exclude his ideas from the official scientific literature.<br />
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Bruce G. Charlton is professor of theoretical medicine, University of Buckingham.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-81159234339542898142010-04-25T04:53:00.000-07:002010-04-25T04:53:36.570-07:00Some influential papers from Medical HypothesesSome influential papers from the history of Medical Hypotheses<br />
<br />
I believe that a journal editor should be ‘agnostic’ about the truth of the papers he publishes, since truth in science is not something that editors ought to guess, but should only be determined after publication by evaluation and testing within the wider scientific community. <br />
<br />
There is, at present, no objective method of evaluating a journal's relative or unique influence either quantitatively or qualitatively. To do this would require a great investment of intelligence, time and resources. <br />
<br />
After all, papers published in very high impact journals like Nature, Science and PNAS would - if rejected from one of these - almost-certainly have been published in another of these, or elsewhere in a specialist journal with similar impact; and if this had happened the same paper may well have had identical impact. <br />
<br />
What is hard to get-at is the _distinctive_ contribution of a _specific_ journal. At present, the best avaiable method may be biographical: asking scientists their opinion about the importance of particular papers in particular journals: http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2010/02/medical-hypotheses-authors-letters-of.html<br />
<br />
However the crude influence of publications can sometimes be estimated using citation analysis – this looks at the number of times a paper has been listed in the reference section by other scientists. <br />
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Citations build-up over several years, so that citation analysis is more reliable for older papers. But citations tend to reward mainstream 'methodological' papers - it is hard to estimate the importance of 'ideas' papers such as hypotheses and theories, especially as scientists do not feel obliged to cite the sources of their ideas even if they can remember them (whereas, by contrast, scientists must cite the source of any empirical data on which their own research depends). <br />
<br />
Bearing in mind these methods and caveats, I have compiled a short list of some of the papers from Medical Hypotheses which seem to have been most influential. <br />
<br />
<br />
There were just two editors of Medical Hypotheses in its 35 year history<br />
<br />
1975-2003 – David L Horrobin as Editor<br />
<br />
In the early days of Medical Hypotheses many of the papers reflected the first Editor’s interest in nutritional topics; and Medical Hypotheses published many ideas that helped launch some of today’s mainstream ideas about diet, such as the benefits of supplementation with ‘omega’ fatty acids and antioxidants. <br />
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In 1985 AJ Verlangieri and others outlined the now widely-accepted idea that eating plenty of fruit and vegetables helps prevent heart disease in a widely quoted paper: “Fruit and vegetable consumption and cardiovascular mortality”. <br />
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Through the 1980s in Medical Hypotheses, freelance US scientist Mark F McCarty was publishing many of the early and influential papers about the importance of antioxidants in the diet, and their possible role in preventing disease. Over some three decades McCarty has published more papers in Medical Hypotheses than anyone else, and together these papers have been cited thousands of times in the scientific literature. <br />
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In 1987 the Medical Hypotheses founding editor David Horrobin published a frequently-referenced paper on the ‘omega-3’ type of essential fatty acid, which so many people now use as dietary supplements: “Low prevalences of coronary heart disease (CHD), psoriasis, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis in Eskimos: Are they caused by high dietary intake of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), a genetic variation of essential fatty acid (EFA) metabolism or a combination of both?” <br />
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In 1985, Clouston and Kerr published in Medical Hypotheses an influential paper called “Apoptosis, lymphocytotoxicity and the containment of viral infections”. This first described the now widely accepted idea that viruses may be fought by inducing suicide in virus-infected cells. <br />
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The most widely cited paper in Medical Hypotheses was published in 1991: The macrophage theory of depression by RS Smith. This is a key paper which argues that immune system chemicals may be a major cause of depression, and has been cited 242 times according to Google Scholar.<br />
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<br />
2004-2010 Bruce G Charlton as Editor<br />
<br />
Here are some recent papers under my editorship which have already had an impact:<br />
<br />
In 2005, Lola Cuddy and Jackie Duffin of Queens University Canada published an influential paper in Medical Hypotheses based on an elderly lady with several Alzheimer’s disease who still retained the ability to recognize music. They theorized that this might provide useful information on the nature of brain damage in Alzheimer’s, and suggested that dementia sufferers might benefit from a more musical environment. This paper was awarded the David Horrobin Prize for 2005 for the paper in Medical Hypotheses which best exemplified the intentions of the founding editor – the famous Cambridge transplant surgeon Sir Roy Calne was judge.<br />
<br />
In “A tale of two cannabinoids” by E Russo & GW Guy from 2006, the authors presented the rationale for using a combination of marijuana products tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) as useful painkilling drugs and for the treatment of several other medical conditions. This idea has since been widely discussed in the scientific literature. <br />
<br />
In 2005 Eric Altschuler published a letter in Medical Hypotheses outlining his idea that survivors of the 1918 flu epidemic might even now retain immunity to the old virus. A few 1918 flu survivors were found who still had antibodies, and cells from these people were cloned to create an antiserum that protected experimental mice against the flu virus. The work was eventually published in Nature and received wide coverage in the media.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-82822692501760623992010-04-13T22:58:00.001-07:002010-04-13T22:58:53.524-07:00The Cancer of BureaucracyBruce G Charlton<br />
<br />
The cancer of bureaucracy: how it will destroy science, medicine, education; and eventually everything else <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses - 2010; 74: 961-5. <br />
<br />
Summary<br />
<br />
Everyone living in modernizing ‘Western’ societies will have noticed the long-term, progressive growth and spread of bureaucracy infiltrating all forms of social organization: nobody loves it, many loathe it, yet it keeps expanding. Such unrelenting growth implies that bureaucracy is parasitic and its growth uncontrollable – in other words it is a cancer that eludes the host immune system. Old-fashioned functional, ‘rational’ bureaucracy that incorporated individual decision-making is now all-but extinct, rendered obsolete by computerization. But modern bureaucracy evolved from it, the key ‘parasitic’ mutation being the introduction of committees for major decision-making or decision-ratification. Committees are a fundamentally irrational, incoherent, unpredictable decision-making procedure; which has the twin advantages that it cannot be formalized and replaced by computerization, and that it generates random variation or ‘noise’ which provides the basis for natural selection processes. Modern bureaucracies have simultaneously grown and spread in a positive-feedback cycle; such that interlinking bureaucracies now constitute the major environmental feature of human society which affects organizational survival and reproduction. Individual bureaucracies must become useless parasites which ignore the ‘real world’ in order to adapt to rapidly-changing ‘bureaucratic reality’. Within science, the major manifestation of bureaucracy is peer review, which – cancer-like – has expanded to obliterate individual authority and autonomy. There has been local elaboration of peer review and metastatic spread of peer review to include all major functions such as admissions, appointments, promotions, grant review, project management, research evaluation, journal and book refereeing and the award of prizes. Peer review eludes the immune system of science since it has now been accepted by other bureaucracies as intrinsically valid, such that any residual individual decision-making (no matter how effective in real-world terms) is regarded as intrinsically unreliable (self-interested and corrupt). Thus the endemic failures of peer review merely trigger demands for ever-more elaborate and widespread peer review. Just as peer review is killing science with its inefficiency and ineffectiveness, so parasitic bureaucracy is an un-containable phenomenon; dangerous to the extent that it cannot be allowed to exist unmolested, but must be utterly extirpated. Or else modernizing societies will themselves be destroyed by sclerosis, resource misallocation, incorrigibly-wrong decisions and the distortions of ‘bureaucratic reality’. However, unfortunately, social collapse is the more probable outcome, since parasites can evolve more rapidly than host immune systems.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
Everyone in modernizing ‘Western’ societies (roughly the USA, UK, Western and Central Europe) will, no doubt, have noticed that there has been a long-term, progressive growth and spread of bureaucracy. Except during major war; this has not been a matter of pendulum swings, with sometimes less and sometimes more bureaucracy, but instead of relentless overall expansion – albeit sometimes faster and at other times slower. <br />
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The bureaucratic takeover applies to science, medicine, education, law, police, the media – indeed to almost all social functions. Such unrelenting growth implies either that 1. Bureaucracy is vital to societal functioning and the more bureaucracy we have the better for us; or that 2. Bureaucracy is parasitic and its growth is uncontrollable. Since the first alternative has become obviously absurd, I am assuming the second alternative is correct: that bureaucracy is like a cancer of modernizing societies – i.e. its expansion is malignant and its effect is first parasitic, then eventually fatal. <br />
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While it is generally recognized that modern societies are being bled-dry by the expense, delays, demoralization and reality-blindness imposed by multiple expanding and interacting bureaucracies, it is not properly recognized that bureaucratic decision-making is not merely flawed by its expense and sluggishness but also by its tendency to generate wrong answers. Modern bureaucracy, indeed, leads to irrational and unpredictable decisions; to indefensible decisions which are barely comprehensible, and cannot be justified, even by the people directly involved in them. <br />
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In what follows, I will make a distinction between, on the one hand, Weberian, functional, ‘rational’ bureaucracy which (in its ideal type, as derived from the work of Max Weber; 1864-1920) incorporated individual decision-making and was evaluated externally in terms of results and efficiency; and, on the other hand, modern ‘parasitic’ bureaucracy which (in its ideal type) deploys majority-vote committees for its major decision-making, is orientated purely towards its own growth, and which by means of its capacity to frame ‘reality’ - has become self-validating. <br />
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I will argue that parasitic bureaucracy evolved from rational bureaucracy in response to the rapidly changeable selection pressures imposed by modern society, especially the selection pressure from other bureaucracies having constructed a encompassing, virtual but dominant system of ‘bureaucratic reality’; and that the system of rational bureaucracy is by now all-but extinct – having been rendered obsolete by computerization. <br />
<br />
<br />
The problem of parasitic bureaucracy<br />
<br />
It is a striking feature of modern bureaucracy that nobody loves it, many loathe it (even, or especially, the bureaucrats themselves), yet it keeps growing and spreading. One reason is that bureaucracy is able to frame reality, such that the more that bureaucracy dominates society, the more bureaucracy seems to be needed; hence the response to any bureaucracy-generated problem is always to make more and bigger bureaucracies. It is this positive feedback system which is so overwhelming. Mere human willpower is now clearly inadequate to combat bureaucratic expansionism. Bureaucracy has become like The Borg on Star Trek: the next generation: it feeds-upon and assimilates opposition. <br />
<br />
Bureaucracies are indeed no longer separable but form a linked web; such that to cut one bureaucracy seems always to imply another, and larger, bureaucracy to do the cutting. When the dust has settled, it is invariably found that the total sum and scope of societal bureaucratic activity has increased. And it is well recognized that modern bureaucracies tend to discourse-about, but never to eradicate, problems – it is as-if the abstract bureaucratic system somehow knew that its survival depended upon continually working-on, but never actually solving problems... Indeed, ‘problems’ seldom even get called problems nowadays, since problems imply the need and expectation for solutions; instead problems get called ‘issues’, a term which implies merely the need to ‘work-on’ them indefinitely. To talk in terms of solving problems is actually regarded as naïve and ‘simplistic’; even when, as a matter of empirical observation, these exact same problems were easily solved in the past, as a matter of record. <br />
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Over much of the world, public life is now mostly a matter of ‘bureaucracy speaking unto bureaucracy’. Observations and opinions from individual humans simply don’t register – unless, of course, individual communications happen to provide inputs which bureaucracies can use to create more regulations, more oversight, hence create more work for themselves. So individual complaints which can be used to trigger bureaucratic activity may be noted and acted-upon, or personal calls for more bureaucratic oversight may be amplified, elaborated and implemented. But anything which threatens the growth and spread of bureaucracy (i.e. anything simple that is also worryingly swift, efficient or effective) is ignored; or in extremis attacked with lethal intent. <br />
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The main self-defence of modern bureaucracy, however, is to frame reality. Since bureaucracies now dominate society, that which bureaucracies recognize and act-upon is ‘reality’; while that which bureaucracies do not recognize does not, for practical purposes, exist. Bureaucracy-as-a-system, therefore constructs a 'reality' which is conducive to the thriving of bureaucracy-as-a-system.<br />
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When a powerful bureaucracy does not recognize a communication as an input, then that communication is rendered anecdotal and irrelevant. Information which the bureaucracy rejects takes-on an unreal, subjective quality. Even if everybody, qua individual, knows that some thing is real and true – it becomes possible for modern bureaucracy implicitly to deny that thing's existence simply by disregarding it as an input, and instead responding to different inputs that are more conducive to expansion, and these are then rendered more significant and 'realer' than actual reality. <br />
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For many people, the key defining feature of a bureaucracy (as described by Weber) is that ideally it is an information-processing organization that has established objective procedures which it implements impartially. It is these quasi-mechanical procedures which are supposed to link aims to outcomes; and to ensure that, given appropriate inputs a bureaucracy almost-automatically generate predictable and specific outputs and outcomes. <br />
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However modern bureaucracies do not work like that. Indeed, such has been the breakdown in relationship between input and output that modern bureaucracies devote immense resources to change pure-and-simple; for example continually changing the recognition of input measures (i.e. continually redefining 'reality') and re-defining an organization’s mission and aims (i.e. rendering the nature of the organization different-from and incommensurable-with the past organization) and repeatedly altering the organizational outcomes regarded as relevant (re-defining making any decline in the efficiency of the organization formally un-measurable). <br />
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Such change may be externally- or internally-triggered: either triggered by the external demands of other bureaucracies which constitute the organizational environment, or triggered by the innate noise-generating tendencies of committees. <br />
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With endlessly-altering inputs, processes and outputs, bureaucratically-dominated organizations are impossible to critique in terms of functionality: their effectiveness is impossible to measure, and if or when they may be counter-productive (in terms of their original real world purpose) this will also be unknowable. Individual functional organizations disappear and all bureaucracies blend into a Borg-like web of interdependent growth.<br />
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<br />
The nature of bureaucracy: rational versus parasitic<br />
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What is bureaucracy? The traditional definition emphasises that bureaucracy entails a rational human organization which is characterized by hierarchy and specialization of function, and that the organization deploys explicit procedures or regulations that are impartially administered by the personnel. A rational ‘Weberian’ bureaucracy was probably, on the whole, performing a useful function reasonably efficiently – in other words its effectiveness was perceived in terms of externally-pre-decided criteria, and its growth and spread were circumscribed. <br />
In medical terms, Weberian bureaucracy was therefore – at worst - a benign tumour; potentially able to overgrow locally and exert pressure on its surroundings; but still under control from, and held in check by, the larger host organism of society. <br />
<br />
But, just as cancers usually evolve from benign precursors, so it was that modern parasitic and useless bureaucracies evolved from the rational and functional bureaucracies of an earlier era. Probably the key trigger factor in accelerating the rate of this evolution has been the development of computers, which have the potential to do – almost instantly, and at near zero cost – exactly the kind of rational information processing which in the past could only be done (much more slowly, expensively, and erratically) by Weberian bureaucracy. My contention is that large scale rational, functional bureaucracies are now all-but extinct, destroyed by computerization. <br />
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I assume that, when rational bureaucracy was facing extinction from computerization, there was a powerful selection pressure for the evolution of new forms of irrational bureaucracy – since rational procedures could be converted into algorithms, formalized and done mechanically; while irrational procedures were immune from this competition. <br />
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The outcome is that, despite retaining a vast structure of procedure and regulation, and the organizational principles of hierarchy and specialization, those powerful modern bureaucracies that survived the challenge of computerization and are still alive and growing nowadays are non-rational in their core attributes. Irrationality is indeed an essential aspect of a modern bureaucracy’s ability to survive and thrive. Those bureaucracies which remain and are expanding in this post-computerization era are neither rational nor functional.<br />
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This evolution towards pure parasitism – with no performance of a substantive real-world function - is only possible because, for any specific bureaucracy, its relevant environment now substantially consists of other bureaucracies. It is 'other bureaucracies' that are the main selection pressure: other bureaucracies pose the main threat to survival and reproduction. A modern bureaucracy therefore must respond primarily to ‘bureaucratic reality’ – and any engagement with ‘real life’ (e.g. life as it is perceived by alert and informed individual human beings) simply stands in the way of this primary survival task. <br />
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So, the best adapted modern bureaucracies are those which most efficiently play the game of satisfying the constantly-and rapidly-changing requirements of other major bureaucracies. Success brings expansion by local growth and metastatic spread. But, in contrast, satisfying the stable requirements of ‘real life’ and human nature, by contrast, brings a bureaucracy little or no rewards, and a greater possibility of extinction from the actions of other bureaucracies. <br />
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The role of committees in the evolution of bureaucracy<br />
<br />
I will argue that the major mechanism by which irrationality has been introduced into bureaucracies is the committee which makes decisions by majority voting. <br />
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Committees now dominate almost all the major decision-making in modernizing societies – whether in the mass committee of eligible voters in elections, or such smaller committees as exist in corporations, government or in the US Supreme Court: it seems that modern societies always deploy a majority vote to decide or ratify all questions of importance. Indeed, it is all-but-inconceivable that any important decision be made by an individual person – it seems both natural and inevitable that such judgments be made by group vote. <br />
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Yet although nearly universal among Western ruling elites, this fetishizing of committees is a truly bizarre attitude; since there is essentially zero evidence that group voting leads to good, or even adequate, decisions – and much evidence that group voting leads to unpredictable, irrational and bad decisions. <br />
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The nonsense of majority voting was formally described by Nobel economics laureate Kenneth Arrow (1921-) in the 1960s, but it is surely obvious to anyone who has had dealings with committees and maintains independent judgement. It can be demonstrated using simple mathematical formulations that a majority vote may lead to unstable cycles of decisions, or a decision which not one single member of the committee would regard as optimal. For example, in a job appointments panel, it sometimes happens that there are two strong candidates who split the panel, so the winner is a third choice candidate whom no panel member would regard as the best candidate. In other words any individual panel member would make a better choice than derives from majority voting. <br />
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Furthermore, because of this type of phenomenon, and the way that majority decisions do not necessarily reflect any individual's opinion, committee decisions carry no responsibility. After all, how could anyone be held responsible for outcomes which nobody intended and to which nobody agrees? So that committees exert de facto power without responsibility. Indeed most modern committees are typically composed of a variable selection from a number of eligible personnel, so that it is possible that the same committee may never contain the same personnel twice. The charade is kept going by the necessary but meaningless fiction of ‘committee responsibility’, maintained by the enforcement of a weird rule that committee members must undertake, in advance of decisions, to abide by whatever outcome (however irrational, unpredictable, unjustified and indefensible) the actual contingent committee deliberations happen to lead-to. This near-universal rule and practice simply takes ‘irresponsibility’ and re-names it ‘responsibility’…<br />
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Given that committee decisions are neither rational nor coherent, and are therefore radically unpredictable, what is their effect? In a nutshell the short answer is that committees – overall and in the long term – generate random ‘noise’. Committees almost certainly increase the chances that a decision is wrong – but overall they probably do not have lead to any specifically biased direction of wrongness. While some committees using some procedures are biased in one direction, others are biased in other directions, and in the end I think the only thing that we can be sure about is that committees widen the range of unpredictability of decisions. <br />
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Now, if we ask what is the role of randomness in complex systems? - the answer is that random noise provides the variations which are the subject of selection processes. For example, in biology the random errors of genetic replication provide genetic variation which affects traits that are then subjected to natural selection. So, it seems reasonable to infer that committees generate random changes that generate variations in organizational characteristics which are then acted-upon by selection mechanisms. Some organizational variations are amplified and thrive, while other variations are suppressed and dwindle. Overall, this enables bureaucracies rapidly to evolve – to survive, to grow and to spread.<br />
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How much random noise is needed in a bureaucracy (or any evolving system)? The short answer is that the stronger is the selection pressure, the greater is the necessity for rapid evolution, then the more noise is needed; bearing in mind the trade-off by which an increased error rate in reproduction also reduces the ability of an evolving system accurately to reproduce itself. A system under strong selection pressure (e.g. a bureaucracy in a rapidly-changing modernizing society) tends to allow or generate more noise to create a wider range of variation for selection to act upon and thereby enable faster evolution – at the expense of less exact replication. By contrast, a system under weaker selection pressure (such as the Weberian bureaucracies of the early 20th century – for instance the British Civil Service) have greater fidelity of replication (less noise), but at the expense of a reduced ability to change rapidly in response to changing selection pressures. <br />
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I am saying here that committees using majority voting are responsible for the evolution of malignant bureaucratic growth in modern bureaucracies, and that this is why majority-vote decision-making permeates modern societies from the top to the bottom. <br />
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Although almost all major decision-making in the ‘Western’ world is now by majority voting there may be two significant exceptions: firstly military decision-making in time of war; secondly the personal authority of the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church. In both these types of organization there seems to be a greater emphasis on individual decision-making than on committee voting. Military command structures and the Roman Catholic hierarchy are therefore probably both closer to the ideal type of a Weberian rational bureaucracy than to the ideal type of a modern parasitic bureaucracy. <br />
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If so, the only major exceptions to majority rule decision-making at a world level, and probably not by coincidence, are the oldest and longest-enduring bureaucratic structures: that is, organizations which have retained functionality and have not themselves been destroyed by bureaucratic cancer. <br />
<br />
<br />
Why are there committees at all? <br />
<br />
Although they may nowadays be almost wholly damaging, committees cannot in their origins have been entirely useless or harmful; or else the form would never have survived its first appearance. If we acknowledge that individuals have the potential for better (i.e. more rational and coherent) decision-making than committees, then the decline of individual decision-making must not be due to the lack of advantages so much as the perceived problems of individual decision-making.<br />
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The problems of individual decision-making are the same as the problems of individual power: in essence these problems are self-interest (i.e. the observation that power will be deployed differentially to benefit the power-holder) and corruption (i.e. the observation that over time power will corrupt, making the individual progressively a worse-and-worse decision-maker until he us note merely self-interested but progressively driven mad: power mad). <br />
<br />
Since humans are self-centred beings living in an imperfect world, all individuals tend to be both self-interested and corruptible (albeit to widely-varying degrees!). Of course, self-interest and corruptibility applies equally to people 'serving' on committees - each of whom is wielding lesser but anonymous and irresponsible power. Nonetheless, it seems to me that committees are mostly favoured because they are seen as a solution to these intrinsic problems of individual power. The implicit assumption is that when a committee is run by majority voting then individual self-interests will cancel-out. Furthermore, that since power is spread-around more people on a committee, then the inevitably corrupting effect of power will be similarly diluted. <br />
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In reality, committees mostly solve the problems of power to the extent that they reduce the effective deployment of power. So that, if committees are indeed less self-interested and less prone to corruption than individuals, this is achieved mainly because the committee structure and procedures make decision-making so unpredictable and incoherent that committees are rendered ineffective: ineffective to such an extent that committees cannot even manage consistently to be self-interested or corrupt! Therefore, the problems of power are ‘solved’, not by reducing the biases or corruptions of power, but simply by reducing the effectiveness of power; by introducing inefficiencies and obscuring the clarity of self-interest with the labile confusions of group dynamics. Power is not controlled but destroyed…<br />
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Therefore, if committees were introduced to reduce the abuse of power, then instead of achieving this, their actual outcome is that committees reduce power itself, and society is made docile when confronted by significant problems which could be solved, but are not. And surely this is precisely what we observe in the West, on an hourly basis? <br />
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Because committee-based bureaucracy is predicated on an ethic of power as evil: it functions as a sort of unilateral disarmament that would be immediately obvious as self-defeating or maladaptive unless arising in a context of already-existing domination. And a system of committee-based bureaucracy can only survive for as long as it its opponents can be rendered even-weaker by even-more virulent affliction with the same disease: which perhaps explains the extra-ordinarily venomous and dishonest pseudo-moralizing aggression which committee bureaucracy adopts towards other simpler, more-efficient or more-effective organizational systems that still use individual decision-making. <br />
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If we assume that committees were indeed introduced as a purported solution to (real or imagined, actual or potential) abuses of individual power; then committees will therefore usually achieve this goal. So long as the quality of decision-making is ignored, then the committees seem to be successful. Committees can therefore be seen as a typical product of one-sided and unbalanced moralism that has discarded the Aristotelian maxim of moderation in all things. Bureaucracy adopts instead unilateral moralism which aims at the complete avoidance of one kind of sin, even at the cost of falling into another contrasting kind of sin (so pride is avoided by encouraging submission, and aggression is avoided by imposing sloth). <br />
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However the subject matter of ‘trade-offs’ is avoided; and the inevitable self-created problems of single issue moral action are instead fed-upon by bureaucracy, leading (of course!) to further expansion. <br />
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Hence, modern decision-making means that societal capability has declined in many areas. It has become at best slow and expensive, and at worst impossible, to achieve things which were done quickly, efficiently and effectively under systems based on individual decision-making. To avoid the corruption of individual authority, society has been rendered helpless in the face of threats which could have been combated. <br />
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<br />
Bureaucracy in science – the cancer of peer review<br />
<br />
This situation can readily be seen in science. Although modern science is massively distorted and infiltrated by the action of external bureaucracies in politics, public administration, law, business and the media (for example), the major manifestation of bureaucracy actually within science is of course peer review. <br />
<br />
Over the last half-century or so, the growth and metastatic spread of peer review as a method of decision-making in science has been truly amazing. Individual decision-making has been all-but obliterated at every level and for almost every task. The elaborateness of peer review has increased (e.g. the number of referees, the number of personnel on evaluating panels, the amount of information input demanded by these groups). And peer review or other types of committee are now used for admissions, appointments, promotions, grant review, project management, research evaluation, journal and book refereeing, the award of prizes… the list just goes on and on. Clearly, peer review fits the pattern of malignant expansion of bureaucracy that is seen in the rest of modern society. <br />
<br />
And, as with the rest of society, the cancer of bureaucratic peer review eludes the immune system of science. It has now been widely accepted, by the other bureaucracies of modern society in particular, that peer review is intrinsically valid; and that any other form of decision-making is intrinsically corrupt or unreliable. This belief is not merely implicit, but frequently explicit: with ignorant and nonsensical statements about the vital and defining role of peer review in science being the norm in mainstream communication. <br />
<br />
The irresistible rise of peer review can be seen most starkly in that any deficiencies in peer review triggers demands (especially from other bureaucracies) for more elaborate and widespread peer review. So that the endemic failure of increased journal peer review to maintain quality, or to eliminate what it is purported to detect; such as deliberate fraud, or multiple publication, or serious error - leads inevitably leads to plans for further increases in peer review. So there is peer review of greater elaborateness, with further steps added to the process, and extra layers of monitoring by new types of larger committees. The ultimate validity of peer review is simply an assumption; and no amount of contrary evidence of its stultifying inefficiency, its harmful biases, and distorting exclusions can ever prove anything except the need for more of the same. <br />
<br />
Yet the role of peer review in the progress of science remains, as it always has been, conjectural and unverified. The processes of gathering and collating peer opinion as a method of decision-making are neither rational nor transparent – and indeed (as argued above) this irrationality and unpredictability is in fact a necessary factor in the ability of committee systems such as peer review to expand without limit. <br />
<br />
In the past; the ultimate, bottom-line, within-science validation of science came not from the committee opinions of peer reviewers but from the emergent phenomenon of peer usage – which refers to the actual deployment of previous science (theories, facts, techniques) in the ongoing work of later scientists. This was an implicit, aggregate but not quantified outcome of a multitude of individual-decisions among peers (co-workers in the same domain) about what aspects of previous science they would use in their own research: each user of earlier work was betting their time, effort and reputation on the validity of the previous research which they chose to use. When their work bore fruit, this a validation of previous research (in the sense that having survived this attempt at refutation the old science now commanded greater confidence); but when previous research was faulty it 'sabotaged' any later research building upon it in terms of correctly predicting or effectively-intervening-in the natural world. Beyond this lies the commonsensical evaluation of science in terms of ‘what works’ – especially what works outside of science, by people such as engineers and doctors whose job is to apply science in the natural world. <br />
<br />
But now that committee-based peer review has been explicitly accepted as the ‘gold standard’ of scientific validity, we see the bizarre situation that actual scientific usage and even what works is regarded as less important than the ‘bureaucratic reality’ of peer review evaluations. Mere opinions trump observations of objective reality. Since ‘bureaucratic reality’ is merely a construct of interacting bureaucracies, this carries the implication that scientific reality is now, to an ever-increasing extent, simply just another aspect of, and seamlessly-continuous-with, mainstream 'bureaucratic reality'. Science is merely a subdivision of that same bureaucratic reality seen in politics, public administration, law, the media and business. The whole thing is just one gigantic virtual world. It seems probable that much of peer reviewed ‘science’ nowadays therefore carries no implications of being useful in understanding, predicting or intervening-on the natural world. <br />
<br />
In other words, when science operates on the basis of peer review and committee decision, it is not really science at all. The cancer of bureaucracy has killed real science wherever it dominates. Much of mainstream science is now ‘Zombie Science’: that is, something which superficially looks-like science, but which is actually dead inside, and kept-moving only by continuous infusion of research funds. So far as bureaucratic reality is concerned, i.e. the reality as acknowledged among the major bureaucracies; real science likely now exists at an unofficial, unacknowledged level, below the radar; only among that minority of scholars and researchers who still deploy the original scientific evaluation mechanisms such as individual judgement, peer usage and real-world effectiveness. <br />
<br />
What will happen?<br />
<br />
The above analysis suggests that parasitic bureaucracy is so dangerous in the context of a modernizing society that it cannot be allowed to exist; it simply must be destroyed in its entirety or else any residuum will re-grow, metastasize and colonize society all over again. The implication is that a future society which intends to survive in the long-term would need to be one that prevents parasitic bureaucracy from even getting a toe-hold.<br />
<br />
The power of parasitic bureaucracy to expand and to trigger further parasitic bureaucracies is now rendered de facto un-stoppable by the power of interacting bureaucracies to frame and construct perceived reality in bureaucratic terms. Since bureaucratic failure is eliminated by continual re-definition of success, and the since any threats of to bureaucratic expansion are eliminated by exclusion or lethal attack; the scope of bureaucratic takeover from now can be limited only by collapse of the social system as a whole. <br />
<br />
So, if the above analysis is correct, there can be only two outcomes. Either that the cancer of modern bureaucracy will be extirpated: destroyed utterly. In other words, the host immune system will evolve the ability to destroy the parasite. Maybe, all majority voting committees will coercively be replaced by individuals who have the authority to make decisions and responsibility for those decisions. <br />
Or that the cancer of bureaucracy will kill the host. In other words, the parasite will continue to elude the immune system. Modernizing societies will sooner-or-later be destroyed by a combination of resource starvation plus accumulative damage from delayed and wrong decisions based on the exclusions and distortions of ‘bureaucratic reality’. <br />
<br />
Then the most complex rapidly-growing modernizing Western societies will be replaced by, or will regress into, zero-growth societies with a lower level of complexity - probably about the level of the agrarian societies of the European or Asian Middle Ages. <br />
<br />
My prediction is that outcome two – societal collapse - is at present the more probable, on the basis that parasites can evolve more rapidly than host immune systems. Although as individuals we can observe the reality of approaching disaster, to modern parasitic bureaucracies the relevant data is either trivial or simply invisible. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Further reading: Although I do not mention it specifically above, the stimulus to writing this essay came from Mark A Notturno’s Science and the open society: the future of Karl Popper’s philosophy (Central European University Press: Budapest, 2000) – in particular the account of Popper’s views on induction. It struck me that committee decision-making by majority vote is a form of inductive reasoning, hence non-valid; and that inductive reasoning is in practice no more than a form of ‘authoritarianism’ (as Notturno terms it). In the event, I decided to exclude this line of argument from the essay because I found it too hard to make the point interesting and accessible. Nonetheless, I am very grateful to have had it explained to me. <br />
<br />
I should also mention that various analyses of the pseudonymous blogger Mencius Moldbug, who writes at Unqualified Reservations, likely had a significant role in developing the above ideas. <br />
<br />
This argument builds upon several previous pieces of mine including: Conflicts of interest in medical science: peer usage, peer review and ‘CoI consultancy' (Medical Hypotheses 2004; 63: 181-186); Charlton BG, Andras P. What is management and what do managers do? A systems theory account. (Philosophy of Management. 2004; 3: 3-15); Peer usage versus peer review (BMJ 2007; 335: 451); Charlton BG, Andras P. Medical research funding may have over-expanded and be due for collapse (QJM 2005; 98: 53–55); Figureheads, ghost-writers and pseudonymous quant bloggers: the recent evolution of authorship in science publishing (Medical Hypotheses. 2008; 71: 475–480); Zombie science’ (Medical Hypotheses 2008; 71:327–329); The vital role of transcendental truth in science’ (Medical Hypotheses. 2009; 72: 373–376); Are you an honest scientist? Truthfulness in science should be an iron law, not a vague aspiration (Medical Hypotheses. 2009; Volume 73: 633-635); and, After science: has the tradition been broken? Medical Hypotheses, in the press.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-32043028382111070612010-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:002010-04-04T22:48:30.265-07:00Covert drug dependenceCovert drug dependence should be the null hypothesis for explaining drug-withdrawal-induced clinical deterioration: The necessity for placebo versus drug withdrawal trials on normal control subjects<br />
<br />
Bruce G. Charlton<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses. 2010; 74: 761-763. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Summary<br />
<br />
Just as a placebo can mimic an immediately effective drug so chronic drug dependence may mimic an effective long-term or preventive treatment. The discovery of the placebo had a profound result upon medical practice, since it became recognized that it was much harder to determine the therapeutic value of an intervention than was previously assumed. Placebo is now the null hypothesis for therapeutic improvement. As David Healy describes in the accompanying editorial on treatment induced stress syndromes [1], an analogous recognition of the effect of drug dependence is now overdue. Drug dependence and withdrawal effects should in future become the null hypothesis when there is clinical deterioration following cessation of treatment. The ideal methodology for detecting drug dependence and withdrawal is a double-blind placebo controlled and randomized trial using disease-free normal control subjects. Normal controls are necessary to ensure that the possibility of underlying chronic disease is eliminated: so long as subjects begin the trial as ‘normal controls’ it is reasonable to infer that any clinical or psychological problems (above placebo levels) which they experience following drug withdrawal can reasonably be attributed to the effects of the drug. This is important because the consequences of failing to detect the risk of covert drug dependence may be considerably worse than failing to detect a placebo effect. Drug dependent patients not only fail to receive benefit and suffer continued of inconvenience, expense and side effects; but the drug has actually created and sustained a covert chronic pathology. However, the current situation for drug evaluation is so irrational that it would allow chronic alcohol treatment to be regarded as a cure for alcoholism on the basis that delirium tremens follows alcohol withdrawal and alcohol can be used to treat delirium tremens! Therefore, just as placebo controlled trials of drugs are necessary to detect ineffective drugs, so drug withdrawal trials on normal control subjects should be regarded as necessary to detect dependence-producing drugs.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Just as a placebo can mimic an immediately effective drug, so chronic drug dependence may mimic an effective long-term or preventive treatment<br />
<br />
The discovery of the placebo had a profound result upon medical practice. After the placebo effect was discovered it was recognized that it was much harder to determine the therapeutic value of an intervention than previously assumed. As David Healy describes in the accompanying editorial on treatment induced stress syndromes [1], an analogous recognition of the effect of drug dependence is now overdue, especially in relation to psychoactive drugs.<br />
<br />
Therefore, just as placebo controlled trials of drugs are regarded as necessary to detect ineffective drugs, so drug withdrawal trials on normal control subjects should be regarded as necessary to detect dependence-producing drugs.<br />
<br />
<br />
Determining the specific benefit of a drug<br />
<br />
Throughout most of the history of medicine it was naively assumed that when a patient improved following a specific therapy, then this positive change could confidently be attributed to the beneficial effects of that specific therapy. But it is now recognized that clinical improvement may have nothing to do with the specific treatment but may instead have general psychological causes to do with a patient’s expectations. So that when a drug treatment is begun and the patient gets better, the change may not be due to the drug but some or all of the observed benefit could be due to the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
Indeed, nowadays the placebo effect is routinely assumed to be the cause of patient improvement unless proven otherwise. Placebo effect is therefore the null hypothesis used to explain therapeutic improvements.<br />
<br />
This tendency to regard the placebo effect as the default explanation for clinical improvement has led to major methodological changes in the evaluation of putative drug therapies; because the first aim of drug evaluation is now to show that measured benefits cannot wholly be explained by placebo. This has led to widespread adoption of placebo controlled trials which compare the effect of the putative drug with a placebo. Only when the drug produces a greater effect than placebo alone, is it recognized as a potentially effective therapy.<br />
<br />
The effect of withdrawing a drug upon which a subject has become dependent can be regarded as analogous to the placebo effect, in the sense that drug dependence resembles the placebo effect in being able to mislead concerning clinical effectiveness.<br />
<br />
It may routinely be assumed that if a patient gets worse when drug treatment is stopped, then this change is due to the patient losing the beneficial effects of the drug, so that the underlying disease (for which the drug was being prescribed) has re-emerged. That is, when a patient does better when taking a drug than after cessation, it seems apparent that the patient benefits from this drug. So the naïve assumption would be that worsening of a patient’s condition on withdrawal implies that the patient had a long-term illness which was being treated by the drug, and the chronic illness was revealed when drug treatment was withdrawn.<br />
<br />
However, this naïve assumption is certainly unjustified as a general rule because drug dependence produces exactly the same effect. When a patient has become dependent on a drug, then adverse consequences following withdrawal may have nothing to do with revealing an underlying, long-term illness. Instead, chronic drug use has actually made the patient ill, the drug has created a new but covert pathology; the body has adapted to the presence of the drug and now needs the drug in order to function normally such that the covert pathology only emerges when the drug is removed and body systems are disrupted by its absence.<br />
<br />
In other words, the drug dependent patient may have had independent pathology which has disappeared, or else drug treatment may have been the sole cause of pathology. But either way, clinical deterioration following withdrawal is mainly or wholly a consequence of drug dependence and not a consequence of underlying independent chronic pathology.<br />
<br />
So, before assuming that the patient benefits from a drug the possibility of covert drug dependence must first be eliminated as an explanation. Healy’s argument is that drug dependence and withdrawal effects should in future become the null hypothesis in evaluating the chronic need for therapy in the same way as placebo is now a null hypothesis for clinical improvement following drug therapy. Worsening of the patient’s condition following cessation or dose reduction of a drug should therefore be assumed to be caused by withdrawal unless otherwise proven.<br />
<br />
However, current methods of therapeutic evaluation cannot reliably detect stress induced drug dependence. This implies that a new kind of clinical trial is required explicitly to test for covert drug dependence and withdrawal effects in a manner analogous to the placebo controlled therapeutic trial.<br />
<br />
<br />
Assumptions about the cause of post-withdrawal clinical deterioration<br />
<br />
It has not yet been generally recognized that eliminating drug dependence as an explanation for withdrawal effects cannot be achieved in the context of normal clinical practice, nor by the standard formal methodologies of controlled clinical trials.<br />
<br />
Just as eliminating the possibility of placebo effects requires specially designed placebo controlled therapeutic trails, so eliminating the occurrence of covert drug dependence requires also specially designed withdrawal trials on normal control subjects.<br />
<br />
At present, it is usual to assume a drug does not cause dependence, except when it is proved that a specific drug does cause dependence. This means that when no information on dependence is available, or when the information about dependence on a particular drug is either incomplete or inconclusive, then the standard accepted inference is that the drug does not cause dependence. In effect, the onus of proof is currently upon those who are trying to argue that a drug causes dependence.<br />
<br />
The situation for withdrawal trials testing for dependence is therefore exactly the opposite of that applying to therapeutic trials and the placebo effect. Consequently, as Healy describes, prevailing clinical evaluation procedures may systematically be incapable of detecting withdrawal effects. Even worse, current procedures systematically tend to misattribute the creation of dependence and harm following withdrawal, as instead being evidence of drug benefit with implication of the necessity for continued treatment of a supposed chronic illness.<br />
<br />
The currently prevailing presumption therefore favours new drugs about which little is known; and it favours a perpetuation of the state of ignorance, since no evidence of dependence is almost invariably being interpreted as evidence of no dependence. In other words, as things stand; a drug that actually creates chronic dependence is instead credited with curing a chronic disease; despite that the chronic disease is actually a stress syndrome disease state which that same drug has actually caused.<br />
<br />
The current situation is equivalent to chronic alcohol treatment being regarded as a cure for alcoholism on the (warped) basis that delirium tremens follows alcohol withdrawal and alcohol can be used to treat delirium tremens!<br />
<br />
<br />
When to suspect covert dependence<br />
<br />
The almost-total lack of awareness of covert drug dependence and withdrawal problems need not be accidental, but could be a consequence of the fact that unrecognized drug dependence is financially advantageous for the pharmaceutical companies who fund and conduct most clinical trials.<br />
<br />
Although there are signs which may warn of dependence on a drug, and the possibility of withdrawal effects (e.g. dwindling effects of a drug, or the need for escalating doses in order to maintain its effect) – none of these are easy to discriminate from therapeutic effects.<br />
<br />
But dependence may be suspected when what was perceived as an acute and self-limiting illness requiring a time-limited course of treatment, gradually becomes perceived as a chronic disorder requiring long-term drug treatment. This has been a pattern observed for several psychiatric conditions including depression and acute psychosis. Naturally, there can be rationalizations for this – for example, that the disease was previously unrecognized or under-treated.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, the difficulty of resolving such disputes serves to make clear the need for establishing a presumption of drugs being dependence-producing, and the necessity that this possibility be eliminated by withdrawal trials at an early stage in the evaluation of the drug.<br />
<br />
Covert dependence generates a long-term demand for drugs by converting acute into chronic disease among the legitimate therapeutic target community. For example, acute and self-limiting depressive illness can be made into an apparent chronic disease if antidepressants create dependence such that drug withdrawal provokes depressed mood – such that a lifetime of antidepressant treatment can then be justified as ‘preventing’ a supposed chronic recurrent depressive disorder which is actually itself a product of drug administration.<br />
<br />
Another way in which covert dependence is advantageous for pharmaceutical companies happens when the inclusiveness of diagnostic criteria are expanded. Because the more patients that are treated (on whatever excuse), the more dependence is produced and the more people who then require chronic drug administration.<br />
<br />
Possible examples are when the threshold sensitivity for prescribing is reduced for a dependence-producing drug, such as the suggestion that early or preventive treatment of psychosis is beneficial, using an ‘atypical’ or traditional antipsychotic/neuroleptic. And because withdrawal of antipsychotics causes an increased likelihood of psychotic breakdown, preventive drug treatment is an apparently self-fulfilling prophesy. Or when a new and allegedly high prevalence disease category such as ‘bipolar disorder’ is created along with indications for treatment by dependence-producing drugs; this will tend to generate a new cohort of drug dependent patients whose long-term dependence on drugs can be disguised as a newly-discovered and previously-unsuspected type of severe and chronic psychiatric pathology.<br />
<br />
In other words, under currently prevailing research standards, mass creation and exploitation of drug dependence may actually be spun as evidence of medical progress!<br />
<br />
<br />
The necessity for drug-withdrawal trials on normal control subjects<br />
<br />
Drug dependence needs a level of recognition comparable to the placebo effect because it is more damaging than the placebo effect. The main problem of failing to detect a placebo effect is that patients may be unnecessarily exposed to the expense and side effects of a drug. So the placebo effect may be clinically desirable, so long as the placebo is inexpensive and harmless.<br />
<br />
But the consequences of failing to detect covert drug dependence may be considerably worse than this. When dependence is a problem, patients who receive chronic drug treatment may not only fail to receive any benefit (and thereby suffer unnecessary risk of side effects and expense) but the drug may actually create increasingly severe covert pathology. If a patient is prescribed a drug inappropriately, then they may become drug dependent even when ineffectiveness, inconvenience, expense or treatment side effects mean that they wish (or need) to stop.<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, the problem with placebos is merely that a drug fails to treat pathology, but the problem with dependence is that a drug has created pathology.<br />
<br />
Clearly, the ideal – and perhaps indispensable – methodology for detecting covert drug dependence is a double-blind placebo controlled and randomized trial using disease-free normal control subjects. Normal controls are necessary to ensure that the possibility of chronic disease is eliminated: since controls begin the trial as ‘normal’ it is reasonable to infer that any clinical or psychological problems (above placebo levels) which they experience following drug withdrawal can reasonably be attributed to the effects of the drug.<br />
<br />
A withdrawal trial needs to be prolonged to include not just sufficient chronicity of treatment by the active drug or placebo; but also a sufficient follow-up period after stopping the drug or placebo, during which it can be discovered whether there is any worsening of conditions following withdrawal and an increase in new pathologies. Specifically, what needs to be measured is a comparison of the frequency of post-withdrawal problems in the two randomly-assigned placebo and active drug groups.<br />
<br />
Since the nature of withdrawal effects will not be known in advance, such a trial cannot rely upon highly focused and pre-specified questionnaires but would need to include very general questioning about more general feelings of well-being and quality of life; and any signs of problems as perceived by observers. Follow-up could include measures such as all-cause mortality, all source morbidity; and measures of the frequency of adverse events such as suicide, accidents, medical contacts and hospital admissions.<br />
<br />
In conclusion, covert drug dependence should be the null hypothesis explanation for post-withdrawal clinical deterioration, especially for new drugs and even more so for drugs acting on the brain. A default assumption is required that lack of evidence concerning drug dependence implies that a drug is dependence-producing.<br />
<br />
Because unless covert drug dependence becomes a default assumption, then it remains advantageous for pharmaceutical companies self-servingly to maintain the current state of ignorance in which recommendations for chronic drug treatment are enforced by drug dependence that is systematically misinterpreted as therapeutic effectiveness.<br />
<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
[1] Healy D. Treatment induced stress syndromes. Med Hypotheses, in press. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2010.01.038.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-63924035793206823602010-03-21T09:47:00.000-07:002010-03-21T09:47:25.040-07:00After science: Has the tradition been broken?After science: Has the tradition been broken? <br />
<br />
Bruce G. Charlton<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses. 2010; 74: 623-625 <br />
<br />
Summary<br />
<br />
The majority of professional scientists make use of the artefacts of science but lack understanding of what these mean; raising the question: has the tradition of science been broken? Explicit knowledge is only a selective summary but practical capability derives from implicit, traditional or ‘tacit’ knowledge that is handed on between- and across-generations by slow, assimilative processes requiring extended human contact through a wide range of situations. This was achieved mainly by prolonged apprenticeship to a Master. Such methods recognize the gulf between being able to do something and knowing how you have done it; and the further gap between knowing how you have done something and being able to teach it by explicit instructions. Yet the ‘Master–apprentice’ model of education has been almost discarded from science over recent decades and replaced with bureaucratic regulation. The main reason is probably that scientific manpower has expanded so rapidly and over such a long period as to overwhelm the slow, sure and thorough traditional methods. In their innocence of scientific culture, the younger generation of scientists are like children who have been raised by wolves; they do not talk science but spout bureaucratic procedures. It has now become accepted among the mass of professional ‘scientists’ that the decisions which matter most in science are those imposed upon science by outside forces: for example by employers, funders, publishers, regulators, and the law courts. It is these bureaucratic mechanisms that now constitute the ‘bottom line’ for scientific practice. Most of modern science is therefore apparently in the post-holocaust situation described in A canticle for Liebowitz and After Virtue, but the catastrophe was bureaucratic, rather than violent. So, the tradition has indeed been broken. However, for as long as the fact is known that the tradition has been broken, and living representatives of the tradition are still alive and active, there still exists a remote possibility that the tradition could be revived.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
After science: has the tradition been broken?<br />
<br />
Imagine that the natural sciences were to suffer the effects of a catastrophe. A series of environmental disasters are blamed by the general public on the scientists. Widespread riots occur, laboratories are burnt down, physicists are lynched, books and instruments are destroyed. Finally a know-nothing political movement takes power and successfully abolishes science teaching in schools and universities, imprisoning and executing the remaining scientists. Later still there is a reaction against this destructive movement and enlightened people seek to revive science, although they have largely forgotten what it was. But all that they possess are fragments: a knowledge of experiments detached from any knowledge of the theoretical context which gave them significance; parts of theories unrelated either to the other bits and pieces of theory which they possess or to experiment; instruments whose use has been forgotten; half-chapters from books, single pages from articles, not always fully legible because torn and charred. Nonetheless all these fragments are re-embodied in a set of practices which go under the revived names of physics, chemistry and biology. Adults argue with each other about the respective merits of relativity theory, evolutionary theory and phlogiston theory, although they possess only a very partial knowledge of each. Children learn by heart the surviving portions of the periodic table and recite as incantations some of the theorems of Euclid. Nobody, or almost nobody, realizes that what they are doing is not natural science in any proper sense at all. For everything that they do and say conforms to certain canons of consistency and coherence and those contexts which would be needed to make sense of what they are doing have been lost, perhaps irretrievably.<br />
<br />
From After Virtue – Alasdair MacIntyre [1]<br />
<br />
<br />
The classic science fiction novel A canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller [2] portrays a post-nuclear-holocaust world in which the tradition of scientific practice – previously handed-down from one generation of scientists to the next – has been broken. Only a few scientific artefacts remain, such as fragments of electronic equipment. It turns out that after the tradition has been broken, the scientific artefacts make no sense and are wildly misinterpreted. For instance a blueprint is regarded as if it was a beautiful illuminated manuscript, and components such as diodes are regarded as magical talismans or pills.<br />
<br />
I will argue that modern science may have entered a similar state in which for the majority of professional scientists the artefacts of science remain – such as the academic hierarchy, laboratory techniques and machines, statistical methods, and the peer review mechanism – but understanding of what these mean has apparently been lost; raising the question: has the tradition been broken?<br />
<br />
A theme associated with philosophers such as Polanyi [3] and Oakeshott [4] is that explicit knowledge – such as is found in textbooks and scientific articles – is only a selective summary that misses that the most important capability derives from implicit, traditional or ‘tacit’ knowledge. It is this un-articulated knowledge that leads to genuine human understanding of the natural world, accurate prediction and the capacity to make effective interventions.<br />
<br />
Tacit knowledge is handed on between- and across-generations by slow, assimilative processes which require extended, relatively unstructured and only semi-purposive human contact. What is being transmitted and inculcated is an over-arching purpose, a style of thought, a learned but then spontaneous framing of reality, a sense of how problems should be tackled, and a gut-feeling for evaluating the work or oneself, as well as others.<br />
<br />
This kind of process was in the past achieved by such means as familial vocations, prolonged apprenticeship, co-residence and extended time spent in association with a Master – and by the fact that the Master and apprentice personally selected each other. The pattern was seen in all areas of life where independence, skill and depth of knowledge were expected: crafts, arts, music, scholarship – and science.<br />
<br />
Although such methods sound a bit mysterious, not to say obscurationist, to modern ears – in fact they are solid realism and common sense. Such methods for ensuring the transmission of subtle knowledge recognize the gulf between being able to do something and knowing how you have done it; and the further gap between knowing how you have done something and being able to teach it by explicit instructions.<br />
<br />
Such systems as apprenticeship recognize that the most important aspects of knowledge may be those which are not known or understood to be the most important, or may even be in opposition to that which is believed or supposed to be important. The educational ‘method’ was that an apprentice should spend a lot of time with the Master in many situations; and as for educational evaluation, the best way for a Master to know that his skill really has been passed-on, is for him to spend a lot of time with the apprentice in many situations.<br />
<br />
Imperfect as it inevitably was, traditions were maintained and often improved over centuries by means of apprenticeship – which was regarded as the safest and surest way of ensuring that the knowledge and skills could be sustained and developed.<br />
<br />
However, priorities have changed. The preservation and development of high-level human skills and expertise is no longer regarded as a priority, something to which many other concerns will inevitably need to be subordinated. And the ‘Master–apprentice’ model of education, which stretches back in human history as far as we know, has been all-but discarded from science (and much of mainstream culture) over recent decades. Indeed the assumptions have been reversed.<br />
<br />
It is important to recognize that the discarding of traditions of apprenticeship and prolonged human contact in science was not due to any new discovery that apprenticeship was – after all – unnecessary, let alone that the new bureaucratic systems of free-standing explicit aims and objectives, summaries and lists of core knowledge and competencies etc. were superior to apprenticeship. Indeed there is nothing to suggest that they are remotely the equal of apprenticeship. Rather, the Master–apprentice system has been discarded despite the evidence of its superiority; and has been replaced by the growth of bureaucratic regulation.<br />
<br />
The main reason is probably that scientific manpower, personnel or ‘human resources’ (as they are now termed) have expanded vastly over the past 60 years – probably about tenfold. So there was no possibility of such rapid and sustained quantitative expansion (accompanied, almost-inevitably, by massive decline in average quality) being achieved using the labour-intensive apprenticeship methods of the past. The tradition was discarded because it stood in the path of the expansion of scientific manpower.<br />
<br />
Among the mass of mainstream professional scientists, science – as a distinctive mode of human enquiry – now has no meaning whatsoever. Among these same scientists, who dominate the social system of science both in terms of power and numbers, the resolution of scientific disputes and disagreements is a matter of power, not reason – and relevant ‘evidence’ is narrowly restricted to bureaucratically-enforced operational variables. The tradition seems to have been broken.<br />
<br />
I first observed this when I worked in epidemiology, and I realized that most epidemiologists did not understand science and were not scientists – but they did not realize it [5]. They believed that what they did was science, since it had many of the explicit characteristics of science, it involved making measurements and doing statistics, it was accepted as science by many other people, and (most importantly!) epidemiology got funded as science. But most epidemiology was not science, as any real scientist could easily recognize – it was no more science than were those market researchers with clipboards who question pedestrians on the high street. I saw a similar picture in almost all the vast amount of ‘functional brain imagining’ which was the dominant and most prestigious type of Neuroscience. And again in the people who were mapping the average human genome – then (presumably) going on to map the genome of every individual human, then perhaps every creature on the planet?<br />
<br />
As Jacob Bronowski once remarked: science is not a loose leaf folder of ‘facts’; not the kind of thing which can be expanded ad infinitum – simply by iterative addition of ever-more observations. Science is instead the creation of structured knowledge, with the emphasis on structure [6]. The modern scientific literature is ballooning exponentially with published stuff and ever-inflated claims about its significance – but, lacking structure, this malignantly-expanding mass adds-up to less-and-less. Meanwhile, understanding, prediction and the ability to intervene on the natural world to attain pre-specified objectives all dwindle; because real science is a living tradition not a dead archive.<br />
<br />
The younger generation of scientists are like children who have been raised by wolves. They have learned the techniques but have no feel for the proper aims, attitudes and evaluations of science. What little culture they have comes not from science but from bureaucrats: they utterly lack scientific culture; they do not talk science, instead they spout procedures.<br />
<br />
It has now become implicitly accepted among the mass of professional ‘scientists’ that the decisions which matter most in science are those imposed upon science by outside forces: by employers (who gets the jobs, who gets promotion), funders (who gets the big money), publishers (who gets their work in the big journals), bureaucratic regulators (who gets allowed to do work), and the law courts (whose ideas get backed-up, or criminalized, by the courts). It is these bureaucratic mechanisms that constitute ‘real life’ and the ‘bottom line’ for scientific practice. The tradition has been broken.<br />
<br />
A minority of young scientists have, by dedication or luck, absorbed the tradition of real science, yet because their wisdom is tacit and is not shared by the majority of the bureaucratically-minded, they will almost-inevitably be held back from status and excluded from influence. It is bureaucracy that now controls ‘science’, and that which bureaucracy cannot or will not acknowledge might as well not exist, so far as the direction of ‘science’ is concerned.<br />
<br />
Most of modern science is therefore apparently in pretty much the post-holocaust situation described in A canticle for Liebowitz and After Virtue – the transmission of tacit knowledge has been broken. But the catastrophe was bureaucratic, rather than violent – and few seem to have noticed the scale of destruction.<br />
<br />
But, it might be asked, supposing the tradition had indeed been broken; if this was true, then how would we know it was true? – given that the point of MacIntyre’s and Miller’s fables was that when a tradition is broken people do not realize it. The answer is that we know at the moment that the tradition has been broken, but this knowledge is on the verge of extinction.<br />
<br />
The sources of evidence are at least fourfold. If we judge the rate of scientific progress by individualistic common sense criteria (rather than bureaucratic indices), it is obvious that the rate of progress has declined in at least two major areas: physics and medical research [7], [8] and [9]. Furthermore there has been a decline in the number of scientific geniuses, which is now near-zero [10]. If geniuses are vital to overall scientific progress, then progress probably stopped a while ago [11].<br />
<br />
In addition, the actual practice of science has transformed profoundly [12] – the explicit aims of scientists, their truthfulness, what scientists do on a day by day basis, the procedures by which their work is evaluated… all of these have changed so much over the past 50 years that it is reasonable to conclude that science now is performing an almost completely different function than it was 50 years ago. After all, if modern science neither looks nor quacks like a duck, why should we believe it is a duck? Just because science has the same name, does not mean it is them same thing when almost-everything about it has been transformed!<br />
<br />
And finally we might believe that the tradition has been broken because this has been a frequently implicit, sometimes explicit, theme of some of the most original and informed scientists for several decades: from the Feynman and Crick through to Brenner – take your pick. It seems to me that they have for many years been warning us that science was on a wrong track, and the warnings have not been heeded.<br />
<br />
So: the tradition has been broken. However, for as long as the fact is known that the tradition has been broken, and representatives of the tradition are still alive and active, there still exists a remote possibility that the tradition could be revived.<br />
<br />
Acknowledgement<br />
<br />
Some of these ideas emerged in conversations with Jonathan Rees, and quite a few were derived from him.<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
[1] A. MacIntyre, After virtue: a study in moral theory, Duckworth, London (1981).<br />
<br />
<br />
[2] W.M. Miller, A canticle for Liebowitz, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London (1960).<br />
<br />
<br />
[3] M. Polanyi, Personal knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA (1958).<br />
<br />
<br />
[4] M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in politics and other essays, Methuen, London (1962).<br />
<br />
<br />
[5] B.G. Charlton, Should epidemiologists be pragmatists, biostatisticians or clinical scientists?, Epidemiology 7 (1996), pp. 552–554. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (8)<br />
<br />
<br />
[6] J. Bronowski, Science and human values, Harper Colophon, New York (1975).<br />
<br />
<br />
[7] L. Smolin, The trouble with physics, Penguin, London (2006).<br />
<br />
<br />
[8] D.F. Horrobin, Scientific medicine – success or failure?. In: D.J. Weatherall, J.G.G. Ledingham and D.A. Warrell, Editors, Oxford textbook of medicine (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford (1987), pp. 2.1–2.3.<br />
<br />
<br />
[9] B.G. Charlton and P. Andras, Medical research funding may have over-expanded and be due for collapse, QJM 98 (2005), pp. 53–55. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (15)<br />
<br />
<br />
[10] B.G. Charlton, The last genius? – reflections on the death of Francis Crick, Med Hypotheses 63 (2004), pp. 923–924. Article | PDF (209 K) | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (2)<br />
<br />
<br />
[11] C. Murray, Human accomplishment. The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences 800 BC to 1950, HarperCollins, New York (2003).<br />
<br />
<br />
[12] J. Ziman, Real science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (2000).Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-82698584756693694462010-02-19T03:40:00.000-08:002010-03-02T03:27:48.386-08:00Authors' letters of support for Medical HypothesesI have received more than one hundred and fifty individual letters of support for Medical Hypotheses in its current form, mostly from scholars who have published in the journal in the past. <br />
<br />
I am extremely grateful to all of these scholars for their support – I have answered all the letters individually, and the majority of these letters have been forwarded to Elsevier (the publishers of Medical Hypotheses). <br />
<br />
Below I have published (with authors' permission) a selection of these supportive letters. <br />
<br />
These published letters were mainly chosen from among those which contained relatively detailed personal information about how Medical Hypotheses has ‘made a difference’ to the career and work of these specific people. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
78 Barrie St<br />
Kingston, Ontario<br />
Canada K7L 3N6<br />
<br />
Chris Lloyd<br />
Vice-President of Health Sciences Journals<br />
Elsevier<br />
<br />
Dear Chris Lloyd<br />
<br />
We write in support of maintaining the status quo at Medical Hypotheses. This fascinating journal fills an important function in the world of medical science. It offers a forum for scientific ideas—hypotheses--, which spark new questions and perceptions to orient future enquiry. The scientific community has been ably served by editors David Horrobin and Bruce Charlton. <br />
<br />
Long aware of the journal as a dignified space for theoretical ideas, we were fortunate to have our paper on music memory and dementia published in Medical Hypotheses in 2005. This paper presented two hypotheses related to evidence that may have been familiar to caregivers of people with dementia, but it had been little problematized by the scientific community. The publication helped to draw attention and funding to a new research project for us that has since resulted in controlled trials, leading to several other peer-reviewed research papers, collaborations, and conference presentations. <br />
<br />
Our Medical Hypotheses paper was one of the first scientific publications on this topic. It preceded the recent, dramatic rise in popular interest in music and the brain, exemplified by the famous book Musicophililia of Oliver Sacks, who cited our MH paper. We were honoured to have been selected for the David Horrobin prize and will continue to acknowledge this award with gratitude and pride regardless of your future decision concerning the editor and the journal. <br />
<br />
Regarding the controversy that has led to your deliberations: one of us (JMD) is a hematologist and medical historian, long aware that Peter Duesberg has been a denier of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS etiology for two decades or more. His views are provocative and extremely useful in teaching students. It is not necessary to agree with him to heartily defend his right to air his reasoning in a courteous manner and in appropriate fora. We feel that the opinionated responses of readers who disagree with an author are not a reason to alter the trajectory of the entire journal. <br />
<br />
If it emerges that Duesberg’s paper erred beyond his minority viewpoint to actual errors—be they deliberate or accidental, a signal comparison can be made to two leading medical journals. Medical Hypotheses would have been no less a victim or a wrongdoer than the distinguished entities The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. <br />
<br />
Earlier this month, Elsevier’s flagship journal The Lancet withdrew a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield et al. that helped foster the now discredited theory linking autism and MMR vaccines. No one has called for the alteration of Lancet. Indeed, the issue has drawn attention to the preeminent leadership role that The Lancet plays in the dissemination of knowledge and ideas.<br />
<br />
Similarly, in 2000 the New England Journal of Medicine published a peer-reviewed paper that strongly supported the use of rofecoxib (known as Vioxx®). Later it emerged that the paper had suffered improper industry interference and failed to declare a treatment-related death. The drug was taken off the market in 2004. Considerable discussion surrounded the editorial responsibilites for the 2000 article when the flaws came to light in 2005. But no one called for the New England Journal of Medicine to be altered in any way. Jeffrey Drazen is still its editor-in-chief.<br />
<br />
The scientific world is a global epistemic community where ideas should be openly expressed and debated. Elsevier can be proud of the record of Medical Hypotheses and the unique theoretical contributions it offers to this community; and it should be grateful to the fine tradition established and maintained by its editors. <br />
<br />
Lola L. Cuddy, Ph.D. <br />
Professor<br />
Department of Psychology<br />
<br />
Jacalyn M. Duffin, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), Ph.D.<br />
Professor<br />
Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine<br />
duffinj@queensu.ca<br />
<br />
<br />
cc Bruce Charlton<br />
<br />
AJ Wakefield, SH Murch, A Anthony, J Linnell, DM Casson, M Malik, M Berelowitz, AP Dhillon, MA Thomson, P Harvey, A Valentine, SE Davies, JA Walker-Smith. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet 351 (1998), p. 637-641.<br />
Claire Bombardier, Loren Laine, Alise Reicin, Deborah Shapiro, Ruben Burgos-Vargas, Barry Davis, et al., for The VIGOR Study Group, “Comparison of Upper Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Rofecoxib and Naproxen in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis,” NEJM, 343 (2000), p. 1520-1528.<br />
Gregory D. Curfman, Stephen Morrissey, Jeffrey M. Drazen, “Expression of Concern: Bombardier, et al., N Engl J Med 2000: 343: 1520-8,” NEJM, 353 (2005), p. 2813-2814; Gregory D. Curfman, Stephen Morrissey, Jeffrey M. Drazen, “Expression of Concern Reaffirmed,” NEJM, 354 (2006), p. 1193; Jeffrey M. Drazen, “COX-2 Inhibitors--a Lesson in Unexpected Problems,” NEJM, 352 (2005<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Jim.A.Morris@mbht.nhs.uk <Jim.A.Morris@mbht.nhs.uk><br />
Subject: Medical Hypotheses under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Cc: l.harrison@lancaster.ac.uk<br />
Date: Tuesday, 19 January, 2010, 14:02<br />
<br />
Dear Professor Charlton,<br />
I am sad to hear that Medical Hypotheses is under threat.<br />
<br />
I published my first article in Medical Hypotheses in 1987<br />
<br />
"Morris JA, Haran D, Smith A. Hypothesis: common bacterial toxins are a possible cause of the sudden infant death syndrome. Medical Hypotheses 1987; 22: 211 - 222."<br />
<br />
This is now the leading theory to explain SIDS (see my leader in the Lancet 2008: Morris JA, Harrison LM Sudden unexpected death in infancy: evidence of infection. Lancet 2008; 371: 1848 - 53.) The Medical Hypotheses paper and the idea were quoted and were influential in four high profile cases at the Court of Appeal i.e Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony and Lorraine Harris. The idea is about to be played out once more at the Court of Appeal in March when the conviction of Karen Henderson is under review.<br />
<br />
In 2007 I extended and refined the idea, also published in Medical Hypotheses (Morris JA, Harrison LM, Biswas J, Telford DR. Transient bacteraemia: a possible cause of life threatening events. Medical Hypotheses 2007; 69: 1032 - 1039).<br />
<br />
We are now in a position to prove or disprove the idea using the new science of proteomics. The proof or the disproof will depend on data and will appear in a conventional peer review journal. But the idea comes before the proof, in this case many years before the proof, and we need journals that will publish at the idea stage.<br />
<br />
I should also add that the only time my work has been quoted in Minerva (BMJ,most read bit) is when I have published in Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
My rule is if you want to enhance your CV and research score go for a conventional journal with a high impact factor but if you want to say something important, interesting and exciting which is likely to be noticed - go for Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
regards<br />
<br />
Professor J A Morris<br />
Consultant Pathologist<br />
Education Centre<br />
Royal Lancaster Infirmary<br />
Lancaster<br />
LA1 4RP<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: John Spangler <jspangle@wfubmc.edu><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 15:53<br />
<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton,<br />
<br />
I am alarmed to find out that Medical Hypotheses is under threat of dramatic, and in my mind, destructive changes. As a four-time author in this journal, I know first-hand how useful it is in generating new hypotheses that other journals would not publish.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses sits at the cutting edge of science, because it announces to the broader scientific community original ideas that may be worthy of further investigation. The papers I wrote generated much publicity, both scientifically and in the lay press.<br />
<br />
For example, if you google the following words you will receive over 9000 hits: spangler, manganese, shower. These Google postings relate to the study I published that received world-wide publicity, and encouraged manganese scientists and regulatory agencies to rethink the safety of manganese in public water supplies (Elsner R, Spangler JG. Neurotoxicity of Manganese: Public Health Danger in the Shower? Medical Hypotheses 2005; volume 65; e-release May 21, 2005.) <br />
I feel quite certain, because of the radical nature of my hypothesis—one that is difficult to test but needs to be considered globally since manganese is increasing in the environment from its addition to gasoline—no other journal would have been willing to accept it.<br />
<br />
Indeed, this study has led to other peer reviewed studies which I have written regarding environmental manganese (Spangler JG, Reid JC. Environmental Manganese and Cancer Mortality Rates by County in North Carolina: An Ecological Study. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2009 Jun 4. [Epub ahead of print]; Spangler AH and Spangler JG. Groundwater manganese and infant mortality in North Carolina Counties. Ecohealth, 2010; in press).<br />
<br />
Science needs radical hypotheses, forward thinkers, scientific risk-takers. This is how science has always made its greatest advances (think: Einstein). While I am no Einstein, nonetheless the articles which I have published have sparked interest in a wide variety of disciplines. The same is true for other articles in Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
Peer reviewed journals are by nature conservative. They worship at the altar of p<0.05, at the throne of the randomized placebo controlled clinical trial. However, innovative ideas are often difficult to test readily. Peer reviewed journals demand data, even when data cannot be obtained. In fact, data might never be obtained unless someone publishes the novel idea in the first place. Clearly, an editorially-reviewed outlet—willing to take risks—is very much needed in science.
I hope the publishers will recognize the jewel they have in this remarkable journal. I hope they will continue to publish it in its current editorial format.
This simply is a matter of scientific advancement.
Sincerely,
John Spangler, MD, MPH
Professor of Family Medicine
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157
Phone: 336-716-2238
*
On Sat, 16/1/10, Paul W. Sherman <pws6@cornell.edu> wrote:<br />
<br />
From: Paul W. Sherman <pws6@cornell.edu><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 18:56<br />
Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton,<br />
<br />
Under your editorship, Medical Hypotheses has become an important vehicle for publishing exciting new ideas and information that is helping to shape the directions of medical research.<br />
<br />
My own special interest is in Darwinian medicine. This exciting, new, interdisciplinary field takes an evolutionary perspective on human health and disease. Practitioners ask whether behaviors and symptoms that traditionally are considered pathological might have evolved to serve useful purposes. Whereas traditional medicine focuses on how symptoms are brought about (their underlying mechanisms) and designs more effective ways to eliminate them, Darwinian medicine focuses on why the symptoms occur in the first place (their reproductive consequences) and whether it is advisable to eliminate them. These approaches are complementary, not mutually exclusive. The promise of Darwinian medicine is that it will lead to better-informed medical practices because, to fix something as complex as the human body, it is essential to know what each of its parts was "designed" (by natural selection) to do.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses is - literally - the only journal where Darwinian hypotheses for medical phenomena are routinely presented for rigorous evaluation. Cancelling the journal, or massively altering its focus and editorial policies, would potentially deprive both the medical and biological communities of their only existing forum for interaction. I hope that such a serious loss can somehow be averted.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, Paul W. Sherman (Professor) <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Resia Pretorius <Resia.Pretorius@up.ac.za><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Monday, 18 January, 2010, 5:57<br />
<br />
Dear Prof Charlton,<br />
<br />
It is with great regret that I learn of the plans to change Medical Hypotheses. I have the most highest regard for your process and a few years back, as young researcher with little experience, you gave me the change to publish my ideas. Now, more than 130 peer reviewed articles in ISI rated journals further, I think back and have to thank you for giving a young, wide-eyed researcher a huge opportunity!<br />
<br />
Hope you succeed to keep the journal as it is!<br />
<br />
Kind regards, Resia<br />
<br />
<br />
Prof Resia Pretorius (PhD)<br />
Director: Applied Morphology Research Centre <br />
DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY<br />
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria<br />
P.O. Box 2034, Pretoria 0001<br />
South Africa<br />
Tel: +27 12 319 2533<br />
Fax: +27 12 319 2240<br />
Cell: +27 82 929 5041<br />
<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
On Sat, 16/1/10, Matt Bianchi <thebianchi@gmail.com> wrote:<br />
<br />
From: Matt Bianchi <thebianchi@gmail.com><br />
Subject: MH<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com, c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 15:53<br />
Dear Drs Charlton and Lloyd,<br />
<br />
As a young clinician-scientist beginning my career, I wanted to extend my personal thanks to you and to Medical Hypotheses for the unique service I feel it extends to the scientific and medical community. As I built upon my graduate work on ion channel physiology to explore a realm of possible drug design strategies (known as rational promiscuity), I discovered that journal after journal would respond to my submissions with "...interesting, but too theoretical, and we do not take unsolicited hypothesis papers". I estimated that I had read for this project about 1000 papers over 10 years collecting the data necessary to put forth a series of 4 hypothesis manuscripts. This work was mainly undertaken over the years of medical school, internship, and residency, when there is little time for experimental science. This "gap" in the training of MD-PhDs is the continued subject of debate, a limbo in which we are often too junior to have a broad reputation required for hypothesis publishing, but we are also ripe with ideas that may bridge clinical and basic sciences.<br />
<br />
I am deeply thankful that the first 3 of these papers have been published through Medical Hypotheses, the only dedicated publication for hypothesis in medicine. I have received many contacts from around the world for reprints, but more importantly, the ideas are now easily available through PubMed and other databases, for anyone to consider. Having a platform to construct and share these thoughts has proven invaluable, and has laid the groundwork for finally initiating experiments (which are very costly) to generate data of my own to begin testing the hypothesis. I am as proud of these papers as any experimental paper I've published, and in many ways they were in fact more challenging.<br />
<br />
I can think of no better evidence for the lack of understanding of the importance of this Journal than the demands for restructuring based on a visceral response to an unpopular hypothesis. Science is uniquely poised to remain agnostic to politics - at least in theory. Unlike any other endeavor on the face of the earth, doubt and uncertainty are the foundations of progress, and diversity of experimental and theoretical approaches are the currency driving this progress. It is by no means a perfect process, and the road is littered with countless examples of "proof" later considered folly - and vice versa. But any thoughtful academic will understand that this is part of the magic of science. Perhaps the outspoken critics would do well to read some of the history of science and medicine, in particular the cogent accounts provided by Ramon y Cajal or Kuhn or Feynman. While I think there is little room for the censorship proposed by critics, I do understand that this is an area of uncertainty crossing boundaries into public policy and public health. But as much as I dislike cliches, images of babies and bathwater are unavoidable when the response to a disagreeable topic is to completely abolish the journal as we know it. One alternative approach would be to claim that the Journal should have formal peer review or else be removed from PubMed listing - but by this logic, every PNAS paper directly submitted (ie not reviewed externally) should be removed as well (and some might agree with that; I would not). Another approach would be that the format remains intact, save that certain topics should be censored, but surely proponents of this angle would concede the impossibility of deciding on the special list of prohibited topics. But anyone submitting the argument that peer review somehow prevents "bad science" from being published simply hasn't ever attended a journal club meeting. That certain topics could be used for nefarious reasons by ill-intentioned individuals is, in my view, completely irrelevant, as there is quite literally no prevention against that possibility in this information age. Unfortunately, those easily fooled by such devious efforts are not likely to be among those who understand the difference between good and bad science (which is not always straightforward even for seasoned investigators). Perhaps a format in which public comments (positive and negative) could be attached to articles via the MH website would be a reasonable compromise. <br />
<br />
My intention is to offer neither a philosophical "it's-all-relative-so-leave-us-alone" argument, nor an existential "all-human-thought-is-absurd-so-leave-us-alone" argument, nor an aloof confidence that "science-will-work-itself-out-so-leave-us-alone" (although I admit personally to all 3 feelings). What we have are very tangible and very practical arguments in favor of maintaining the status quo of MH. The transparent policies, long history, and unique platform for sharing ideas with a community hungry for new and imaginative vistas of investigation, are all evidence that Medical Hypotheses stands alone in serving a critical (and largely unmet) need in the research community: the dissemination of medical hypotheses.<br />
<br />
With kindest regards,<br />
<br />
Matt Bianchi MD PhD<br />
Instructor, Department of Neurology<br />
Massachusetts General Hospital<br />
Assistant in Neurology<br />
Harvard Medical School <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Jenny Shen <zhengxuanshen@gmail.com><br />
Subject: Support of the policies of Medical Hypotheses<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 30 January, 2010, 11:10 <br />
<br />
Dear Professor Charlton,<br />
<br />
From what I have been through as an author struggling to publish my work, I strongly and fully support the policies of the journal Medical Hypotheses, which was established 34 years ago by Dr. David F. Horrobin. <br />
<br />
During my time at the Oxford University, UK, I formulated my hypothesis of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease in 1992. I submitted the work to eight journals including Nature, Science, NEJM, Trends in Neuroscience, J Alzheimer's disease, Brain Research. However, not one journal after peer review was willing to accept my work for publication because the expert reviewers favored the prevailing hypotheses in the field at the time (please see one of the comments from the editorial office of NEJM as evidence in the attachment.) <br />
<br />
I finally submitted the piece of work to Medical Hypothesis, encouraged by the policies that the founder and editor Dr. David F. Horrobin established in 1975. It reads: “Scientific progress depends on the existence of creative tension between ideas and observations…There is neither free presentation of new ideas nor open criticism of old ones. Outdated concepts can persist for prolonged periods because the evidence against them is scattered through hundreds of papers and no one is allowed to gather it together in one article to mount a sustained attack.” “I will publish papers from anyone regardless of whether they have done experimental work in the field, and regardless of the reputation of the authors or the institutions from which they come.”<br />
<br />
I didn’t receive any response from the Journal for three months after my submission, and I assumed the reviewers were unwilling to say yes or no. I have been ever so grateful to Dr. Horrobin who reviewed my manuscript himself and accepted it for publication in the journal Medical Hypotheses. This hypothesis has been later refereed as one of the four leading hypotheses in the field (Progress in Neurobiology 52(6):511-535, 1997).<br />
<br />
Invigorated by the policies of the Journal Medical Hypotheses, I’ve published a total of seven hypotheses which were rejected by other journals. One hypothesis of the possible cause of Gulf war syndrome received special attention after the publication from the Pentagon in the US (please see attachment) and has been proved completely correct ten years later in an article published in PNAS, 2008, 105(11):4295-300. Scientists all over the world have cited my hypotheses published in Medical Hypotheses up to this day of 2010. I’ve received a considerable amount of invitations to contribute articles, and have been regarded as an opinion leader and rising star whose ideas would influence drug development and management in the field in the next five to ten years (please see attachment). The issue of the unsatisfactory outcome of the use of AChE inhibitors in the treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s disease was raised by me in my first and subsequently published hypotheses and now has become one of the most popular medical news stories of 2009 in MedscapeCME (information is enclosed in the attachment.)<br />
<br />
Like most authors and medical scientists I truly wish my painstaking research to be known and to have a positive impact on the care of patients and on medical science. However as a matter of fact, it will not be possible for researchers like me to imagine and to hope that my hypothesis will be published and disseminated in the world, if there were no such journal with policies like those of Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
In the name of science I believe it will be a shameful and unforgivable mistake, if the publishers change the unorthodox journal of Medical Hypotheses into an orthodox one. <br />
<br />
Sincerely yours,<br />
<br />
ZhengXuan Shen<br />
Professor of Department of Pharmacology<br />
School of Pharmacy<br />
Fudan University,<br />
Shanghai, China<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Georg Steinhauser <georg.steinhauser@ati.ac.at><br />
Subject: Medical Hypotheses<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 15:55<br />
<br />
Dear Dr Lloyd,<br />
<br />
I have been informed that Elsevier is currently thinking about destroying the fundamental idea – editorial review – of the renowned journal Medical Hypotheses. PLEASE DO NOT!<br />
<br />
Please do not regard my message not just as another email from a Medical Hypotheses-author: My research topic is technical sciences and I work in a nuclear physics institute.<br />
<br />
It is “Publish or Perish” in the scientific world today. This forces researchers to submit hundreds of papers during their career. This, on the other hand, forces peer-reviewed journals to be more and more strict about accepting the researchers’ papers. This leads us into the completely wrong direction, because reviewers will only recommend papers for publication that are fully consistent with their view and only, if the study is absolutely complete or even overcomplete. Sometimes it is not a question of laziness to complete a study, sometimes it is simply impossible due to a lack of instrumentation, personnel or money. Medical Hypotheses is the ONLY high-class forum for making a good idea accessible to a broader audience – especially those ideas that could not be completed for some of the mentioned reasons. <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses papers are read by the entire scientific community, not only by the medical one. And, of course, some of them make us laugh. Others make us shake our heads. So what? In a recent issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), which is the number one news platform for chemistry, my Medical Hypotheses paper of last year has been highlighted. I concluded the interview with C&EN with the following sentence. <br />
<br />
"I truly regret that technical sciences do not have a forum for radical and cutting-edge ideas on a comparable level as Medical Hypotheses," Steinhauser says. "If we fail to investigate something, our best ideas often remain unpublished."<br />
In fact, Elsevier should not cease Medical Hypotheses (neither completely nor in its present form) but launch MORE journals of this kind! Start with chemistry today, not tomorrow!<br />
<br />
Kind regards<br />
Georg Steinhauser<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Allen, Stephen <Stephen.Allen@rbch.nhs.uk><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 11:52<br />
<br />
Dear Dr Charlton,<br />
<br />
I am surprised to hear about the proposed changes for MH. I have published 2 papers in the journal. These would probably have been blocked by peer review carried out in the current peer reviewing culture, which tends to discourage lateral thinking and inventiveness. I say this as a clinician and researcher who is involved in peer review both as an author and a reviewer, so I have no particular axe to grind. There needs to be a respected medium for hypothetical papers, and in my opinion MH meets the need very effectively. I am entirely happy for you to hand these comments on to the publishers.<br />
<br />
Regards,<br />
<br />
Stephen Allen<br />
<br />
Professor SC Allen<br />
Consultant Physician and Professor of Clinical Gerontology<br />
Tel: 01202 704539<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Eva Zerovnik <eva.zerovnik@ijs.si><br />
Subject: at these times<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Cc: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 19:59<br />
Dear Vice Precident of Elsevier<br />
<br />
Dear Editor BG Charlton<br />
<br />
I think reading what Mr. Charlton says that Elsevier aims to make a new type of journal from the old "Medical Hypotheses", changing rigour and peer review requests - that this is not very wise.<br />
<br />
The times are such that the communication between different disciplines is necessary and not every idea could be initially strictly founded. It could develop.<br />
<br />
I myself published in Medical Hypotheses just once and my idea was well received (perhaps somewhere else it would be rejected as non-founded). It over years has proven to be in the right direction. <br />
<br />
By my opinion, at least, the original founders would have to stay and the openess of the journal to get published new ideas. <br />
<br />
sincerely<br />
<br />
Eva Žerovnik<br />
<br />
Dr. Eva Žerovnik, Ass.Prof.<br />
Senior Researcher<br />
Dept. Biochem. Mol. & Struct. Biology<br />
Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39<br />
1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia<br />
tel + 386 1 477 3753<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Biermann, Teresa <Teresa.Biermann@uk-erlangen.de><br />
Subject: AW: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 13:41<br />
<br />
Dear Prof. Charlton<br />
<br />
The idea that Medical Hypotheses will turn into a peer reviewed mainstream journal saddens me extremely. I wish I had a good idea to prevent such and if you have a good idea what to do, please let me know. There were times I felt i should leave research alone as there is no reviewer without hidden thoughts so far. Publishing your research is too complicated and it should be left to the reader to judge the manuscripts in the end. A "quality assessment" by peer review by anonymous reviewers would be poison for a highly constructive journal as Medical Hypotheses. <br />
<br />
I hope you will be able to carry on!<br />
<br />
Yours sincerely<br />
Teresa Biermann<br />
<br />
Dr. med. Teresa Biermann<br />
Fachärztin für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie<br />
Oberärztin<br />
<br />
Universitätsklinikum Erlangen<br />
Psychiatrische und Psychotherapeutische Klinik<br />
Schwabachanlage 6<br />
91054 Erlangen<br />
<br />
Tel: 09131-85-44773 (direkt)<br />
Fax: 09131-8534105<br />
<br />
teresa.biermann@uk-erlangen.de<br />
http://www.psychiatrie.klinikum.uni-erlangen.de<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
An open letter to Elsevier<br />
Medical Hypotheses and its editorial policy: stet<br />
<br />
Dissent is also a meaningful contribution to discussion: there can be no debate if there is no ‘against’ to the ‘for’. The medical world has always been and in the light of the ‘attack’ on Medical Hypotheses’s editorial policies, will continue to remain cocooned in its own ivory tower of supercilious self righteousness, using its arm-twisting others into kowtowing to its own definitions on journalistic ethics and privileges. The general and all-pervading intolerance to opinions or dissent or different from ‘acceptable’ self-proclaimed norms’ <br />
<br />
Merely because someone pronounces something unpalatable or contrary to popular trend about an infectious disease, and finds an appropriate forum to air his views, does not make his opinion gospel. Yet, to single out the editor or the journal for daring to open its pages to such radical views, is not ethical or cricket. Of recent development is the exposure of how really different the ground situation actually was during the so-called pandemic H1N1. While me-too editors were going overboard to touting dire straits, wily- nily jumping into the welcome home net spread wide by avaricious drug cartels. <br />
<br />
Much brouhaha and tomtoming on the infallibility and merits of peer review and its absence in MH has accompanied the stifling and strangling of free and fearless editorial practices of MH, autocratic though they may appear at times – the fact is, there is nothing much that is sacrosanct about peer reviewing as a quality check for publishing: I myself have had my submissions politely rejected by anonymous reviewers of one journal, only to see that very paper published in yet another’ peer reviewed’ journal a while later. How may in the medial world will honestly declare they too haven’t experienced this irony? Do editorial boards of the so-called peer reviewed journals know how many of the papers their own reviewers ‘passed’ had been outright rejected by their own ilk elsewhere?<br />
<br />
If a paper is lacking in conviction or content then it should be unsuitable for exposure to a wider audience. Yet, time and again, all of us know, that being rejected by one set of reviewing ‘peers, implies resubmission and acceptance in another equally popular or patronized journal: If the much vaunted peer review system was as holy a cow as assumed to be, how come there so difference and disparity in submission quality assessment between one journal and another? <br />
<br />
If your name is Casca then you will be hanged for your bad verse: Strange logic this in a world moving towards open access along the free information. I myself, as author or co-author have had the mortification of having ‘accepted peer reviewed’ articles kept in permafrost by editors, neither seeing them in print nor having them released from the copyright transferred clause I readily agreed to sign. The only reason for the cold storage of at least one among such papers in question is, I deduce, because it says something at variance with ‘acceptable’ regimens and presents radical observations on lowering viral loads in HIV patients. Could is be that too many megabuck toted apple-carts would go cart-wheeling by new and effective cost-friendly initiatives on AIDS control.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses and its Editor has allowed me, at no price, to present a few observations and theories over the years, many of which I could not pursue meaningfully to conclusion for want of infrastructure and funding. That some of my publications in MH have even been cited or referred to in indexed journals is itself a telling commentary on how hollow the sanctity of peer review actually is ( incredibly a few editors even request the submitting author to suggest reviewers or choose tem from a panel provided: how much lower can the system go?.<br />
<br />
As a novice editor of a nascent third world based open access journal, I humbly implore Elsevier to leave Medical Hypotheses and its editor/s pursue their goal of providing space to new, novel, controversial or dissenting opinions. Stet is a term that editors often use, maybe it is time publishers used it to. Stet, leave it as it was. <br />
<br />
Prof. Arunachalam Kumar<br />
Editor-in-Chief, www.scientificmedicineonline.org<br />
Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Nitte University<br />
K. S. Hegde Medical Academy <br />
Mangalore 5785018, India<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Mark McCarty <mccarty@pantox.com><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 19:13<br />
<br />
Dear Bruce – This is outrageous! I have posted a comment on the Times Higher Education website stating, among other things, that I will never again submit a manuscript to “Medical Hypotheses” if Dr. Horrobin’s original intent is dishonored and you are replaced as Editor. People who believe that the Medical Literature should be Holy Writ, purged of all Error , evidently have no understanding of the scientific process, and don’t merit our respect. <br />
<br />
Ironically, an old scientific friend of mine, who died this last year, was a friend of Duesberg and respected his views on HIV. I could never agree with him on this, of course, but I respected the courage of his contrarian convictions, and I didn’t let it ruin our friendship. It took guts to publish Duesberg’s perspective, and I admire that. The people who took exception to this should have simply sent cogently argued rebuttals to MH, which you no doubt would have been pleased to publish as well. In my view, people like Duesberg and my late friend perform a service by emphasizing that our understanding of HIV’s physiological impact remains far from complete. <br />
<br />
I suppose I have a hatred of all Dogma – scientific, religious, or otherwise. The last thing we need is for all editors of medical journals to function as Mini-Popes!<br />
<br />
Please keep us updated on the evolution of this controversy, and I will do what I can to make my views known.<br />
<br />
All best wishes, Mark<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Susan Sheridan <susansheri@gmail.com><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat ---<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Cc: "Susan Sheridan" <susansheri@gmail.com><br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 15:13<br />
<br />
Bruce,<br />
<br />
I have been one of the extremely lucky people to be published by you, essentially put on the map intellectually by you, for which I can never thank you enough. Dr. Walter J. Freeman, even though now in his 80's, has been corresponding with me for at least 15 years, and his comments in support of my new book for professional caregivers of young children, including teachers and therapists, provide the imprimature for the book, just as your journal provided support for my papers: The Scribble Hypothesis and A Theory of Marks and Mind. The book Saving Literacy itself, of course, rests upon my two papers published via Medical Hypotheses Journal. I am also publishing a companion book at the same time for parents, HandMade Marks.<br />
<br />
Your publishing of my theories and research was critical to my confidence and to my authority as an innovative theorist and practitioner around children's intentional marks. <br />
<br />
It would be a terrible shame for Medical Hypotheses Journal to be destroyed after 34 years of important support and publication.<br />
<br />
I will also write Chris Lloyd in support of the journal.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, concernedly, gratefully,<br />
<br />
Dr. Susan Rich Sheridan<br />
www.drawingwriting.com.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: ragrelo@adinet.com.uy <ragrelo@adinet.com.uy><br />
Subject: Medical Hypotheses<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 23:26<br />
<br />
Dear Bruce G Charlton,<br />
<br />
It's a shame that this unique journal has to face these problems. I would like to say that I consider it very important for the scientific community as it s one of the few dealing with theoretical issues in the biomedical sciences<br />
<br />
While nobody questions theoretical physics eg radical ideas in cosmology(that can not be experimentally tested),seems that this is not the case in the biosciences.<br />
<br />
In my particular case I published one paper dealing with a model of cellular aging that was selected as suggested readings in GeneReviews. This is an honour in such a competitive field.<br />
<br />
I am very proud of it, and Medical Hypotheses gave me the opportunity <br />
to publish it.<br />
<br />
Of course I also believe that how to evaluate the best possible way special papers related to public health problems will be a challenge for the editors in the future .<br />
<br />
To summarize I believe that Medical Hypotheses is a very important journal and its phylosophy should be kept intact.<br />
<br />
I really wish the best for Medical Hypotheses, and I hope we can celebrate its 100th aniversary<br />
<br />
Yours sincerely<br />
<br />
Ruben Agrelo<br />
<br />
Dr Ruben Agrelo<br />
IMP Research Institute of Molecular Pathology<br />
Dr Bohr Gasse 7 1030<br />
Vienna AUSTRIA<br />
+43 (1) 797 30<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Dr O. Walusinski <walusinski@baillement.com><br />
Subject: med hypo<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 8:17<br />
<br />
Dear colleague,<br />
<br />
I am a French physician and work about yawning.(see scholarpedia : http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Yawn)<br />
<br />
In 2006, you agreed to publish my article :<br />
<br />
Walusinski O. Yawning: unsuspected avenue for a better understanding of arousal and interoception. Medical Hypotheses 2006;67(1):6-14<br />
<br />
It was a fundamental step for me.<br />
<br />
Since, I have had the opportunity to publish in other medical peer review journals (see piece joint)<br />
<br />
I hope you can manage ever in the same manner Medical Hypotheses<br />
<br />
with best regards<br />
<br />
<br />
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=showproducts&searchWhat=books&ProduktNr=253772<br />
<br />
<br />
Dr. Olivier Walusinski<br />
http://www.baillement.com<br />
http://www.yawning.info<br />
http://www.oscitatio.com<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Robert Whitaker <br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 14:25<br />
<br />
Dear Bruce, <br />
<br />
This is extremely discouraging news. As you know, you published The Case Against Antipsychotic Drugs, and no peer-reviewed journal (often supported by drug-company ads) would have publshed that article. Yet I know that article made an impact, including on some who teach psychopharmacology. Peer reviewed journals allow for scientific reviews to proceed along narrow corridors, and they generally exclude truly novel and fresh thinking. Your journal made that possible. <br />
<br />
Please pass on my comments to Elsevier. If they change Medical Hypotheses into one more peer-reviewed journal, science, medicine and the public will all suffer a loss.<br />
<br />
With best wishes,<br />
<br />
Bob Whitaker<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Mark Germine <mgermine@hotmail.com><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 19:51<br />
<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton:<br />
<br />
I have published two papers in Medical Hypotheses. I have also published in journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Biological Psychiatry, Psychiatry Research, and Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseasee, and many other highly reputed journals. I am a physician and a scientist with a solid publication history. I am editor of three e-journals in the field of mind/brain science. In my publications in Medical Hypotheses, Consciousness and Synchronicity, was the first publication to describe quantum evolution of brain states by collapse of the wave function, now a leading theory of consciousness and the subject of at least 3 books. The second, Virtual Brain States and Non-locality of the ERP, was a seminal paper and has lead to a number of subsequent investigations, and was state-of-the-art data driven. Unfortunately, these papers have been rarely cited, although many have used the ideas. You can't copyright ideas, so there is nothing I can do.<br />
<br />
Medicine needs an outlet for new ideas, however radical they may be, as long as they are supported by evidence or are logical solutions to theoretical problems. I would hate to see us lose this valuable outlet. Science, in my opinion, has a philosophical bias towards untrenched ideas and paradigms, which may be incorrect. The history of science is replete with revolutionary and paradigm changing ideas that have been scorned and rejected in their own time. A hypothesis is, by definition, unproven, and for every new hypothesis that proves to be correct there are many that do not. It is difficult to publish purely theoretical work, especially if they are interdisciplinary, although I have published many such papers in reputable journals. If there is no outlet for new medical hypotheses, all of medicine and science will suffer as a result.<br />
<br />
I hope that Medical Hypotheses can continue with its mission unabated.<br />
<br />
Mark Germine, MD, MS<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Pall, Martin L <martin_pall@wsu.edu><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 22:10<br />
<br />
RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton:<br />
<br />
Thank you for your email. Please forward my comments to Elsevier.<br />
<br />
I published my first paper in Medical Hypotheses in January 2000, after having published many other scientific papers in many journals, all of which were peer reviewed. These included six Elsevier Journals. I have reviewed hundreds of papers for many journals, including various Elsevier journals.<br />
<br />
That first paper has been cited 57 times during the past nine years, according to Google Scholar. It has led to my publishing a series of 22 papers and a book, entitled "Explaining 'Unexplained Illnesses'" most of which have also attracted substantial numbers of citations. The area of research that I have been pursuing over the past decade, all derived from that original paper in Medical Hypotheses has attracted much attention. I am currently scheduled to give 12 invited talks in the U.S. and in five European Countries between March and June of this year. Quite a number of these are prestigious talks, including an all day workshop for German physicians in Berlin scheduled to correspond to my visit; a talk at a special meeting on multiple chemical sensitivity in Paris also scheduled to correspond to my European visit; a 4 1/2 hour series of talks at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, also scheduled to correspond to my European visit. I have been asked to write a review, I would argue the definitive review, on multiple chemical sensitivity, a review that came out 2 months ago, in a prestigious multivolume reference work for professional toxicologists. All of this and much more is essentially derived lineally from that first Medical Hypotheses paper.<br />
<br />
There is a need for a journal like Medical Hypotheses and it would be tragic, in my view, to destroy a journal that is performing a valuable function for the science of medicine, by converting it into something very different from what it is now. Medicine is a field that is dominated by vested interests, typically by well funded pharmaceutical industries, and is much less scientific than it should be because of this. This has been clearly documented in books written by Dr. Jerome Kassirer and also Dr. Marcia Angell, both former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine, who should certainly know this area well from their periods as editors of the most prestigious medical journal. The dominant role of vested interests in medicine has led to a world wide crisis in medical care, and while this crisis is most evident in the U.S., as shown by the recent debates on medicine in this country, it is a major problem all over the world. In this type of situation, a forum for documented opinions that is more open to those who hold views that dissent from those of the dominant vested interests is essential. If Medical Hypotheses is converted into a journal where there is a list of excluded topics, that would be unacceptable censorship by Elsevier, in my judgment.<br />
<br />
I would like to add a comment on the issue of peer review. I published my first paper in 1968, some 42 years ago (in an Elsevier journal, by the way) and have been observing the functioning of peer review over that extensive period of time. Over that time, the peer review system has deteriorated substantially for two distinct but interrelated reasons, both related to the pressures and difficulties of maintaining research funding on the part of potential reviewers. One is that individual scientists have become highly focused on very narrow areas of science, with such narrow focus being viewed by many as essential to maintain funding. As a consequence of this, scientists are much less able to peer review papers that are outside their very narrow range of expertise. The second is that with much pressure on the time of scientists to maintain funding, they are much less willing to spend their time researching a paper in order to provide a competent peer review. Rather papers are much more often reviewed by peer reviewers who have a vested interest in determining whether the paper is published or not, rather than providing a scientifically objective peer review. This is a great challenge for editors who are trying to keep their journals truly scientific, as opposed to simply reflecting some vested interest position. There have been, as I think you know, whole journals that openly or covertly state that they are journals supporting some industrial line, rather than genuine scientific journals. There is some stunning junk published in peer reviewed journals, things that should never have been published if the paper had been properly reviewed. And this happens in the most prestigious journals as well as in more pedestrian ones. The fact is that peer review has very substantial flaws and there is an advantage to having some journals that are editorially reviewed - at least then you know who to blame when something slips through the cracks. The flaws of the peer review system are likely to impact a journal like Medical Hypotheses more than other journals - how do you get people to effectively peer review a paper that is truly novel?<br />
<br />
I think that for all of these reasons, Medical Hypotheses should be viewed as a successful journal that is currently performing a valuable function to the scientific and medical communities and should be left to pursue further successes with its current structure. If Elsevier feels otherwise, then I would ask Elsevier to email me directly and tell me why.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<br />
Martin L. Pall<br />
<br />
Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences<br />
<br />
Washington State University<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
Friday, 15 January, 2010 14:14<br />
From: <br />
"Sven Kurbel" <sven@jware.hr><br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
<br />
Osijek, Croatia, 14/01/2010<br />
<br />
Dear Sir:<br />
<br />
After reading reactions regarding the publication of a paper by Prof. Peter Duesberg on Aids in Medical Hypotheses I have found myself in a deja-vu situation. Humans are alike everywhere. All is the question of scale. Anyone playing not with us, ought to be an enemy.<br />
<br />
First, regarding my conflict of interest. As a young person trying to become a scientist in a war thorn country, I have published first papers outside Croatia in Medical Hypotheses in 1995. Since then I have published in several other journals with IF from 0.2 (papers in Colegium Anthropologicum) to 4.9 (a recent e-letter in The Oncologist), but at least annually I have always prepared something for Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
The reason for my loyalty to this Journal is simple. I find the basic concept intriguing for any free thinking person. During last years, as a reviewer for several Croatian and European journals, I have read several very malicious reviews aiming not to help the authors, but to make them realize just how pathetic was their submission. So, I believe that both the peer review approach and the editor review do have their limitations. The peer review can be im proved only with a large number pool of well-categorized reviewers, random assignment of papers to three reviewers and gradual exclusion of those reviewers that are repeatedly opposite to other two reviews. Nobody does that, since it would take to much money and time.<br />
<br />
If the only real fuss regarding the content of a published paper in this Journal happened only once in 34 years, it would mean that we are talking about an extraordinary accurate journal with a respectable citation rate. People are reading, some of them are even citing the papers from it and there seems to be no problems. The reason for this smoothness is the journal name, evident in any citation: Medical Hypotheses. With this name no false argument is being made, authors are speculating on<br />
available facts and anyone can take it as plausible or not. Nevertheless, often the papers are interesting to be read. Readers recognize it and no hard feeling can normally develop.<br />
<br />
So, it must be the topic in the paper, not the Journal itself. I have no detailed knowledge regarding AIDS, but the idea in the paper must be an important taboo, otherwise more than 10% of papers in Medical Hypotheses would be considered controversial. With so much attention, it has to do something with the money, at least this is the way in the part of Europe I live.<br />
<br />
Since this journal is unique by its profile, impact and tradition, every intervention in its concept would move as one step further to Lysenkoism, or other, more modern type of orthodoxy in science. Without this Journal, a not so small tribe of free thinkers in biomedicine would have to go elsewhere or to stop theorizing and think only on routine. Is this a future that we want, or is it made for us by those who know better? I hope not.<br />
<br />
Sincerely Yours<br />
<br />
Sven Kurbel MD, PhD<br />
<br />
Prof. Sven Kurbel MD, PhD<br />
SUNCE Health Centre, Osijek, Croatia<br />
Dept. of Physiology, Osijek Medical Faculty<br />
J. Huttlera 4, 31000 Osijek, Croatia<br />
web page: www.kurbel.org e-mail: sven@jware.hr<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Ginsburg Isaac <ginsburg@cc.huji.ac.il><br />
Date: January 16, 2010 9:19:27 PM IST<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com.<br />
Cc: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Subject: Medical Hypotheses<br />
<br />
Jerusalem, January 16, 2010<br />
<br />
Dr. Chris Llloyd<br />
Vice president of Health journals<br />
Elsevier<br />
<br />
Dear Sir,<br />
<br />
I have just received an e - mail from Dr. Bruce G Charlton regarding the " Unclear outlook for radical journal as HIV/Aaids deniers " which evoked an outrage of protests/ support views on whether or not to decide that Medical Hypotheses be changed to a new formate, this time including peer evaluations of scientific articles submitted to the Editor of the Journal. Many of the comments made expressed concern that establishing a peer review system might be counter productive since " wild and innovative ideas " which are not in line with the dogmas set by investigators who believe they " hold the ultimate truth in science ", will never be published.<br />
<br />
As a contributor to " Medical Hypotheses ", I strongly believe that at least ONE out of the thousands of regular peer evaluated journals which exist today, should be left alone to serve as a spokesman for those articles which will definitely be rejected if submitted to a peer evaluated journal.<br />
<br />
Let me brief you about the ordeal I had gone through during my long academic career which will clarify why I think that Medical Hypotheses should not be touched.<br />
<br />
First, I highly recommend reading my invited overview article in the Scientist 2001 Volume 15(24):51 entitled " The disregard syndrome, a menace to the future of science ? " "which speaks for itself .<br />
<br />
The following is a clear example why ideas which are not in line with accepted dogmas should have an appropriate independent forum of expression.<br />
<br />
For years I have been struggling with Editors trying to convince them to instruct authors working on the mechanisms by which cationic peptides kill bacteria, to cite a large numbers of my publications on the subject. The accepted dogma today is that cationic peptides kill bugs by permeabilizing their outer and inner membranes rendering them non -viable. On the other hand we have argued that cationic peptides might ALSO kill bacteria by activating their endogenous autolytic wall enzymes ( muramidases) causing bacteriolysis and cell death. Furthermore, although one of the leading investigators finally mentioned in his peer reviewed article that the bacteriolysis concept, is valid, but surprisingly ignored any of my publications on the subject. Only " God " knows what had motivated this author to intentionally ignore the bacteriolysis concept, and why, the Editor of the journal had failed to deal with this issue. Such an INTENTIONAL suppression of " non orthodox" ideas is a setback to honest SCIENCE and the only crime the dissenter had committed, was that he " thought differently " !!<br />
<br />
To my rescue came the Editor of Medical Hypotheses who in 2004 ( volume 62 : 367 - 374 ) had accepted my overview article entitled :<br />
" Bactericidal cationic peptides can also function as bacteiolysis- inducing agents mimicking beta- lactam antibiotics ? it is enigmatic why this concept is consistently disregarded" . As of today, this article had been cited 33 times.<br />
<br />
More recently, I have been invited to comment on a key review article on bacterial killing by cationic peptides submitted to Experts Rev Anti Infective Therap. Once more I found out that although the same author had again mentioned bacteriolysis as a possibility, he failed to cite our papers on the subject. Justifying my criticism, the editor of the journal invited me to compile a large polemic essay on the subject in order to bring to the attention of readers that there might be an additional mechanism of bacterial killing Please refer to : Are cationic antimicrobial peptides also " double - edged " swords ? Ginsburg I and Koren E, 2008 Volume 6:453- 462.<br />
<br />
Taken together, in order to avoid either unintentional or intentional disregard for publications which do not coincide with the main stream of thoughts, we badly need " watch dogs " who will allow those authors whose papers might either be abused or rejected by PEER EVALUATORS , to present their ideas. This is why I strongly oppose to any attempt to change the current policy of the Editorial Board of Medical Hypotheses. Needless to say that any paper submitted for publications to any journal should be supported by convincing experimental data.<br />
<br />
I shall greatly value your comments and suggestions and am looking forward to hear from you soon.<br />
<br />
Sincerely yours<br />
<br />
Isaac Ginsburg ( Emeritus Professor of Microbiology )<br />
<br />
Institute for Dental Research<br />
The Hebrew University Hadassah Faculty of Dental Medicine<br />
Jerusalem, Israel<br />
Phone 972- 2 6757073<br />
Fax 972- 2 6758583<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
January 15, 2010<br />
<br />
Mr. Chris Lloyd<br />
Vice President of Health Science Journals<br />
Elsevier<br />
<br />
Dear Mr. Lloyd: <br />
The editor of Medical Hypotheses recently made me aware that Elsevier had intended to radically alter the way he would be able to select articles for publication. Recently, two controversial, politically-sensitive, and probably scientifically inaccurate articles were withdrawn from the journal by your publishing company. No journal is immune from such errors and even the prestigious peer-reviewed journals Science and Nature have had to withdraw published articles because of fraudulent data or conclusions. <br />
The basic tenants for article selection by Medical Hypotheses are unique in that they permit the dissemination of new paradigms of thought, more or less supported by real data, but nevertheless thought-provoking. Since Dr. Charlton has become editor, the quality of articles has progressively improved from those that were largely nutraceutical in content to those with more diverse subjects and authors from many disciplines. The progressive increase in the Impact factor has supported this statement. <br />
It would be eminently sad to see the one of the very few beacons that welcomes radically new hypotheses and often serves as the only opportunity for such ideas to be widely shared by the world’s scientists to disappear from the publishing scene. Of course some of the articles might be considered trivial or even outrageous, but these are certainly not the rule. There are others that offer real food for thought and have stimulated new paradigms between disciplines of science and medicine.<br />
I, and many of my colleagues, implore you and Elsevier to resist political pressure and maintain a steady support of Medical Hypotheses in its current form for the selection of articles. The editorial comments by Dr. Charlton have been particularly stimulating and we look forward to any issue that contains them. <br />
<br />
Sincerely and very best wishes,<br />
George E. Davis, Jr., MD, FACP. FACG<br />
28 Eastern Ave.<br />
Augusta, Maine, USA<br />
04330 <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
On Sat, 16/1/10, velimir altabas <velimir.altabas@gmail.com> wrote:<br />
<br />
From: velimir altabas <velimir.altabas@gmail.com><br />
Subject: letter of support<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 14:21<br />
Dear Bruce Charlton, <br />
<br />
First, it has always been a challenge writing articles for Medical Hypotheses, as well as we had a great satisfaction enjoying the attention we had here in our local community.<br />
<br />
So, we were pretty upset, when we have heard about the troubles You are going through. <br />
<br />
We are a small group of people trying to make science, from a small country, with small resources. It is crucial for us to publish hypotheses which are we cannot investigate alone, sometimes there is a positive echo from abroad – and among others - Medical Hypotheses made it possible. <br />
<br />
It would be wrong to change the editorial policy of this journal because it is unique. The feeling of freedom while expressing our ideas was priceless, reading the articles of others was rather an inspiration, and invitation to reconsider what is known, and what is not in a particular topic. We had never the feeling we were fooled by others with some so called - pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
Of course, there are people who have a different opinion. Maybe they are afraid their ideas could lose their public ? Well, if those ideas are wrong - it will surely happen, but that is just the pure nature of science - checking ideas and concepts in the search for the truth.<br />
<br />
We are just afraid how dangerous those people are, if they want to destroy a journal just because it has published some ideas out of present dogmas. Well, it seems to us that we all were fooled at school when we learned that the times of inquisition, Nazism, communism etc were behind us ...<br />
<br />
Suppressing different ideas is a way straight into dark ages, and we hope You will find many allies in Your fight for the right thing. <br />
<br />
Sincerely Yours, <br />
<br />
Velimir and Karmela Altabas<br />
University Clinic "Sisters of Charity"<br />
Zagreb<br />
Croatia <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
--- On Fri, 15/1/10, Huping Hu <hupinghu@quantumbrain.org> wrote:<br />
<br />
From: Huping Hu <hupinghu@quantumbrain.org><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: "Chris Lloyd" <c.lloyd@elsevier.com><br />
Cc: "Bruce G Charlton" <editormehy@yahoo.com><br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 21:32<br />
<br />
Dear Sir Chris Lloyd, Vice President of Health Science Journals at Elsevier:<br />
<br />
I am an author who over the recent years published two papers in Medical Hypotheses. I and my co-author of these two papers highly valaue the editorial review policy of this journal and the importance of this journal.<br />
<br />
I'm shocked to learn from Dr. Bruce G. Charlton, the Chief Editor of Medical Hypotheses, that Elsevier are considering major editorial changes to this unique and proven journal (over 34 years) which makes money for Elsevier, apparently due to one or two allegedly inappropriate papers appeared in Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
The vitality and longevity of this journal depends on the editorial review policy (choice)instead of peer-review. The latter process often suppresses new ideas and hinders scientific process.<br />
<br />
I urge that the leadership of Elsevier weighs very carefully about the issues in front of them, be far-sided and tolerant.<br />
<br />
I am confident that the readers of this innovative journal and the general public are smart enough to recognize an "inappropriate" article which now-and-then may appear in the journal. Throwing the baby out with the bath water would be a tragedy.<br />
<br />
Very truly yours,<br />
<br />
Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Johnson, Bruce D., Ph.D. [RO CON] <johnson.bruce@mayo.edu><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Cc: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 16:31<br />
Re: plan to alter the general format of the Medical Hypothesis Journal.<br />
<br />
To whom it may concern,<br />
<br />
I have submitted a number of papers to the Medical Hypothesis journal Usually the approach has been for my students to learn to articulate their ideas in a publication prior to diving into a new study and then to follow with the results of their study and describe whether their hypotheses were correct. It has been a valuable learning tool and forum where ideas can be transparently proposed without the politics and games that are typically associated with the usual journals. Changing this format would be a shame and we would cease to submit manuscripts to this journal if it did change.<br />
<br />
Bruce D. Johnson, PhD<br />
Professor of Medicine<br />
Mayo College of Medicine.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
On Sat, 16/1/10, Dr Kostas N Fountoulakis <kfount@otenet.gr> wrote:<br />
<br />
From: Dr Kostas N Fountoulakis <kfount@otenet.gr><br />
Subject: medical hypothesis<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Cc: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 12:16<br />
<br />
Dear Mr Lloyd<br />
<br />
It recently came to my attention that there was a crisis concerning the journal ‘Medical Hypothesis’ because of the publication of an anti-HIV article without peer review.<br />
<br />
My field of expertise is not HIV and AIDS, since I am a psychiatrist myself, so my opinion is based on principal values and not by specific events and facts.<br />
<br />
My view is that although peer review is and should be the mainstream for scientific publishing (I am editor-in-chief of a peer-reviewed journal myself), it is today more than ever necessary to have a parallel open system (a minority of journals within the publishing system) who will function in a different way (no matter whether this would be 'arrogant', 'selfish' or 'fatally problematic').<br />
<br />
The peer review system has the advantage of choosing 'good science' papers and acts as a quality filter. The same time it has the important problem that it suppresses radical and revolutionary and it tends to support the current view and interpretation of things and precludes breakthrough.<br />
<br />
As an editor-in-chief myself, I know how difficult it is today to find reliable peer reviewers; as an author I often find myself in the position to respond to impossible comments by reviewers who obviously have limited knowledge of the subject they were asked to review. The publishing of a paper is based on the assumption that the authors are honest and have not fabricated the data (I think that this can not be verified for most of the papers submitted to a journal) and that the reviewers have no conflict of interest, they have sufficient knowledge of the subject (I doubt for most cases) and that they will invest much time to do a proper review (I also doubt they will). For prestigious journals these are often the case but there are important problems for the majority of journals.<br />
<br />
Another important problem is that although innovation today can come from a limited sources, and one of these sources is interdisciplinary collaboration and carrying of innovations achieved in one field of science to another, most scientists and reviewers are either super-expert prominent scientists or undereducated technicians (I know first names in prominent journals who can discuss nothing more than the very papers they have published, they have no more than 2-3 years of formal training and they are asked to review papers on a regular basis because their general credentials are never shown anywhere).<br />
I often wonder what happens to papers accepted with bonfire by the highest ranking journals; the vast majority disappear from the scientific thinking and their results are proved mistaken and misleading after only a few years. <br />
<br />
To cut a long story short, the above are inherent problems of the peer-review system and the way research is conducted today. We don’t have a better way to regulate things and we are indeed not allowed to let the field of science to become chaotic; a field where any charlatan can do whatever he wishes and cause harm to humanity.<br />
<br />
However, we also need to keep a small door open; we need to let new ideas and proposals to circulate uncensored. The word UNCENSORED is important. There are not many journals in the publication business that are serving this goal, and Medical hypothesis is one of them. Their function is important for the future of science, no matter whether there are problems from time to time. Science is a dynamic procedure. Its not only a matter of democracy in expression, it is a matter of keeping the horizon open for the future development.<br />
<br />
In this frame, I consider an honor for Elsevier to have such a journal, the Medical Hypothesis, and I hope that in the future it will continue to serve the same goal and need of the scientific community.<br />
<br />
All the best <br />
<br />
Dr. Kostas N. Fountoulakis M.D., Ph.D<br />
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry<br />
3rd Department of Psychiatry, Division of Neurosciences<br />
School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, <br />
Greece<br />
Editor-in-Chief, Annals of General Psychiatry<br />
tel +30 2310 994622 (Hosp. AHEPA)<br />
fax +30 2310 266570<br />
mobile: +30 6945776935<br />
e-mail: kfount@med.auth.gr, kfount@otenet.gr <br />
messengers: kostasfountoulakis@hotmail.com<br />
kostas_fountoulakis@yahoo.com<br />
kostasfountoulakis@skype.com <br />
Post address: <br />
6, Odysseos street (1st Parodos, Ampelonon str.) 55535<br />
Pournari Pylaia Thessaloniki Greece<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: MericAdil Altinoz <maltinoz@gmail.com><br />
Subject: On Medical Hypotheses and Dr Bruce Charlton<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com <br />
<br />
Date: Monday, 18 January, 2010, 0:01<br />
<br />
Dear Dr Bruce Charlton / Editorial Members of Elsevier, <br />
<br />
I am a 34-years old medical doctor from Istanbul in Turkey, who published twice in Medical Hypotheses. My first publication was during the editorial period of Dr Horrobin in 2002 and my second publication was accepted by the editorial of Dr Charlton in 2007. My first publication gained attention of Professor Gerald F Joyce working on RNA evolution at the world-prestigious Scripps Institute with positive comments. My second paper gained attention of Bayer International and they decided to support a research study for testing aspirin effects to elevate fetal hemoglobin in attenuating the severity of thalassemia (** see below). Currently, I am giving lectures in a Molecular Biology Department of a private university and mainly interesting with molecular physiopathology of cancer, thalassemia and psychiatric disease; I wish to say couple words about the Elsevier's attempt to change the style of "Medical Hypotheses". <br />
<br />
People often say that the worst thing, which could ever happen to a researcher is sacrifying a good idea to a bad experiment. I thing the worse probability is frequently happening to researchers from less-developed countries due to a simple fact: They could barely find equipments to test their idea. This can lead to several possibilities: I- Researchers from developed countries could reach to the searched fact in a short manner. II- The searched fact could be reached far later, since it might be overseen or neglected by researchers with more resources. III- A hypothesis, which might lead global benefits could never be tested, since it was the brain fruit of less-lucky geographies. <br />
<br />
If "Medical Hypotheses" will be made a more orthodox journal, this could only lead to monotonization of scientific voice and opinion. Please let a journal to allow papers with little less orthodoxy, please let it to allow "more flying of ideas more freely". We have hundreds and thousands of journals of same style, same seriousness and same strictness. Diversity is the magic of nature and biomedical journal-dealing people are aware of "biodiversity", yet if they could have applied this principle to their own practice, this would very much change the pace of research benefits and its daily applications.<br />
<br />
Dr Charlton (Charlton BG) seemed to contribute far enough to global research with an impact of 185 publications and 1109 citations in a 20 years period until 2010. <br />
<br />
I support of his editorialship and I decline any strictness-type change in publication policy of Medical Hypotheses.<br />
<br />
Cordially, <br />
<br />
Meric A Altinoz, MD<br />
<br />
<br />
Medroxyprogesterone - valproic acid - aspirin. MVA regime to reduce transfusion associated mortality in late-term hemoglobinopathies. Hypothesis and rationale. Altinoz MA, Ozdilli K, Carin MN, Gedikoglu G. Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(6):1342-7. Epub 2006 Dec 11.PMID: 17161547 <br />
<br />
Hypothetical clues suggesting that 'AU' and 'UA' were the first 'beginning' and 'end' codons: is their ancient polymerase extant present as a protein domain fossil in reverse transcriptase and telomerase? Altinoz MA. Med Hypotheses. 2002 Jul;59(1):63-7.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Sue Llewellyn <Sue.Llewellyn@mbs.ac.uk><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 23 January, 2010, 17:31<br />
Dear Bruce Charlton<br />
<br />
I write in support of Medical Hypotheses as a non-peer reviewed journal. <br />
<br />
Peer review works well for papers which seek to add to an existing body of knowledge. Peers are reviewing work which extends incrementally an accepted paradigm. Any radically new idea, however, by definition, breaks with conventional wisdom. Hence, there will not be a ready made group of peer reviewers conversant with the approach and easily able to assess the contribution. Moreover, ideas and interests go together. Established ideas which are gaining momentum attract large research grants, dominate conferences and can make careers. So radical hypotheses can struggle to be heard - they challenge the existing mind-set, at least at first can be difficult to understand and can, potentially, upset the on-going money/status/power apple cart.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses is one of the very few places where revolutionary medical views can be published. Based on the arguments above, this is a strong reason, in itself, for continuing the present policy of editorial choice of well argued, coherent, new and/or radical hypotheses. But, there are other reasons that Medical Hypotheses is an important conduit. From my perspective as a social scientist, the medical field is surprisingly a-theoretical, research is super-specialised, analysis is valued over synthesis and methods are more or less restricted to the experimental approach. I don’t imply that social science is more open, merely that the exclusions differ. In any science, theory and empirical evidence, analysis and synthesis, in-depth specialization and interdisciplinary cross fertilization should all matter. And the pursuit of knowledge through a variety of methods is fundamental, dependent, obviously, on the nature of the problem under investigation. The present state of play in medical science results in the exclusion of theoretical ideas through heavy emphasis on experimental methods. Surely any theory should first be assessed on the basis of coherence and capability to explain observed phenomena? I refer to the email extract below, the result of submitting work to a conventional, highly regarded peer reviewed medical journal. <br />
<br />
‘I regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your paper for publication. Your proposals are interesting, but very speculative without empirical testing of derived hypotheses. A journal such as Medical Hypotheses is better suited for these two articles. I did not want to delay you in moving forward.’<br />
<br />
I took this advice and Medical Hypotheses published the work. I wish to do empirical testing but as someone from outside the medical field I will be reliant on working with others. They are unlikely to take me seriously if I cannot get my work published. Also it is rare for any experiment to produce incontrovertible results, experiments rest on assumptions and results have to be interpreted. Without theories that make assumptions explicit and enable results to be interpreted experimental research becomes fragmented and goes nowhere. Theoretical and empirical work should go hand in hand – they are reliant on each other.<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses provides a possibility for new, radical, theoretical and/or interdisciplinary work to be published. David Horrobin established the journal as non-peer review specifically to support ‘speculative’ work. It will be a travesty if this founding principle is overturned. <br />
<br />
Sue Llewellyn <br />
Professor, Faculty of Humanities<br />
The University of Manchester<br />
UK <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Arthur Kümmer <r2kummer@hotmail.com><br />
Subject: RE: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com, c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Date: Friday, 15 January, 2010, 11:37<br />
<br />
Dear Prof. Bruce Charlton,<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses is a great journal which significantly influenced my carreer choice and research projects that I have conducted. I became really upset after reading your email. <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses is a revolutionary journal which questions frequently the status quo. The fact that the journal is editorially-reviewed reinforces this point of view. In other words, when most journals are peer-reviewed, Medical Hypotheses questions if every journal should be like that. <br />
<br />
I truly believe that the current review process of the journal is the one which best fits its purpose. If this will change, the journal name should also change and the publisher should give Medical Hypothesis a chance to look for another publisher. I am sure that there are plenty of publishers eager to be a partner of Medical Hypothesis.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<br />
Arthur Kummer<br />
<br />
Professor of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry<br />
School of Medicine<br />
Federal University of Minas Gerais.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Alan C. Logan <aclnd@cfs-fm.org><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 21:21<br />
<br />
Dear Dr Charlton<br />
<br />
Your recent communication concerning the future of Medical Hypotheses is beyond disturbing. Our group from the University of Toronto published two papers in Medical Hypotheses related to the potential of oral microbes (so called probiotics) to influence the human mental state. As a result of publication, the hypotheses have generated bench and clinical studies by various international investigators. <br />
<br />
These hypotheses papers would not have seen the light of day in any traditional peer-review format - or at least not in a journal with a long history of credibility such as Medical Hypotheses. Under your leadership the current format Medical Hypotheses strikes a delicate balance between scientific integrity and out-of-the-box, thought provoking ideas. Any transition to a strict peer-review process will disturb this balance. Researchers, including our group, will be forced to look to less reputable journals for the mere publication of ideas.<br />
<br />
A decision to make a transition to strict peer-review will be a decision to destroy one of the most remarkable journals ever to be printed. <br />
<br />
With Respect<br />
<br />
Dr. Alan C. Logan<br />
Edgewater, NJ<br />
USA <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Takahiro Mezaki <tamezaki@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 12:01<br />
<br />
Dear Bruce G Charlton:<br />
<br />
I love the current policy of the Medical Hypotheses. It is a unique journal, and it is unique because it is not peer-reviewed.<br />
<br />
1. Science never progresses without imagination, and academic breakthrough often begins from an immature idea. It is very important that we have a place to open our imagination, unproven idea, or non-evidence-based belief as an expert, and the Medical Hypotheses is probably the only forum for them. It is the editorial-review system that allows the submission of potentially revolutionary but unproven ideas without constraint, because all we have to do is to convince only the editor to accept our opinions. On the other hand, authors have to submit their articles far more prudently under the peer-review system, because they never hope their article be rejected by part-time reviewers not realizing the policy of the journal, by the reason that it is not logically “perfect”. The authors may avoid submitting logically “imperfect” opinions, but it is, I think, against the original policy of the journal.<br />
<br />
2. Nowadays we have so many medical journals that we can find no time to follow those with similar concepts. The impact factor of the Medical Hypotheses is only 1.416, higher than average but never in the highest rank, and therefore if the Medical Hypotheses changes its style to nothing but a moderate and ordinary journal, I will prefer to save time the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet based on my own opinion that all the articles actually discuss their “hypotheses”. We do not want lower priority journals with similar contents. To survive, the Medical Hypotheses must not lose their originality as a free forum of candid discussion.<br />
<br />
Takahiro Mezaki MD PhD<br />
Department of Neurology<br />
Sakakibara Hakuho Hospital<br />
5630 Sakakibara-cho, Tsu City, Mie 514-1251<br />
JAPAN<br />
Tel: +81-59-252-2300<br />
Fax: +81-59-252-2301<br />
E mail: tamezaki@kuhp,kyoto-u.ac.jp<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Thelma C. Chavez <tchavez@sunstroke.sdsu.edu><br />
Subject: Review process for Med Hypotheses<br />
To: "Bruce Charlton" <editormehy@yahoo.com><br />
Date: Friday, 22 January, 2010, 17:45<br />
Dear. Dr. Charlton:<br />
<br />
I am dismayed to learn of possible alteration in the review procedure for Medical Hypotheses. The journal is unique in providing an important service in the medical field. In order for your current method to work, it is important to have well qualified and versatile people in the editorial office. Results over the years have amply demonstrated that this is the case. Your journal displays high standards and the ability to competently review a variety of subjects, and recognize frontier areas. In my own case, our hypotheses, which would not have seen the light of day via the conventional route, are enjoying ever increasing acceptance and recognition over the years.<br />
<br />
Please forward my comments to the appropriate authorities. I strongly urge that the proposed change does not occur.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
Pete Kovacic<br />
<br />
Pete Kovacic<br />
Adjunct Professor<br />
pkovacic@sundown.sdsu.edu<br />
SDSU Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry<br />
5500 Campanile Drive<br />
San Diego, CA 92182-1030<br />
619-594-5595<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: M. Oskar van Deventer <m.o.vandeventer@planet.nl><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: "Charlton, Bruce" <editormehy@yahoo.com><br />
Date: Saturday, 16 January, 2010, 11:44<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton,<br />
<br />
Thank you for your message, which is rather alarming. Here is my vision, which you may share with Elsevier.<br />
<br />
Hypotheses are the basis of science. Good research involves experiment that test a hypothesis. The more data points found that don't contradict the hypothesis, the more useful it becomes for building a theory. Or the hypthesis is invalidated. Well, we all know Poppers and science philosophy.<br />
<br />
Peer review is a good thing. Scrutiny is needed in the validation of hypotheses before accepting them in a theoretical framework. But it does not work the other way around. A hypothesis should not be rejected, because it does not fit in an existing theoretical framework. As long as a hypothesis has not been tested, it is just that, a hypothesis. The value of hypotheses is that they provoke discussion. Is there existing data that supports or contradicts the hypothesis? What tests can you perform to which the hypothesis should hold up?<br />
<br />
The Medical Hypotheses magazine is a valuable source for medical science. Medical hypotheses are very expensive to validate. It is good to openly discuss these hypotheses and contemplate their potential impact and ways to validate them. This is true especially for radical and revolutionary scientific ideas, which will never pass peer review. Some other sectors of science could well use their own Hypotheses magazine, for example Climate Science Hypotheses. This is a good way to keep discussions on hypotheses clearly separated from their peer-reviewed scientific validation.<br />
<br />
Of course any published idea can be abused. My own publication in Medical Hypotheses was cited with a product, something that I am not too happy about. But it was a correct reference: "if van Deventer's hypothesis is true, then ...". And when people check the reference, they can exactly read where the uncertainties are with the hypothesis.<br />
<br />
From my own experience I know that the editorial staff scrupulously checks submitted hypotheses. My own article was only accepted when I provided sufficient arguments why my hypothesis could be true and how the hypothesis could be put to the test.<br />
<br />
In summary, I think that Medical Hypothesis should remain what it is, that is, a platform to present and discuss medical hypotheses.<br />
<br />
Yours sincerely,<br />
<br />
M. Oskar van Deventer<br />
<br />
Hannie Schaftstraat 62<br />
2264 DL Leidschendam<br />
Nederland<br />
+31 70 3204454<br />
m.o.vandeventer@planet.nl<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Steven Bodovitz <bodovitzs@bioperspectives.com><br />
Subject: In support of the current format for Medical Hypotheses<br />
To: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Cc: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 20:00<br />
<br />
Dear Lloyd,<br />
<br />
I understand that Elsevier is considering changing Medical Hypotheses from editorial review to peer review. While I am completely in favor of the peer review system in general, I believe that editorial review has an important role to play in advancing biology and medicine. In my particular case, I have been studying human consciousness. This is a fascinating subject, and also quite daunting. Without Medical Hypotheses, I likely would not have been able to publish my early work, which likely would have been discouraging enough to prevent me from accomplishing as much as I have. I consider Medical Hypotheses to be a key partner in my progress. <br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<br />
Steven Bodovitz<br />
<br />
--<br />
Steven Bodovitz, PhD<br />
Principal, BioPerspectives<br />
1624 Fell Street<br />
San Francisco, CA 94117<br />
415-336-2700<br />
www.bioperspectives.com<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Richard Hellstrom <br />
To: clloyd@elsevier.com <br />
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 7:18 PM<br />
Subject: Medical Hyotheses<br />
<br />
Mr. Chris Lloyd <br />
Vice President of Health Science Journals at Elsevier<br />
clloyd@elsevier.com<br />
<br />
Mr. Lloyd:<br />
<br />
I write in defense of keeping Medical Hypotheses exactly as it is. I write as an individual who has been published more than a dozen times by Medical Hypotheses when nobody else would publish me.<br />
<br />
I think that the situation of Medical Hypotheses should be considered in context to Thomas Kuhn's description of the scientific process (he can be googled). Kuhn said that normal science has accepted a paradigm usually from scientific forebearers, and has the exclusive job of improving this paradigm by "puzzle-solving" studies. <br />
<br />
Kuhn asserted that normal science rather invariably is negative to competing paradigms destructive of conventional wisdom. Also, normal scieance can be boxed into faililng to see problems with the accepted paradigm because nature is seen not as it is, but through the distorting lens of the accepted paradigm.<br />
<br />
Kuhn said that major improvements in science come not from accumulation of studies, but by paradigm-change.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, medical scientists do not "see" the scientific process as defined by Kuhn. In my experience, medical operates by the inductive model. As current major positions are based on studies, only more studies can improve the current position.<br />
<br />
This position essentially describes science as performance of studies - and does not allow for the possibility that a new paradigm might better explain a segment of science.<br />
<br />
The story of Galileo is supposedly well known, and I suspect that most people believe that a Galileo problem can not occur today because the scientific process is well understood. I also suspect that most people do not understand why Galileo pushed the Copernican position. (Venus' full set of phases falsified the geocentric Ptolemaic theory - google this.)<br />
<br />
I must admit that I speak from somebody with an unappreciated paradigm which challenges the basic conceptualization of heart attacks. Standard (PEER REVIEWED) journals invariably reject my papers, usually promptly and without outside reviews. <br />
<br />
Incredibly, when rare outside reviews are obtained, they fail to evaluate the papers. Reviewers "think" in context to the accepted paradigm, and can not "see" the subject matter in context to the new paradigm. Kuhn said that those who believe in different paradigms live in different worlds, and sometimes the gulf between worlds is too great to allow understanding of the competing model.<br />
<br />
If Medical Hypotheses, as presently constituted dies, they those with radical ideas are at the mercy of conventional thinkers.<br />
<br />
Of course, there is nothing wrong with conventional thinking in context to reviewing results of studies. But I do insist that normal scientists fail to understand the nature of alternate paradigms, and do not understand how paradigms are evaluated - by verification/falsification techniques.<br />
<br />
I knew David Horribin. I sent a paper to Medical Hypotheses, and David said he liked it, and invited me to lunch. As I live in the US, it was a while before I could take up the offer.<br />
<br />
David Horribin knew full well that when radical hypotheses are published, there is a chance that some end up as "flat earth" ideas. But he was convinced that the more important issue was allowing publication of radical ideas unacceptable to "conventional wisdom."<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, I was not surprised that the reaction of the "establishment" was to try to get Medical Hypotheses out of Medline because of a paper unacceptable to the establishment. <br />
<br />
What is the difference of suppressing Medical Hypotheses and suppressing Galileo. In both cases, the suppressors were doing something "noble."<br />
<br />
Those who believe that the AIDS article was nonsense should have written a paper which showed the foolishness of the article. If Medical Hypotheses would not publish a solid article which shows the imperfections of the AIDS paper, I would be quite unhappy with Medical Hypothses.<br />
<br />
As I do not accept the standard paradigm for heart attacks, I have literally decades of experience in dealing with "normal science's" negativity to competing paradigms.<br />
<br />
I have two goals: First to get an open and fair evaluation of my ideas by cardiology - which has not happened.<br />
<br />
Secondly, to use my experience to make the point that Kuhn's description of the scientific process is valid. While most radical ideas might end up in the trashcan, they should not be suppressed!<br />
<br />
I truly hope that Elsevier will not act in a manner similar to a pope of the early 17th century.<br />
<br />
H. Richard Hellstrom, MD<br />
Emeritus Professor of Pathology<br />
SUNY Upstate Medical University<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Leo Sher <drleosher@gmail.com><br />
Subject: "Medical Hypotheses"<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Cc: c.lloyd@elsevier.com<br />
Date: Monday, 18 January, 2010, 0:43<br />
Dear Dr. Charlton,<br />
<br />
I hope this note finds you well.<br />
<br />
I was distressed to find out that there is an intention to transform “Medical Hypotheses” into an orthodox peer review journal. For many years, “Medical Hypotheses” has been a lighthouse of academic freedom.<br />
<br />
I am sure that dishonest bureaucrats who run many academic institutions, departments, and centers around the world have been irritated by the fact that there is a journal that truly supports academic freedom and that they cannot control what is published in this outstanding Journal.<br />
<br />
“Medical Hypotheses” is a great journal that has played a crucial role in the dissemination of scientific and medical information. “Medical Hypotheses” makes a fundamental contribution to biomedical progress and provides a voice that might otherwise never be heard. Any decision to change the format of manuscript review because of political considerations cannot be excused and can only lead to a higher level of censure than is already inherent within classical peer review. Peer review is problematic. Peer review makes the ability to publish vulnerable to control by elites, to personal jealousy, etc.<br />
<br />
I sincerely hope that the leadership of Elsevier will make the right decision, and you will be able to continue doing your wonderful job as the Editor of this remarkable journal.<br />
<br />
With deep respect and best regards,<br />
<br />
Leo Sher, M.D.<br />
Associate Professor<br />
Department of Psychiatry<br />
Columbia University<br />
1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 42, Suite 2917<br />
New York, NY 10032, USA<br />
Tel: 212-543-6240<br />
Fax: 212-543-6017<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
From: Alan C. Logan <aclnd@cfs-fm.org><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 21:21<br />
Dear Dr Charlton<br />
<br />
Your recent communication concerning the future of Medical Hypotheses is beyond disturbing. Our group from the University of Toronto published two papers in Medical Hypotheses related to the potential of oral microbes (so called probiotics) to influence the human mental state. As a result of publication, the hypotheses have generated bench and clinical studies by various international investigators. <br />
<br />
These hypotheses papers would not have seen the light of day in any traditional peer-review format - or at least not in a journal with a long history of credibility such as Medical Hypotheses. Under your leadership the current format Medical Hypotheses strikes a delicate balance between scientific integrity and out-of-the-box, thought provoking ideas. Any transition to a strict peer-review process will disturb this balance. Researchers, including our group, will be forced to look to less reputable journals for the mere publication of ideas.<br />
<br />
A decision to make a transition to strict peer-review will be a decision to destroy one of the most remarkable journals ever to be printed. <br />
<br />
With Respect<br />
<br />
Dr. Alan C. Logan<br />
Edgewater, NJ<br />
USA <br />
*<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses should retain its current format<br />
Friday, 15 January, 2010 0:29<br />
From: <br />
"Gad Saad" <GadSaad@jmsb.concordia.ca><br />
View contact details<br />
To: <br />
editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
To Whom It May Concern,<br />
<br />
I recently became aware of the fact that Elsevier is thinking of altering the unique format of Medical Hypotheses (or perhaps closing it down). In my opinion, it would be a mistake to alter MH's unique format. Whereas I cannot speak to the contentious issues surrounding the AIDS-related papers (as I have not read them), I strongly value a journal that provides a forum for truly innovative (and at times speculative) ideas that might not find an appropriate outlet otherwise. <br />
<br />
I have published two papers in Medical Hypotheses, both of which have received some attention. In one of my papers, I provided a Darwinian account of how economic conditions might affect global male-to-female suicide ratios. In a second paper, I highlighted sex-specific instantiations of OCD and argued that these are rooted in sex-specific problems of evolutionary import. I suppose that these works could have been published elsewhere but under the able editorial guidance of Dr. Bruce Charlton, I was able to publish them in a highly-read prestigious outlet in a quick time period. As someone who has published in journals in the social sciences (where the review process is exceptionally long and tedious), I can truly appreciate a journal that promotes such a rapid dissemination of novel ideas.<br />
<br />
I hope that the relevant parties at Elsevier will reconsider their decision and keep MH as is. Why alter something that has worked well for 34 years? Many thanks for attending to this matter.<br />
<br />
Regards,<br />
<br />
Gad Saad<br />
<br />
Dr. Gad Saad, Associate Professor<br />
<br />
Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption<br />
John Molson School of Business<br />
Concordia University<br />
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West<br />
Montreal, QC, CANADA<br />
H3G 1M8<br />
<br />
Phone: (514) 848-2424 ext. 2900<br />
Fax: (514) 848-4554<br />
Email: gadsaad@jmsb.concordia.ca<br />
<br />
Website: http://jmsb.concordia.ca/~GadSaad/<br />
<br />
Blog: http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus<br />
<br />
Book:<br />
http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Consumption-Marketing-Consumer-Psychology/dp/080585150X<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<br />
From: Mark A. Smith <mark.smith@case.edu><br />
Subject: Re: Medical Hypotheses is under threat<br />
To: "Bruce Charlton" <bruce.charlton@buckingham.ac.uk>, editormehy@yahoo.com<br />
Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 18:53<br />
<br />
Bruce,<br />
<br />
I share your sentiments. Scientific publishing needs more than the meat and potatoes of peer-review. My own publications in Medical Hypotheses would never have seen the light of day through peer (i.e., consensus) review. Note, all have subsequently been well cited and in at least one case led to a whole new area of investigation. You are to be applauded for your work with the journal.<br />
<br />
Mark<br />
<br />
Mark A. Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Pathology<br />
Wolstein Research Building, Room 5125, Department of Pathology<br />
Case Western Reserve University<br />
2103 Cornell Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106<br />
Tel: 216-368-3670; Fax: 216-368-8964; mark.smith@case.edu<br />
http://www.case.edu/med/pathology/faculty/smith.html<br />
<br />
Executive Director, American Aging Association<br />
http://www.americanaging.org/<br />
<br />
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease<br />
http://www.j-alz.com<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses<br />
Sunday, 17 January, 2010 14:06<br />
From: "Judith Harris" <judyharris@att.net><br />
To: "Chris Lloyd" <c.lloyd@elsevier.com><br />
Cc: "Bruce Charlton" <editormehy@yahoo.com><br />
<br />
Dear Chris Lloyd,<br />
<br />
If you want to create another peer reviewed journal, go right ahead. But don't call it Medical Hypotheses. <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses serves an important purpose that a peer reviewed journal cannot fill. <br />
<br />
Leave it alone.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, Judith Rich Harris<br />
<br />
(Author of The Nurture Assumption and No Two Alike)Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-22749819401860544972010-02-09T01:57:00.000-08:002010-10-18T03:05:34.648-07:00Why are women so intelligent? - Adaptiveness of maternal IQWhy are women so intelligent? The effect of maternal IQ on childhood mortality may be a relevant evolutionary factor<br />
<br />
Bruce G. Charlton <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses, 2009; 74: 401-2. in the press<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Summary<br />
<br />
Humans are an unusual species because they exhibit an economic division of labour. Most theories concerning the evolution of specifically human intelligence have focused either on economic problems or sexual selection mechanisms, both of which apply more to men than women. Yet while there is evidence for men having a slightly higher average IQ, the sexual dimorphism of intelligence is not obvious (except at unusually high and low levels). However, a more female-specific selection mechanism concerns the distinctive maternal role in child care during the offspring’s early years. It has been reported that increasing maternal intelligence is associated with reducing child mortality. This would lead to a greater level of reproductive success for intelligent women, and since intelligence is substantially heritable, this is a plausible mechanism by which natural selection might tend to increase female intelligence in humans. Any effect of maternal intelligence on improving child survival would likely be amplified by assortative mating for IQ by which people tend to marry others of similar intelligence – combining female maternal and male economic or sexual selection factors. Furthermore, since general intelligence seems to have the functional attribute of general purpose problem-solving and more rapid learning, the advantages of maternal IQ are likely to be greater as the environment for child-rearing is more different from the African hunter-gatherer society and savannah environment in which ancestral humans probably evolved. However, the effect of maternal IQ on child mortality would probably only be of major evolutionary significance in environments where childhood mortality rates were high. The modern situation is that population growth is determined mostly by birth rates; so in modern conditions, maternal intelligence may no longer have a significant effect on reproductive success; the effect of female IQ on reproductive success is often negative. Nonetheless, in the past it is plausible that the link between maternal IQ and child survival constituted a strong selection pressure acting specifically on women.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Humans are an unusual species because they exhibit an economic division of labour [1]. And most theories concerning the evolution of specifically human intelligence have either focused on the value of abstract thinking and rapid learning in solving economic problems such as hunting, gathering, farming and defence; or on sexual selection mechanisms in producing creative intelligence to entertain the prospective mate (for review see [2]).<br />
<br />
Both types of theory apply more to men than women, and tend to regard high intelligence in women as having been somewhat passively pulled-along by rising male intelligence due to the relative slowness of evolving sexually dimorphic traits [2]. But, while there is evidence for men having a slightly higher average IQ (perhaps about four IQ points [3]), the sexual dimorphism is not striking except at very unusually high and low levels of intelligence [4].<br />
<br />
However, there is some evidence of a more female-specific selection mechanism which concerns the distinctive female role in child care, especially during the offspring’s early years. I have located two studies which demonstrate a statistical relationship between increased maternal intelligence and reduced child mortality [5] and [6]. These are supported by a host of indirect studies which find the same negative correlation between proxy measures of IQ such as educational attainment or duration, and measures of child health which might plausibly correlate with mortality (e.g. [7] and [8]).<br />
<br />
So it seems likely that there would be a selection pressure tending to increase maternal intelligence since (all else being equal) increased intelligence would lead to a greater chance of offspring surviving to adulthood. This would lead to a greater level of reproductive success for intelligent women, and intelligence is substantially heritable – so this is a plausible mechanism by which natural selection might tend to increase female intelligence in humans (all else being equal).<br />
<br />
Any effect of a mother’s intelligence on improving survival of her children is likely to be amplified by assortative mating for IQ: in other words people tend to marry others of similar intelligence [1] and [9]. This suggests that a woman of higher-than-average-intelligence (who is more likely to keep her children safe) is also likely to have a higher-than-average-intelligence husband (who is likely to be a better economic provider). A more-intelligent wife would also be able more rapidly to learn to use these extra resources from her smarter husband in improving the health and survival of their offspring.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, since intelligence seems to have the functional attribute of a general purpose problem-solving ‘module’ [10], the advantages of maternal IQ are likely to be greater as the environment for child-rearing is more different from the African hunter-gatherer society and savannah environment in which ancestral humans probably evolved. In an ancestral society and environment, it is likely that women have been equipped (by natural selection) with the ‘maternal instincts’ necessary for successful child-rearing. But as humans have moved further ‘out of Africa’ and into evolutionarily unfamiliar climates and ecologies, and have developed novel economic systems such as agriculture and cities – then the advantages of higher maternal IQ (including attributes of better ability to solve novel problems and more rapid ability to learn from experience) may have become more important. This would fit with some evidence (also consistent with explanations for higher male IQ) for varying human general intelligence according to multi-generational ancestral experience of higher latitude, agrarian economy, distance from Africa and some other indices of evolutionary novelty [11], [12], [13] and [14]. The effect of maternal IQ on child survival may make this a special case of Gottfredson’s ‘deadly innovations’ hypothesis [15].<br />
<br />
However, the effect of maternal IQ would probably be of major evolutionary significance only in situations where childhood mortality rates were high: presumably, the higher the childhood mortality rates, the greater would be the differential effect on survival of higher maternal intelligence. Until the industrial revolution all societies experienced high childhood mortality rates due to factors such as birth problems, starvation, disease, parental death, predation and other types of violence [12]. Then in industrializing/developing countries from about 1800, mortality rates fell more rapidly than birth rates and populations began to grow and living standards to rise. The modern situation is that population growth is determined mostly by birth rates, and child mortality rates are low enough that some of the population groups with the highest child mortality are growing rapidly due to even-higher birth rates; and populations with the lowest child mortality may be shrinking due to sub-replacement birth rates [12] and [13]. Indeed, there is a strongly inverse relationship between IQ and reproductive success in women in modern societies (e.g. [16]).<br />
<br />
So, in modernizing societies, maternal intelligence may no longer have a significant effect on reproductive success, or the relationship may be negative – nonetheless, in the past and especially in agrarian societies rich in evolutionarily novel situations that impact on child-rearing, it is plausible that the link between maternal IQ and child survival constituted a strong selection pressure acting specifically on women (it should, however, be remembered that most newly arising traits are initially inherited by both sexes, and that it takes longer for sexually dimorphic traits to evolve – see [2] for review).<br />
<br />
This idea of maternal influence on childhood mortality driving an increase in female intelligence might potentially be testable. For example, specifically female intelligence might be measured in relation to the quantitatively evaluated degree of environmental evolutionary-unfamiliarity among ancestors (somewhat as in Ref. [11]), or perhaps in relation to differences in the nature and intensity of child-rearing practices and specific hazards (as in the study of the Ache tribe reported in [15]). And since the reason for women’s high IQ is postulated to be different from the reason for men’s high IQ (i.e., maternal benefits versus economic benefits), then it may be possible to generate and test predictions of how these sex differences would affect the nature and application not only of abstract reasoning, but also personality and other cognitive attributes.<br />
<br />
For instance, the degree of selection probably on maternal psychology in situations of high child mortality in evolutionarily unfamiliar situations may affect the relative level of intelligence in women compared with men, or may affect the personality traits of higher conscientiousness and agreeableness/empathizing self-reported by women (for review see [9]). The population magnitude of such sexually dimorphic personality traits may vary in ways that can be predicted according to that population’s ancestral experience of maternal natural selection. Furthermore, Cochran and Harpending’s hypotheses that Ashkenazi Jewish men were under exceptionally powerful economic selection pressure for evolving higher intelligence over the past millennium [14] might be expected to create a larger than usual men-to-women IQ differential in this group.<br />
<br />
In summary, differences in maternal psychology (intelligence and perhaps personality) could have had importance fitness effects by their influence on child survival in situations of high childhood mortality. This idea may provide a useful framework for understanding more about the evolution of human intelligence.<br />
<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
[1] M. Ridley, The origins of virtue: human instincts and the evolution of cooperation, Viking, London (1996).<br />
<br />
[2] G. Miller, The mating mind: how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, Doubleday, London (2000).<br />
<br />
[3] R. Lynn and P. Irwing, Sex differences on the progressive matrices: a meta analysis, Intelligence 32 (2004), pp. 481–498. <br />
<br />
[4] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).<br />
<br />
[5] P. Sandiford, J. Cassell, G. Sanchez and C. Coldham, Does intelligence account for the link between maternal literacy and child survival?, Soc Sci Med 45 (1997), pp. 1231–1239. <br />
<br />
[6] J. Čvorović, J.P. Rushton and L. Tenjevic, Maternal IQ and child mortality in 222 Serbian Roma (Gypsy) women, Pers Indiv Differ 44 (2008), pp. 1604–1609. <br />
<br />
[7] J.G. Cleland and J.K. van Ginneken, Maternal education and child survival in developing countries, Soc Sci Med 27 (1988), pp. 1357–1368. <br />
<br />
[8] S. Desai and S. Alva, Maternal education and child health: is there a strong causal relationship?, Demography 35 (1998), pp. 71–81. <br />
<br />
[9] G. Miller, Spent: sex, evolution and human behavior, Viking, Penguin (2009).<br />
<br />
[10] S. Kanazawa, General intelligence as a domain-specific adaptation, Psychol Rev 111 (2004), pp. 512–523. <br />
<br />
[11] S. Kanazawa, Temperature and evolutionary novelty as forces behind the evolution of general intelligence, Intelligence 36 (2008), pp. 99–108. <br />
<br />
[12] G. Clark, A farewell to alms: a brief economic history of the world, Princeton University Press, Princeton, USA (2007).<br />
<br />
[13] R. Lynn, The global bell curve, Washington Summit Publishers, Atlanta, GA, USA (2008).<br />
<br />
[14] G. Cochran and H. Harpending, The ten thousand year explosion: how civilization accelerated human evolution, Basic Books, Philadelphia, PA, USA (2009).<br />
<br />
[15] L.S. Gottfredson, Innovation, fatal accidents, and the evolution of general intelligence. In: M.J. Roberts, Editor, Integrating the mind: domain general versus domain specific processes in higher cognition, Psychology Press, Hove, New York (2007).<br />
<br />
[16] Nettle D, Pollet TV. Natural selection on male wealth in humans. Am Nat 2008;172:658–66.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-43590355829659251532010-02-05T01:57:00.000-08:002010-02-12T02:40:01.896-08:00Medical Hypotheses Affair - Geoff Watts interview - BMJEmasculating hypothetical oddities?<br />
<br />
Geoff Watts, London, UK<br />
<br />
BMJ 2010; 340: c726 <br />
<br />
Published 4 February 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c726<br />
<br />
Accessed 16.30h, 4th Feb 2010<br />
<br />
(A shortened version of this was published in the print edition of the BMJ as: Watts G. 'Will advent of peer review emasculate hypothetical oddities?' BMJ; 340: 337)<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
(Subtitle) "When Bruce Charlton recently proposed giving space in his journal to AIDS denier Peter Duesberg, Elsevier decided to look at the journal’s future. Geoff Watts asks if change would be for the better"<br />
<br />
With postal deliveries comprising mainly junk mail, the monthly arrival of the journal Medical Hypotheses is a treat. But for how long? If its publishers have their way, what makes it so distinctive may in due course wither. Elsevier is demanding that the editorial decisions currently made by one man, Dr Bruce Charlton, should be overseen (and often, no doubt, over-ridden) by a group of peer reviewers. Subject to the constraints of an unfamiliar orthodoxy, the bright and sometimes highly coloured plumage of Medical Hypotheses would surely fade to grey.<br />
<br />
Bruce Charlton—who combines his role as editor with those of reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University and what he calls a "virtual professorship" at the University of Buckingham—has been in charge at Medical Hypotheses for some seven years. The journal was founded in 1975 by David Horrobin, another Newcastle doctor whose unconventional career was backed by a capacity for controversial and unorthodox thinking. Horrobin started it as a forum for new ideas because he believed that, compared with other sciences, medicine was short on good theorising with which to underpin its experimental work. He also saw the peer review process as intrinsically biased against any new idea, let alone a revolutionary one. Although peer review might be appropriate for assessing experimental work, this didn’t necessarily make it equally suitable for judging theoretical speculation, he thought.<br />
<br />
Charlton became a member of the Medical Hypotheses advisory board in the late 1990s and took over as editor after Horrobin’s death in 2003. "I think he’d sized me up and decided I would be the person to take over. When he realised he was going to die he began giving me briefings, even on the ward while he was receiving chemo." Charlton clearly feels the weight of his inheritance; he talks not only of his own fears for the journal’s future, but how his deceased mentor would have felt about the proposed changes.<br />
<br />
By his own admission, Charlton’s somewhat erratic career—a stint in neuroendocrinology followed by an MA in literature and philosophy and then by successive attachment to university departments of physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, and finally psychology—is evidence of rapidly changing interests. "But this was my qualification for Medical Hypotheses because it’s a journal that covers the whole of medicine." I asked how he would respond to the label "libertarian radical" as a shorthand means of describing the outlook that emerges from his editorials. He says this would have been right five years ago, and is still in his temperament. But he’s since moved, surprisingly perhaps, towards religion. Perhaps one shouldn’t make too much of it, but there is a whiff of the Old Testament about his views on contemporary science. He talks of corruption and dishonesty, of hype, and spin, of "impression management," of the loss of individual integrity. He can muster little enthusiasm for the managerial arrangements that increasingly govern science. "I’m quite creative but not very good at working on other people’s projects. I have an abrasive side to my personality. I’m not a team player."<br />
<br />
Part of the fascination of Medical Hypotheses stems from the individuality of some of its editor’s decisions. "If I’ve been stimulated into thinking about something in a way I consider constructive," he says, "even if the paper itself is almost certainly not correct, I think it can be a valuable contribution to the scientific literature." That may be how some of the more exceptional papers find their way into the journal. In accounting for some of these off-the-wall contributions to Medical Hypotheses (a public health danger posed by showers, for example, or the effect of jet lag on mental illness, or the use of cashew nuts to cure tooth abscesses) he quotes Marc Abrahams, the man behind the annual Ignoble awards. "First they make you laugh, then they make you think." An academic publishing world in which all editors worked by these principles would be impossibly chaotic; one in which none is permitted to act in this manner would surely be the poorer.<br />
<br />
Charlton is well aware that his emphasis on the role of editor as sole arbiter of what goes into the journal attracts charges of arrogance. "People do say this. It’s extraordinary how individual responsibility is nowadays regarded in that light, as if committee decisions are intrinsically superior. But nobody can place any responsibility on to anyone in a committee."<br />
<br />
What prompted Elsevier to set about a rethink of its journal was Charlton’s intention to publish two papers which, so Elsevier claim, undermine the current understanding of AIDS. One of them, by the Stanford virologist Peter Duesberg, certainly tries to do this. He uses the instance of South Africa to argue against the HIV virus as the cause of the disease. One might suggest that Duesberg is a tiresome man and that Charlton’s intention to give him more space in which to argue his already familiar case was ill conceived. But is this sufficient reason to revamp the entire basis of the journal’s editorial selection procedure?<br />
<br />
Even odder is the case of the other banned paper. Submitted by a group based in Florence it seems not to deny the viral origin of HIV, but to tease the Italian health authorities for the incompetence of their bureaucracy and procedures by suggesting that those authorities themselves behave as if they are "AIDS deniers." Whoever made the decision at Elsevier either hasn’t read it or didn’t understand it.<br />
<br />
The future of Medical Hypotheses remains, for the moment, in limbo. The journal is currently profitable, with a good impact factor, and a board that includes many worthy and several celebrated academics. If Elsevier do put their intentions into practice they may lose some or all of the above—to say nothing of their editor.<br />
<br />
<br />
Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-34364869299743253422010-01-16T23:27:00.000-08:002010-01-17T06:51:40.599-08:00Notturno on the Medical Hypotheses AffairA comment by Mark A Notturno. <br />
<br />
In recent years we have heard a lot of people talk as if the fact that two thousand scientists agree about something constitutes evidence, if not indeed proof, that it is true. So it may be a sign of the times that Elsevier is considering closing a scientific journal whose main sin is that it published an article that bucked the consensus belief that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Elsevier recently removed Peter Duesberg et al’s ‘HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS a new perspective’ from MEDICAL HYPOTHESES’ online website and left a notice explaining its action. It correctly stated that the editorial policy of MEDICAL HYPOTHESES is to consider ‘radical, speculative, and non-mainstream scientific ideas’ but went on to say that Elsevier had ‘received serious expressions of concern about the quality of this article, which contains highly controversial opinions about the causes of AIDS, opinions that could potentially be damaging to global public health’. <br />
<br />
The fact that the article contains controversial opinions about the causes of AIDS is part of the reason why it is preeminently suitable for publication in MEDICAL HYPOTHESES. But the idea that these opinions could be damaging to global public health is a clear beg of the very scientific question at issue. The opinion that HIV is not the cause of AIDS could be damaging to global public health if HIV is in fact the cause (or a cause) of AIDS. But if HIV is not the cause (or a cause) of AIDS, but a harmless passenger virus as Duesberg claims, then the HIV theory of AIDS, and the use of anti-HIV drugs to combat it, may itself be damaging to global public health. <br />
<br />
In taking this action, Elsevier unwittingly took sides in what is essentially a philosophical disagreement regarding what science is and the criteria for scientific publication. We have heard a lot more in recent years about the scientific consensus behind certain theories than we have about the scientific evidence for and against them. We have also heard people who should know better say that certain theories have now been established once and for all, and are thus beyond rational dispute. And we have sometimes even heard them proclaim that whether or not you believe that a certain theory is true should now be regarded as a moral issue. <br />
<br />
MEDICAL HYPOTHESES, however, was founded nearly thirty-five years ago in an attempt to provide an outlet for medical research that runs contrary to received opinion and is too controversial to be published in peer-reviewed medical journals. David Horrobin, our founding editor, believed that the peer-review system can impede the growth of science by systematically rejecting articles that fall outside the consensus of scientific belief. <br />
<br />
Horrobin was attracted to Sir Karl Popper’s philosophy of science and enlisted Popper himself to serve as a kind of philosophical godfather on the journal’s first editorial advisory board. Popper taught that scientific knowledge is inherently fallible, that universal theories cannot be justified or shown to be true by empirical evidence, and that the best we can do is to test our theories against observation and reasoned argument. He said that scientific theories are distinguished from non-scientific theories by the fact that they can be refuted, or falsified, by empirical evidence. And he wrote that ‘the game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game’.<br />
<br />
There can be little doubt that many scientists would like to suppress Peter Duesberg’s views about HIV and AIDS. I have actually heard well-meaning scientists say, nearly four hundred years after Galileo, that Duesberg should be imprisoned for them. But the scientific response for those who believe that the views articulated in an article are false is not to prevail upon a publisher to suppress them. It is to present credible evidence and reasoned argument to refute them. <br />
<br />
Some scientists, especially those who are convinced of their own opinions, may say that this is a waste of time and effort since the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has been fully verified, and since Duesberg’s views are clearly false and pseudo-scientific. But this is not the attitude that has inspired MEDICAL HYPOTHESES. And it only means that we are still fighting a battle for the freedom of thought, nearly four hundred years after Galileo, and that some scientists have forgotten which side they are supposed to be on. <br />
<br />
This may sound like hyperbole. It is not. I used to think that it would be too ironic, given the history of MEDICAL HYPOTHESES, if Elsevier were to subject our policy on peer review to peer review. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The panel of experts that Elsevier enlisted to investigate how we came to accept Duesberg’s article for publication has now completed its report. It does, indeed, recommend that articles submitted to the journal be subject to peer review. It also recommends that Elsevier impose a list of forbidden topics of a controversial or politically-incorrect nature to be excluded from the journal.<br />
<br />
Mark Amadeus Notturno<br />
Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of MEDICAL HYPOTHESES<br />
Washington DC<br />
16 January 2010Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-32378054507393261152010-01-02T06:26:00.000-08:002010-01-02T06:26:51.017-08:00Knowledge first, critique laterKnowledge first, critique later: Why it is a mistake for science education to encourage junior students to discuss, challenge and debate scientific knowledge <br />
<br />
Bruce G. Charlton <br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses. 2010; 74: 211-213. <br />
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Summary<br />
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In UK educational circles it has long been regarded as a platitude that a good scientific education at school and undergraduate level should aim to teach critical thinking and encourage students to challenge mainstream science, debate scientific issues and express their personal opinions. However, I believe that this strategy is usually mistaken, and that such educational strategies probably do more harm than good. For most students, at most levels, for most of the time; science education should be focused on the inculcation of established knowledge. This is for the simple reason that critique is educationally-counterproductive and scientifically-worthless unless or until underpinned by adequate knowledge and competence. Instead, for the early years of science teaching, the basic assumption ought to be that the student is there to learn science; not to confront science. The basic attitude being taught should be one of humility before the science being studied.<br />
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***<br />
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Should junior science students be encouraged to challenge and debate?<br />
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In UK educational circles it has long been regarded as a platitude that a good education at both school and undergraduate level should teach critical thinking, encourage students to challenge what they are taught and to debate scientific issues. The perceived need to encourage critique among students is especially asserted for science, since it is (correctly) recognized that scientific progress depends upon challenging and replacing pre-existing ideas.<br />
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So strong is this supposition of the virtue of classroom discussion of scientific knowledge, that people who state that science education ought to focus on training in critical thinking are not required to support or argue further for this belief – it is simply assumed to be correct. The model is that students from early school years up through undergraduate college should study science by (in a sense) simulating the scientific discovery process: by asking questions, generating hypotheses, doing ‘research’, framing criticisms, performing analysis and drawing conclusions (although, typically – and necessarily, it is pre-determined that only a narrow range of conclusions will count as acceptable).<br />
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I believe that the common conviction of the importance of critique or debate in basic scientific education is a serious mistake, with only a few unusual and particular exceptions to this stricture. On the contrary, to be helpful student dispute or classroom discussions of the validity of scientific questions must always be underpinned by high-level competence among the participants (teachers and students both), including sufficient knowledge and requisite skill in reasoning. Otherwise classroom discourse among student is of no greater educational value than if they were engaged in playground, pub or party gossip concerning current affairs – it is a mere venting of superficial views or ‘shooting the breeze’.<br />
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Indeed, insofar as barely-informed (or wholly un-informed) students discussion is taken seriously (by teachers or other students) it is counter-productive. Given the extreme difficulty of making a genuine contribution to science (and the fact that, sadly, even most professional scientists fail to do this); it is surely implausible to imagine that it is usually a useful exercise for uneducated non-scientists to engage in debate about the validity of scientific theories or data.<br />
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Requesting most students to spent a few hours ‘researching’ a topic may slightly-dent but will be far from demolishing their basic ignorance except when the student is exceptionally motivated, intelligent and well-prepared. Educationally-meaningful classroom discussion will requires a quorum of such bright and well-prepared students, and also careful management of the conversation. And, most students own personal evaluations and theories on scientific topic will very seldom meet even minimal intellectual standards: their educational value is mainly in (of course gently and tactfully) providing ‘bad examples’ for the teacher to critique and modify.<br />
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Pandering to self-esteem<br />
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My interpretation of the popularity of un-informed discussion and debate about scientific issues is that it is mainly a matter of pandering to the natural desire which some people have to pontificate and show-off, and to be taken seriously when doing so (a vice which is probably almost as common among students as it is among their teachers!). Semi-structured debate on topics about which students are essentially ignorant is at best a more-or-less amusing waste of time but more often is probably somewhat harmful, insofar as it creates a delusion of competence.<br />
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Perhaps class discussions are done to improve student ‘self-esteem’? (Self-esteem being a current mantra among educationalists.) Unfortunately for this idea, considerable evidence suggests that self-esteem is inversely correlated with educational attainment. High self-esteem apparently breeds complacency, while it seems that low self-esteem may be a motivation for students to learn. And in terms of scientific criteria an average student realistically ought to have low self-esteem; since most students most of the time are likely to be scientifically ignorant, unskilled and only minimally-interested in the subject of study.<br />
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Since the objective of science education is to teach a science, then it follows that the proper scientific role of classroom discussion in low-level education is not to air student’s opinions on a subject they are far from having learned; nor to allow them to pretend to engage in ‘research’, evaluate evidence, solve scientific problems or suggest new theories – but instead for teachers to ask and to answer questions.<br />
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And when the teacher is answering questions, the underlying assumption behind these questions must usually be that the science being taught is broadly correct and the student’s job is to understand and learn it. Where the student disagrees with the science being taught, the supposition must be on both sides that this question is needed because the student has not properly understood or lacks contextual information. So, when the student feels they disagree, the student should not be questioning the science, but implicitly asking for clarification.<br />
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A student’s need for clarification may be due to inattentiveness, ignorance, or inability on their part; or to something having gone wrong with the teaching; or simply because difficult concepts being encountered for the first time often need to be explained several times in several different ways. But as a rule, there is no warrant to challenge the validity of the science at this point.<br />
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Given that adolescence is often the stage at which personality is at its most prickly and arrogant (due to this being around the average age at which the traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness are at their lowest and levels of extraversion and neuroticism at their highest) it is particularly important that the educational system be consistent in instilling an appropriate degree of intellectual humility in line with students typically undeveloped levels of competence. Encouraging pre-teens or teenagers to believe that they can settle the debates of science (or other scholarly subjects) in class discussion on the basis of an evening of ‘Googling’ is simply telling people what they want to hear.<br />
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The presumption of ignorance and incompetence on the part of the student is, of course, one that naturally dwindles as a student advances through the educational system and specializes in a particular science. Eventually, if a good student studies a subject for long enough (probably during the doctoral stage) the presumption may switch around. At this point a bight student’s concerns in the area of their expertise may plausibly be taken to be to evidence of a potential problem in the science, rather than a problem in the ability or knowledge of the student.<br />
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Critical discussion by students then and now<br />
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If the above argument is accepted, then it is interesting to speculate how it was that the idea ever got off the ground that students had sufficient expertise to replicate (in a few hours) the discovery process, or to critique science. There is a large element of politically-correct nonsense, wishful-thinking and professional self-serving dishonesty about all this – of course – but perhaps there is also a germ of plausible observation as well. I personally suspect that the mistaken expectation of student expertise may arise from the elite selectivity and early specialized training of past generations of scientists.<br />
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In the UK during the mid-twentieth century, the university system used to take only about 5% of the age cohort – and by about 1980 it was still only around 15%. Furthermore, professional scientists had mostly been educated at selective ‘grammar schools’ in which academic specialization began at age 14. Universities only accepted students for science degrees if they had good qualifications at A-level (three scientific subjects studied for 2 years 16–18), and the UK undergraduate science degrees were further narrowly specialized, and built upon this advanced and specific level of preparation of selective schools.<br />
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Children at the most elite selective schools were then reaching a level of specialist knowledge that would seldom be attained at the bachelor’s degree level nowadays. Some such students would be capable of meaningful and useful critique of existing science even before they attended university, or more often within a couple of years at undergraduate level. Keen undergraduates at the best universities were rapidly able to advance their scientific knowledge to the cutting-edge; and during their undergraduate degree, or immediately after graduation, they would be capable of embarking on independent research.<br />
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But nowadays in the UK nearly half of 18 years old attend higher education institutions to study for some kind of undergraduate degree – nearly a 10-fold reduction in the selectivity of average undergraduates. Furthermore, the link between the subject matter of school study and university study has been broken, so that university teachers can no longer rely upon the students having studied specific relevant and advanced science at school.<br />
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Modern UK students with a bachelor’s degree may only have studied science for 3 years, and often in low-volume, low-intensity curricula where it is very unusual to fail examinations. Modern students therefore seldom get far enough in their subject to be able meaningfully to discuss science at the cutting-edge, until they have finished their undergraduate degree and are reasonably-advanced in their post-graduate/graduate school training.<br />
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Aiming-high and missing<br />
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A more practical pedagogical problem – but one which I would regard as highly significant – is that it is very hard for students to learn difficult concepts unless these concepts are presented as unambiguously as possible.<br />
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Ambiguity interferes with learning, since each additional possibility multiplies uncertainty in a geometric fashion. I am not sure whether this is numerically exact, but it seems as if adding the first uncertainty to an explanation doubles the cognitive load – because there are now two parallel and diverging possibilities; both of which must now be known, understood and compared. Adding a second uncertainty to the first therefore quadruples the cognitive load, a third uncertainty will render comprehension and memorizing 16-fold more difficult – and so on.<br />
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This analysis implies that the primary mode of most science teaching must be dogmatic; that is to say, a science teacher must initially make a choice about the single most correct interpretation of evidence and the single most correct conclusion – and must restrict the initial presentation to this clear and simple exposition.<br />
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Only after the teacher is confident that most students have understood this clear and simple account (and preferably after leaving this unified exposition to be assimilated over-night) should the teacher add layers of uncertainly, debate, dissention and complication to the simple account. Premature challenging of mainstream science, debates over competing hypotheses, and uncertainties engendered by free-form discussions are likely to interfere with learning.<br />
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Therefore, for many students studying science, it is better to leave them with a clear grasp of the single best version of a concept, than permanently to confuse them with further accounts; or potentially to drive-out or corrupt a clear and approximately-accurate memorization by interference from related – similar but not quite equivalent – explanations, qualifications and nuances.<br />
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Obviously, this does not mean the science classroom should be a wholly one-way street of discourse streaming from the teacher into the taught – of relentless pontification from one side and silent absorption on the other side. On the contrary, student feedback (via perceived visual signals and some spoken enquiries or comments) is necessary for the teacher to monitor the learning process. (This is one reason why real time, real life lectures retain their value; and why to be successful lectures need small-enough and well-designed lecture rooms such that the lecturer and his audience remain in sensory contact.)<br />
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Science teaching could and should be made more interesting for students than it usually is – but it should be made more interesting while still being science; and not at the cost of stopping studying science and instead engaging in mere science-themed chit-chat. In reality, the flow of scientific knowledge is likely to be unidirectional.<br />
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If teachers aim too-high for students whose motivation, intelligence and preparation are insufficient; or if teachers try to make students run before they can even crawl – especially for students who lack the background and ability ever to do anything more than walk; or if teachers overwrite their clearest and simplest message by smothering it in confused discussions and pseudo-scientific debates – then teachers risk failing to enable the attainment of even basic scientific knowledge and competence in their students.<br />
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Instead, for the early years of science teaching, the basic assumption ought to be that the student is there to learn science; not to confront science. The basic attitude being taught should be one of humility before the science being studied.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-17331253956418516742009-12-23T23:25:00.000-08:002009-12-23T23:25:57.067-08:00David Horrobin's inaugural editorial 1975[NB: Here is a Christmas meditation from founding editor David F Horrobin on the role and functioning of Medical Hypotheses, as it has existed for the past 34 years - but probably not for very much longer. I doubt whether the real Medical Hypotheses, run on Horrobin's principles, will survive 2010. As Horrobin's successor, the ideals described in his inaugural editorial are the ideals I strive to maintain. As he instructed me, this type of journal can only in practice be run by the editor choosing papers himself (not by delegating decisions), and by his taking responsibility for these choices. This is the traditional sceintific method of editorial review, and entails eschewing the bureaucratic timidities and inefficiencies of mainstream peer review. Horrobin's conviction was that there were two lynch pins of Medical Hypotheses as he founded and maintained it: 1. aiming to publish revolutionary ideas, even when they 'seem improbable and perhaps even faintly ridiculous'; and 2. using editorial review in pursuit of this aim.] <br />
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***<br />
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Ideas in biomedical science: reasons for the foundation of Medical Hypotheses<br />
<br />
David F. Horrobin, (1939–2003) Founder and first editor of Medical Hypotheses<br />
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Adapted from the inaugural editorial which appeared in the first issue of Medical Hypotheses (1975) 1(1), 1–2. Re-published in the first issue edited by Bruce G Charlton - Medical Hypotheses, Volume 62, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 3-4 <br />
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It is at least arguable that too much biomedical research is published rather than too little. Why then start a new journal?<br />
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Scientific progress depends on the existence of creative tension between ideas and observations. An observation is made which cries out for explanation. A hypothesis is proposed to account for this observation. The hypothesis is tested by making more observations which almost invariably require the abandonment of some part of the hypothesis. A new hypothesis is proposed. And so on…<br />
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The physical and chemical sciences long ago recognized that observations are not superior to hypotheses in generating scientific progress nor are hypotheses superior to observations. Both are necessary. While the ideal research worker may be one who is equally able to generate hypotheses and to test them experimentally, these sciences also recognized that such paragons are very rare indeed. Most scientists are much better at either one or the other activity. In physico-chemical fields this is fully accepted and the contributions of both theoretical and experimental scientists are recognized.<br />
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In contrast, in the biomedical sciences there seems to me much ignorance of the way in which scientific advance actually occurs. Physical scientists often dismiss biology and medicine as backward and the biologists quite legitimately react by pointing out that they are usually dealing with much more complex phenomena. But I have a suspicion that there is some truth in what the physical scientists say and that biology and medicine are backward because they have relied almost exclusively on observation. They have failed to recognize adequately that observation is always more effective when disciplined and channelled by hypothesis.<br />
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Many journals will occasionally publish a theoretical paper from a scientist with an outstanding reputation but will not consider similar papers from relative unknowns. The rule that is almost universally applied biology and medicine is that ideas can be presented or criticized only by those with a record of experimental work in a field. Even then they must be kept strictly to the discussion sections of papers and their presentation must usually be rigorously curtailed because ignorant and pedantic referees and editors object to ‘unjustified speculation’ and complain that the discussion ‘goes beyond the observed facts’. It is hardly surprising that the best physicists and chemists find medicine and biology primitive and unsophisticated.<br />
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The situation seems to be to be a tragedy. It leads to a total misrepresentation of the way in which science actually takes place. In 10,000 years time, a historian who had access only to the journals would be unable to build up anything like an accurate picture of what biomedical scientists actually do. This would not matter unduly but what does matter is that many scientists and most students also fail to understand how scientific advance actually occurs. As a result of this antipathy to theory the rate of progress is slowed because there is neither free presentation of new ideas nor open criticism of old ones. Outdated concepts can persist for prolonged periods because the evidence against them is scattered through hundreds of papers and no one is allowed to gather it together in one article to mount a sustained attack.<br />
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The refusal to accept the equal importance of ideas and observations leads to inefficiency. Most scientists now active in the biomedical field are competent observers whose ability to generate ideas is either naturally absent or has been stultified by the prevailing philosophy. As a result they spend their time in making more and more detailed observations of the same sorts of phenomena. In contrast, a few have far more ideas than they could possibly investigate but their potential contribution is largely nullified because they are allowed to publish only in those areas where they have done experimental or clinical work. If only these differences of ability and emphasis could be accepted and recognized then the people with ideas (who may often be inept experimenters) could generate a steady flow of new concepts which might rejuvenate the work of those whose primary skill is in observation.<br />
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Medical Hypotheses will be primarily devoted to publishing ideas and criticisms of ideas in the biomedical area. It will publish papers from anyone regardless of whether they have done experimental work in the field or not and regardless of the reputation of the authors or the institution from which they come. I shall be biased in favour of articles which clearly have some bearing on medicine. I shall try to ensure that all articles are written in a way which enables any intelligent medical scientist to obtain something useful from them. While specialization in research is essential, obscurity in the presentation of specialized ideas is not. I believe strongly in the ability of apparently unrelated fields to cross-fertilize one another and I hope that as a side result of editorial policy Medical Hypotheses may become an important medium for the continuing education of those medical scientists who have open and lively minds. There will be a correspondence column which I should like to make a major debating area as well as fun to read.<br />
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What sorts of papers will be published in Medical Hypotheses? Some will describe theories, ideas which already have a great deal of observational support; and some hypotheses, ideas where the experimental support is as yet fragmentary. Some will criticize theories and hypotheses without necessarily having anything to say in replacement. Some will discuss more philosophical aspects of the logical bases of science and of how science functions in practice. In the biomedical field I believe that ignorance of such philosophical considerations remains a serious impediment to progress.<br />
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I shall willingly and proudly plead guilty to the charge that I shall publish some ideas which seem improbable and perhaps even faintly ridiculous. Most scientists seem to be under the impression that the best hypotheses are those which seem most likely to be true. I follow Karl Popper in seeing the virtues of improbability. If a hypothesis which most people think is probably true does turn out to be true (or rather is not falsified by crucial and valid experimental tests) then little progress has been made. If a hypothesis which most think is improbable turns out to true then a scientific revolution occurs and progress is dramatic. Many and probably most of the hypotheses published in the journal will turn out in some way to be wrong. But if they stimulate determined experimental testing, progress is inevitable whether they are wrong or right.<br />
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The history of science has repeatedly shown that when hypotheses are proposed it is impossible to predict which will turn out to be revolutionary and which ridiculous. The only safe approach is to let all see the light and to let all be discussed, experimented upon, vindicated or destroyed. I hope the journal will provide a new battlefield open to all on which ideas can be tested and put through the fire.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-71757810846659115902009-11-30T04:41:00.000-08:002009-11-30T05:33:49.177-08:00Conscience in scienceFirst and second things, and the operations of conscience in science<br />
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Bruce G. Charlton<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses. 2010; Volume 74: Pages 1-3 <br />
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Summary<br />
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Why is modern science less efficient than it used to be, why has revolutionary science declined, and why has science become so dishonest? One plausible explanation behind these observations comes from an essay First and second things published by CS Lewis. First Things are the goals that are given priority as the primary and ultimate aim in life. Second Things are subordinate goals or aims – which are justified in terms of the extent to which they assist in pursuing First Things. The classic First Thing in human society is some kind of religious or philosophical world view. Lewis regarded it as a ‘universal law’ that the pursuit of a Second Thing as if it was a First Thing led inevitably to the loss of that Second Thing: ‘You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first’. I would argue that the pursuit of science as a primary value will lead to the loss of science, because science is properly a Second Thing. Because when science is conceptualized as a First Thing the bottom-line or operational definition of ‘correct behaviour’ is approval and high status within the scientific community. However, this does nothing whatsoever to prevent science drifting-away from its proper function; and once science has drifted then the prevailing peer consensus will tend to maintain this state of corruption. I am saying that science is a Second Thing, and ought to be subordinate to the First Thing of transcendental truth. Truth impinges on scientific practice in the form of individual conscience (noting that, of course, the strength and validity of conscience varies between scientists). When the senior scientists, whose role is to uphold standards, fail to posses or respond-to informed conscience, science will inevitably go rotten from the head downwards. What, then, motivates a scientist to act upon conscience? I believe it requires a fundamental conviction of the reality and importance of truth as an essential part of the basic purpose and meaning of life. Without some such bedrock moral underpinning, there is little possibility that individual scientific conscience would ever have a chance of holding-out against an insidious drift toward corruption enforced by peer consensus.<br />
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"You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first." C.S. Lewis. First and second things.<br />
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Why is modern science less efficient than it used to be [1], why has revolutionary science declined [2], and why has science become so dishonest? [3] One plausible explanation behind these observations comes from an essay published by CS Lewis in 1942: First and second things [4].<br />
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First Things are the goals that are given priority, by a person or a group, as the primary and ultimate aim in life. They are the bottom line in which terms other things are justified. Second Things are subordinate goals or aims – which are justified in terms of the extent to which they assist in pursuing First Things.<br />
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The classic First Thing in human society is some kind of transcendental world view – whether religious (such as Judaism or Christianity) or philosophical (such as Platonism or Stoicism). As examples of First Things, Lewis states about earlier societies ‘they cared at different times for all sorts of things, the will of God, for glory, for personal honour, for doctrinal purity, for justice.’<br />
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If these are examples of ‘First Things’ then in such a society science would be regarded as a Second Thing: science would ultimately be justified in terms of its assisting in the pursuit of the First Thing. So in a society where the will of God was primary for almost everyone, science would be pursued insofar as it was seen (overall and on average) to further the will of God. But in a society where science was the First Thing, then science would be pursued without further justification, and other societal pursuits would need to justify themselves in term of enhancing the goals of science.<br />
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Superficially, it sounds as though science would work better if it was a First Thing – freed from external constraints such as religion – and that such a ‘science first’ world would be a marvellous place to work as a scientist! And, for a while, it was...<br />
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But the essential nature of the most developed societies (e.g. of the USA, UK, Europe, East Asia) is that there is no single First Thing: not science, and not anything else [5]. Instead there are now only Second Things, pursued independently of each other. So the social systems – such as science, the arts, politics, public administration, law, the military, education, the mass media – are substantially independent and lack a common language. This is the idea of modernity, of a society based upon increasing autonomy of increasingly-specialized social systems.<br />
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The driving force behind modernity is increasing efficiency by means of functional differentiation, a general version of the principle that complexity is necessary to increased efficiency [5]. In its first formulation, in economics, it was noticed by Adam Smith that division of labour can lead to greater productivity [6]. At a societal level modern societies were conceptualized by Niklas Luhmann in terms that their continual functional differentiation enables all social systems to grow by increase in productivity but that no social system has priority over the others [7]. In Lewis’s terms there is no overall First Thing, but instead each social system is a First Thing for itself.<br />
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The problem with this conceptualization is to understand how all these First Things are integrated and coordinated. My earlier answer to this was to assume a kind of mutual regulation of a mosaic type, so that each social system is regulated by some others but none has overall control [5]. For instance, science depends on the educational system for expert manpower, the political system for peace, the economic system for resources etc. Then, in turn, the economic system depends on science for technological innovations and on the political system for international treaties and so on – with each system acting as a pressure group for some of the others, exerting influence to ensure that the other systems holds to their necessary functions and do not become too inefficient; thereby (I hoped!) this mosaic of mutual power and response acts to hold the whole society together [5].<br />
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I now find this proposed mechanism insufficient to ensure a stable society. It seems more likely that self-beneficial, even parasitic, change and growth within specific social systems has the potential to be much more rapid and parasitic than the evolution of mutual accommodation and symbiosis between autonomous systems that might ensure overall societal growth. Therefore, I would now expect a society of highly autonomous and rapidly-growing social systems that is lacking an overall First Thing to be much less cohesive and much more prone to collapse than I used to believe.<br />
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Another way of framing this issue is to ask what maintains the integrity of science. In other words, what keeps science pointing in the right direction, pursuing properly scientific goals as its main aim; and within the pursuit of these goals what keeps science honest in its internal dealings? In short, we need to understand the mechanism(s) that prevent science from becoming corrupt in the face of a continual tendency for short-termist and selfish behaviour to undermine cooperation and functionality. (This is the core problem which must be solved to enable the evolution of complex systems [5].)<br />
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My old idea [5] was that science would be kept honest and efficient by pressure from the main users of science – for example, engineers would keep physicists honest, agriculturalists would keep botanists honest, doctors would keep medical scientists honest, and so on. Yet science has, I now realize, become corrupted anyway [2], [3], [8] and [9] – which means that either these corrective mechanisms are non-existent, too slow or too weak.<br />
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In general, when people notice corruption of science they appeal to the idea that science ought to be a First Thing – the ‘Humboldtian’ ideal of disinterested pursuit of knowledge ‘for its own sake’. However, this is a mistake if in reality science ought to be a Second Thing, and not a First Thing; if it is only by remaining a Second Thing that science can avoid being corrupted. Indeed, Lewis regarded it as a ‘universal law’ that the pursuit of a Second Thing as if it was a First Thing led inevitably to the loss of that Second Thing: ‘You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first’ [4].<br />
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Lewis’s example (writing during World War Two) was that the Western Civilization had been putting the value of ‘civilization’ first for the last thirty years. He regarded civilization as including ‘Peace, a high standard of life, hygiene, transport, science and amusement’ – and as a result Western civilization had come very close to losing all these things. So, pursuit of civilization as a First Thing very nearly led to the loss of civilization. In particular Lewis focused on how pacifism, or pursuit of peace as a First Thing, had been a major contributor to the occurrence and destructiveness of World War Two: ‘I think many would now agree that a foreign policy dominated by desire for peace is one of the many roads that lead to war’ [4].<br />
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The idea, then, is that the pursuit of science as a primary value will lead to the loss of science, because science is properly a Second Thing.<br />
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This may happen because when science is conceptualized as a First Thing the bottom-line or operational definition of ‘correct behaviour’ is achieving approval and high status within the scientific community. Science as a First Thing is judged by scientists only – so success is winning the esteem of colleagues. And this amounts to the scientist seeking conformity with the prevailing peer consensus – either immediately, or over the longer time span of their career.<br />
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However, by this First Thing conceptualization of science, there is nothing whatsoever to prevent science drifting-away from its original function, from its proper mission. Real science is replaced by the infinite varieties of self-seeking among scientists. And once science has drifted, and a sufficient proportion of scientists are no longer seeking-truth nor speaking-truth, then the prevailing peer consensus will tend maintain this corrupt situation. So that a scientist seeking the esteem of his colleagues will himself need to abandon truth-seeking and truth-speaking.<br />
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The alternative conceptualization is for each scientist to regard science as a Second Thing, and for the individual scientist to evaluate his work and its context in terms of their contribution to transcendental truth [3]. When he regards the prevailing peer consensus as having diverged from truth in this transcendental sense, then the scientist may feel duty-bound to seek his own personal understanding of truth, and communicating what he personally regards as the truth, even when this conflicts with prevailing consensus and leads to lowered esteem among scientific colleagues and harms his career.<br />
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So, I am saying that science is a Second Thing, and the First Thing ought to be transcendental truth. A formulation of transcendental truth would be an attempted description of the nature of ultimate reality. But it may seem unclear how such a remote and abstract concept could affect scientific practice in real life situations. One answer would be that transcendental truth impinges on scientific practice in the form of conscience. In other words, transcendental truth in science could be ‘operationally-defined’ as the subjective workings of conscience in a scientist.<br />
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Conscience seems to be indicative of the First Thing as understood and appreciated in practice by an individual – and when science is a Second Thing, conscience is located outside of science, and science is judged by standards outside of science [3]. Conscience about First Things makes itself felt in science as an inner sense of the nature of reality; such as the nagging doubts and persistent suspicions which afflict a scrupulous scientist when he feels that the consensus of his scientific colleagues is wrong. He has reservations about the validity of prevailing idea of truth, and hunches that he personally has a better idea of the truth than the majority of his powerful scientific peers.<br />
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In saying that conscience is the operational definition of transcendental truth, it is important to note that the strength and validity of conscience varies between scientists. Some scientists are unscrupulous and have no conscience to speak of; while other scientists are so inexperienced – or lacking in requisite knowledge or skill – that their conscience with regard to truth is unreliable. And while all scientists need to listen to their conscience, the main consciences of relevance to science are those of the scientific leadership; those whose own behaviour serves as a model for more junior scientists; and those scientists who are themselves responsible for choosing, educating, employing and promoting scientific personnel. It is primarily the senior scientists whose job is to uphold ethical standards, to enforce incentives and sanctions. If (and when) scientific leaders are lacking in informed conscience, or ignore the promptings of conscience, then science will inevitably go rotten from the head downwards [3,10].<br />
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Having a conscience about truth is the first step – but what motivates a scientist to listen to his conscience and act upon it? Firstly, if science is regarded as being in service to truth, then ideals of truth might enforce conscience. But then, what is so important about ‘truth’? And the final answer to all that, would be a fundamental conviction that truth is an essential part of what we conceive to be ‘the good’ – in other words the basic purpose and meaning of life. This has the corollary that if a person does not actually have a concept of the basic purpose and meaning of life – then their world view will intrinsically be lacking any firm ground on which they can stand in a situation where the pursuit of truth causes here-and-now disadvantage.<br />
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In this respect, science is paradoxically stronger when a Second Thing than as a First Thing. Because science is stronger when science is embedded in the larger value of truth, and when truth is embedded in the still-larger value of a concept of the good life. Of course, not all concepts of the good life will be equally supportive of good science; indeed some transcendental concepts are anti-scientific.<br />
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However, without an ultimate, bedrock moral underpinning of some kind, then there seems no possibility that individual scientific conscience would ever have a chance of holding-out against the insidious drift toward corruption enforced by peer consensus.<br />
References<br />
<br />
[1] J. Ziman, Real science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (2000).<br />
<br />
[2] Smolin L. The trouble with physics. London: Allen Lane Penguin; 2006.<br />
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[3] B.G. Charlton, The vital role of transcendental truth in science, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 373–376. <br />
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[4] C.S. Lewis, First and second things. In: W. Hooper, Editor, First and second things: essays on theology and ethics, Collins, Fount, London (1985), pp. 19–24.<br />
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[5] Charlton B, Andras P. The modernization imperative. Imprint Academic: Exeter 2003.<br />
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[6] A. Smith, The wealth of nations, London, Dent (1910) [originally published 1776–7].<br />
<br />
[7] N. Luhmann, Social systems, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (1995).<br />
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[8] B.G. Charlton and A. Miles, The rise and fall of EBM, QJM 91 (1998), pp. 371–374. <br />
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[9] Healy D. Let them eat Prozac. New York University Press: NY, USA; 2004.<br />
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[10] B.G. Charlton and Figureheads, ghost-writers and pseudonymous quant bloggers: the recent evolution of authorship in science publishing, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 475–480.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-60904137231344530262009-11-26T05:54:00.000-08:002009-11-26T05:54:26.956-08:00Clever Sillies - Why the high IQ lack common senseClever sillies: Why high IQ people tend to be deficient in common sense <br />
Bruce G. Charlton<br />
<br />
Medical Hypotheses. 2009;73: 867-870. <br />
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<br />
Summary<br />
<br />
In previous editorials I have written about the absent-minded and socially-inept ‘nutty professor’ stereotype in science, and the phenomenon of ‘psychological neoteny’ whereby intelligent modern people (including scientists) decline to grow-up and instead remain in a state of perpetual novelty-seeking adolescence. These can be seen as specific examples of the general phenomenon of ‘clever sillies’ whereby intelligent people with high levels of technical ability are seen (by the majority of the rest of the population) as having foolish ideas and behaviours outside the realm of their professional expertise. In short, it has often been observed that high IQ types are lacking in ‘common sense’ – and especially when it comes to dealing with other human beings. General intelligence is not just a cognitive ability; it is also a cognitive disposition. So, the greater cognitive abilities of higher IQ tend also to be accompanied by a distinctive high IQ personality type including the trait of ‘Openness to experience’, ‘enlightened’ or progressive left-wing political values, and atheism. Drawing on the ideas of Kanazawa, my suggested explanation for this association between intelligence and personality is that an increasing relative level of IQ brings with it a tendency differentially to over-use general intelligence in problem-solving, and to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense. Preferential use of abstract analysis is often useful when dealing with the many evolutionary novelties to be found in modernizing societies; but is not usually useful for dealing with social and psychological problems for which humans have evolved ‘domain-specific’ adaptive behaviours. And since evolved common sense usually produces the right answers in the social domain; this implies that, when it comes to solving social problems, the most intelligent people are more likely than those of average intelligence to have novel but silly ideas, and therefore to believe and behave maladaptively. I further suggest that this random silliness of the most intelligent people may be amplified to generate systematic wrongness when intellectuals are in addition ‘advertising’ their own high intelligence in the evolutionarily novel context of a modern IQ meritocracy. The cognitively-stratified context of communicating almost-exclusively with others of similar intelligence, generates opinions and behaviours among the highest IQ people which are not just lacking in common sense but perversely wrong. Hence the phenomenon of ‘political correctness’ (PC); whereby false and foolish ideas have come to dominate, and moralistically be enforced upon, the ruling elites of whole nations.<br />
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***<br />
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IQ and evolved problem-solving<br />
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On the whole, and all else being equal, in modern societies the higher a person’s general intelligence (as measured by the intelligence quotient or IQ), the better will be life for that person; since higher intelligence leads (among other benefits) to higher social status and salary, longer life expectancy and better health [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5]. However, at the same time, it has been recognized for more than a century that increasing IQ is biologically-maladaptive because there is an inverse relationship between IQ and fertility [6], [7] and [8]. Under modern conditions, therefore, high intelligence is fitness-reducing.<br />
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In the course of exploring this modern divergence between social-adaptation and biological-adaptation, Satoshi Kanazawa has made the insightful observation that a high level of general intelligence is mainly useful in dealing with life problems which are an evolutionary novelty. By contrast, performance in solving problems which were a normal part of human life in the ancestral hunter–gatherer era may not be helped (or may indeed be hindered) by higher IQ [9] and [10].<br />
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(This statement requires a qualification. When a person has suffered some form of brain damage, or a pathology affecting brain function, then this might well produce generalized impairment of cognition: reducing both general intelligence and other forms of evolved cognitive functioning, depending on the site and extent of the brain pathology. Since a population with low IQ would include some whose IQ had been lowered by brain pathology, the average level of social intelligence or common sense would probably also be lower in this population. This confounding effect of brain pathology would be expected to create a weak and non-causal statistical correlation between IQ and social intelligence/common sense, a correlation that would mainly be apparent at low levels of IQ.)<br />
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As examples of how IQ may help with evolutionary novelties, it has been abundantly-demonstrated that increasing measures of IQ are strongly and positively correlated with a wide range of abilities which require abstract reasoning and rapid learning of new knowledge and skills; such as educational outcomes, and abilities at most complex modern jobs [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] and [11]. Science and mathematics are classic examples of problem-solving activities that arose only recently in human evolutionary history and in which differential ability is very strongly predicted by relative general intelligence [12].<br />
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However, there are also many human tasks which our human ancestors did encounter repeatedly and over manifold generations, and natural selection has often produced ‘instinctive’, spontaneous ways of dealing with these. Since humans are social primates, one major such category is social problems, which have to do with understanding, predicting and manipulating the behaviours of other human beings [13], [14], [15] and [16]. Being able to behave adaptively in dealing with these basic human situations is what I will term having ‘common sense’.<br />
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Kanazawa’s idea is that there is therefore a contrast between recurring, mainly social problems which affected fitness for our ancestors and for which all normal humans have evolved behavioural responses; and problems which are an evolutionary novelty but which have a major impact on individual functioning in the context of modern societies [9] and [10]. When a problem is an evolutionary novelty, individual differences in general intelligence make a big difference to each individual’s abilities to analyze the problem, and learn to how solve it. So, the idea is that having a high IQ would predict a better ability in understanding and dealing with new problems; but higher IQ would not increase the level of a person’s common sense ability to deal with social situations.<br />
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IQ not just an ability, but also a disposition<br />
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Although general intelligence is usually conceptualized as differences in cognitive ability, IQ is not just about ability but also has personality implications [17].<br />
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For example, in some populations there is a positive correlation between IQ and the personality trait of Openness to experience (‘Openness’) [18] and [19]; a positive correlation with ‘enlightened’ or progressive values of a broadly socialist and libertarian type [20]; and a negative correlation with religiousness [21].<br />
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So, the greater cognitive ability of higher IQ is also accompanied by a somewhat distinctive high IQ personality type. My suggested explanation for this association is that an increasing level of IQ brings with it an increased tendency to use general intelligence in problem-solving; i.e. to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense.<br />
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The over-use of abstract reasoning may be most obvious in the social domain, where normal humans are richly equipped with evolved psychological mechanisms both for here-and-now interactions (e.g. rapidly reading emotions from facial expression, gesture and posture, and speech intonation) and for ‘strategic’ modelling of social interactions to understand predict and manipulate the behaviour of others [16]. Social strategies deploy inferred knowledge about the dispositions, motivations and intentions of others. When the most intelligent people over-ride the social intelligence systems and apply generic, abstract and systematic reasoning of the kind which is enhanced among higher IQ people, they are ignoring an ‘expert system’ in favour of a non-expert system.<br />
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In suggesting that the most intelligent people tend to use IQ to over-ride common sense I am unsure of the extent to which this is due to a deficit in the social reasoning ability, perhaps due to a trade-off between cognitive abilities – as suggested by Baron-Cohen’s conceptualization of Asperger’s syndrome, including the male- versus female-type of systematizing/empathizing brain [22]. Or alternatively it could be more of an habitual tendency to over-use abstract analysis, that might (in principle) be overcome by effort or with training. Observing the apparent universality of ‘Silly Clevers’ in modernizing societies, I suspect that a higher IQ bias towards over-utilizing abstract reasoning would probably turn-out to be innate and relatively stable.<br />
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Indeed, I suggest that higher levels of the personality trait of Openness in higher IQ people may the flip-side of this over-use of abstraction. I regard Openness as the result of deploying abstract analysis for social problems to yield unstable and unpredictable results, when innate social intelligence would tend to yield predictable and stable results. This might plausibly underlie the tendency of the most intelligent people in modernizing societies to hold ‘left-wing’ political views [10] and [20].<br />
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I would argue that neophilia (or novelty-seeking) is a driving attribute of the personality trait of Openness; and a disposition common in adolescents and immature adults who display what I have termed ‘psychological neoteny’ [23] and [24]. When problems are analyzed using common sense ‘instincts’ the evaluative process would be expected to lead to the same answers in all normal humans, and these answers are likely to be stable over time. But when higher IQ people ignore or over-ride common sense, they generate a variety of uncommon ideas. Since these ideas are only feebly-, or wholly un-, supported by emotions; they are held more weakly than common sense ideas, and so are more likely to change over time.<br />
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For instance, a group of less intelligent people using instinctive social intelligence to analyze a social situation will presumably reach the same traditional conclusion as everyone else and this conclusion will not change with time; while a more intelligent group might by contrast use abstract analysis and generate a wider range of novel and less-compelling solutions. This behaviour appears as if motivated by novelty-seeking.<br />
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Applying abstract analysis to social situations might be seen as ‘creative’, and indeed Openness has been put forward as the major personality trait which supports creativity [19] and [25]. This is reasonable in the sense that an intellectual high in Openness would be likely to disregard common sense, and to generate multiple, unpredictable and unfamiliar answers to evolutionarily-familiar problems which would only yield a single ‘obvious’ solution to those who deployed evolved modes of intelligence. However, I would instead argue that a high IQ person applying abstract systemizing intelligence to activities which are more usually done by instinctive intelligence is not a truly ‘creative’ process.<br />
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Instead, following Eysenck, I would regard true psychological creativity as primarily an associative activity which Eysenck includes as part of the trait Psychoticism; cognitively akin to the ‘primary process’ thinking of sleep, delirium and psychotic illness [26] and [27]. A major difference between these two concepts of creativity is that while ‘Openness creativity’ is abstract, coolly-impartial and as if driven by novelty-seeking (neophilia); ‘Psychoticism creativity’ is validated by emotions: such that the high-Psychoticism creative person is guided by their emotional responses to their own creative production.<br />
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Clever sillies in the IQ meritocracy<br />
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It therefore seems plausible that the folklore or stereotypical idea of the eccentric, unworldly, absent-minded or obtuse scientist – who is brilliant at their job while being fatuous and incompetent in terms of their everyday life [28], might be the result of this psychological tendency to over-use abstract intelligence and use it in inappropriate situations.<br />
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However, there is a further aspect of this phenomenon. Modern societies are characterized by large population, extensive division of labour, and a ‘meritocratic’ form of social organization in which social roles (jobs, occupations) tend to be filled on the basis of educational credentials and job performance rather than on an hereditary basis (as was the case in most societies of the past). This means that in modern societies there is an unprecedented degree of cognitive stratification [29]. Cognitive stratification is the layering of social organization by IQ; such that residence, schooling and occupations are characterized by narrow bands of intelligence. Large modern countries are therefore ruled by concentrations of highly intelligent people in the major social systems such as politics, civil administration, law, science and technology, the mass media and education. Communication in these elites is almost-exclusively among the highly intelligent.<br />
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In such an evolutionarily-unprecedented, artificial ‘hothouse’ environment, it is plausible that any IQ-related behaviours are amplified: partly because there is little counter-pressure from the less intelligent people with less neophiliac personalities, and perhaps mainly because there is a great deal of IQ-advertisement. Indeed, it looks very much as if the elites of modern societies are characterized by considerable IQ-signalling [19]. Sometimes this is direct advertisement (e.g. when boasting about intellectual attainments or attendance at highly-selective colleges) and more often the signalling is subtly-indirect when people display the attitudes, beliefs, fashions, manners and hobbies associated with high intelligence. This advertising is probably based on sexual selection [30], if IQ has been a measure of general fitness during human evolutionary history, and was associated with a wide range of adaptive traits [31].<br />
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My hunch is that it is this kind of IQ-advertisement which has led to the most intelligent people in modern societies having ideas about social phenomena that are not just randomly incorrect (due to inappropriately misapplying abstract analysis) but are systematically wrong. I am talking of the phenomenon known as political correctness (PC) in which foolish and false ideas have become moralistically-enforced among the ruling intellectual elite. And these ideas have invaded academic, political and social discourse. Because while the stereotypical nutty professor in the hard sciences is a brilliant scientist but silly about everything else; the stereotypical nutty professor social scientist or humanities professor is not just silly about ‘everything else’, but also silly in their professional work.<br />
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Getting answers to problems relating to hard science is extremely intellectually-difficult and (because the subject is an evolutionary novelty) necessarily requires abstract reasoning [12] and [26]. Therefore the hard scientist is invariably vastly more competent at their science than the average member of the public, and he has no need to be novelty-seeking in order to advertise his intelligence.<br />
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But getting answers to problems in science involving human social behaviour is something which is already done very well by evolved human psychological mechanisms [13], [14], [15] and [16]. In this situation it is difficult to improve on common sense, and – even without being taught – normal people already have a pretty good understanding of human motivations, incentives and deterrents, and the basic cause and effect processes of society. Because psychological and social intelligence expertise is so widespread and adaptive; in order to advertise his intelligence the social scientist must produce something systematically-different from common sense, something novel and (necessarily) counter-intuitive. And because it goes against evolved psychology, in this instance something different is likely to be something wrong. So, the social scientist professional deploying abstract reasoning on social problems is often less likely to generate a correct answer than the average member of the public who is using the common sense of evolved, spontaneous social intelligence.<br />
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In the human and social sciences there is therefore a professional incentive to be perversely wrong – to be silly, in other words. And this is indeed what we see. The more that the subject matter of an academic field requires, or depends on, common sense; the sillier it will be.<br />
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The results of cognitive stratification and IQ-advertising are therefore bad enough to have destroyed the value of whole domains of the arts and academia, and in the domain of public policy the results have been simply disastrous. Over the past four decades the dishonest fantasy-world discourse of non-biological political correctness has evolved to dominate the intellectual arena of whole nations – perhaps the whole developed world – such that wrong and ridiculous ideas have become not just mainstream, but compulsory.<br />
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Because clever silliness is not just one of several competing ideas in the elite arena – it is both intellectually- and moralistically-enforced with such zeal as utterly to exclude alternatives [32]. The first level of defence is that denying a PC assertion is taken as proof of dumbness or derangement; such that flat-denial without refutation is regarded as sufficient response. But the toughest enforcement is moral: anyone smart and sane who disbelieves the silly clever falsehoods and asserts something different is not just denounced as dumb but actually pilloried as evil [33].<br />
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I infer that the motivation behind the moralizing venom of political correctness is the fact that spontaneous human instincts are universal and more powerfully-felt than the absurd abstractions of PC; plus the fact that common sense is basically correct while PC is perversely wrong. Hence, at all costs a fair debate must be prevented if the PC consensus is to be protected. Common sense requires to be stigmatized in order that it is neutralized.<br />
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Ultimately these manoeuvres serve to defend the power, status and distinctiveness of the intellectual elite [34]. They are socially-adaptive over the short-term, even as they are biologically-maladaptive over the longer-term.<br />
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Conclusion<br />
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Because evolved ‘common sense’ usually produces the right answers in the social domain, yet the most intelligent people have personalities which over-use abstract analysis in the social domain [9] and [10], this implies that the most intelligent people are predisposed to have silly ideas and to behave maladaptively when it comes to solving social problems.<br />
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Ever since the development of cognitive stratification in modernizing societies [29], the clever sillies have been almost monopolistically ‘in charge’. They really are both clever and silly – but the cleverness is abstract while the silliness is focused on the psychological and social domains. Consequently, the fatal flaw of modern ruling elites lies in their lack of common sense – especially the misinterpretations of human psychology and socio-political affairs. My guess is that this lack of common sense is intrinsic and incorrigible – and perhaps biologically-linked with the evolution of high intelligence and the rise of modernity [35].<br />
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Stanovich has also described the over-riding of the ‘Darwinian brain’ of autonomous systems by the analytic system, and has identified the phenomenon as underlying modern non-adaptive ethical reasoning [36]. Stanovich has also noted that IQ accounts for much (but not all) of the inter-individual differences in using analytic evaluations; however, Stanovich regards the increased use of abstraction to replace traditional ‘common sense’ very positively, not as ‘silly’ but as a vital aspect of what he interprets as the higher status of modern social morality.<br />
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Yet, whatever else, to be a clever silly is a somewhat tragic state; because it entails being cognitively-trapped by compulsive abstraction; unable to engage directly and spontaneously with what most humans have traditionally regarded as psycho-social reality; disbarred from the common experience of humankind and instead cut-adrift on the surface of a glittering but shallow ocean of novelties: none of which can ever truly convince or satisfy. It is to be alienated from the world; and to find no stable meaning of life that is solidly underpinned by emotional conviction [37]. Little wonder, perhaps, that clever sillies usually choose sub-replacement reproduction [6].<br />
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To term the Western ruling elite ‘clever sillies’ is of course a broad generalization, but is not merely name-calling. Because, as well as political correctness being systematically dishonest [33] and [34]; in relation to absolute and differential fertility, modern elite behaviour is objectively maladaptive in a strictly biological sense. It remains to be seen whether the genetic self-annihilation of the IQ elite will lead-on towards self-annihilation of the societies over which they rule.<br />
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Note: I should in all honesty point-out that I recognize this phenomenon from the inside. In other words, I myself am a prime example of a ‘clever silly’; having spent much of adolescence and early adult life passively absorbing high-IQ-elite-approved, ingenious-but-daft ideas that later needed, painfully, to be dismantled. I have eventually been forced to acknowledge that when it comes to the psycho-social domain, the commonsense verdict of the majority of ordinary people throughout history is much more likely to be accurate than the latest fashionably-brilliant insight of the ruling elite. So, this article has been written on the assumption, eminently-challengeable, that although I have nearly-always been wrong in the past – I now am right….<br />
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References<br />
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[1] U. Neisser et al., Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, Am Psychol 51 (1996), pp. 77–101. <br />
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[2] N.J. Mackintosh, IQ and human intelligence, Oxford University Press (1998).<br />
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[3] A.R. Jensen, The g factor the science of mental ability, Praeger, Westport, CT, USA (1988).<br />
<br />
[4] I.J. Deary, Intelligence: a very short introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press (2001).<br />
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[5] G.D. Batty, I.J. Deary and L.S. Gottfredson, Pre-morbid (early life) IQ and later mortality risk: systematic review, Ann Epidemiol 17 (2007), pp. 278–288. <br />
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[6] R. Lynn, Dysgenics, Praeger, Westport, CT, USA (1996).<br />
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[7] R. Lynn and M. Van Court, New evidence for dysgenic fertility for intelligence in the United States, Intelligence 32 (2004), pp. 193–201. <br />
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[8] D. Nettle and T.V. Pollet, Natural selection on male wealth in humans, Am Nat 172 (2008), pp. 658–666. <br />
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[9] S. Kanazawa, General Intelligence as a domain-specific adaptation, Psychol Rev 111 (2004), pp. 512–523. <br />
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[10] S. Kanazawa, IQ and the values of nations, J Biosoc Sci 41 (2009), pp. 537–556. <br />
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[11] L.S. Gottfredson, Implications of cognitive differences for schooling within diverse societies. In: C.L. Frisby and C.R. Reynolds, Editors, Comprehensive handbook of multicultural school psychology, Wiley, New York (2005), pp. 517–554.<br />
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[12] D. Lubinski and C.P. Benbow, Study of mathematically precocious youth after 35 years: uncovering antecedents for the development of math-science expertise, Perspect Psychol Sci 1 (2006), pp. 316–345.<br />
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[13] N.K. Humphrey, The social function of intellect. In: P.P.G. Bateson and R.A. Hinde, Editors, Growing points in ethology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1976).<br />
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[14] In: R.W. Byrne and A. Whiten, Editors, Machiavellian intelligence social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes and humans, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1988).<br />
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[15] L. Brothers, The social brain: a project for integrating primate behavior and neurophysiology in a new domain, Concept Neurosci 1 (1990), pp. 27–51.<br />
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[16] B.G. Charlton, Theory of mind delusions and bizarre delusions in an evolutionary perspective: psychiatry and the social brain. In: Martin Brune, Hedda Ribbert and Wulf Schiefenhovel, Editors, The social brain – evolution and pathology, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2003), pp. 315–338.<br />
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[17] Charlton BG. Why it is ‘better’ to be reliable but dumb than smart but slapdash: are intelligence (IQ) and conscientiousness best regarded as gifts or virtues? Med Hypotheses; in press, doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.048.<br />
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[18] D. Nettle, Personality: what makes you the way you are, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK (2007).<br />
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[19] G. Miller, Spent: sex, evolution and consumer behaviour, Viking, New York (2009).<br />
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[20] I.J. Deary, G.D. Batty and C.R. Gale, Bright children become enlightened adults, Psychol Sci 19 (2008), pp. 1–6. <br />
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[21] R. Lynn, J. Harvey and H. Nyborg, Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations, Intelligence 37 (2009), pp. 11–15. <br />
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[22] S. Baron-Cohen, The essential difference: men, women and the extreme male brain, Penguin/Basic Books, London (2003).<br />
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[23] B.G. Charlton, The rise of the boy-genius: psychological neoteny, science and modern life, Med Hypotheses 67 (2006), pp. 679–681. <br />
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[24] B.G. Charlton, Psychological neoteny and higher education: associations with delayed parenthood, Med Hypotheses 69 (2007), pp. 237–240. <br />
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[25] Penke L. Creativity: theories, prediction, and etiology. Diploma thesis. Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany <http://www.larspenke.eu/pdfs/Penke_2003_-_Creativity.pdf>; 2003 [accessed 3.08.09].<br />
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[26] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).<br />
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[27] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243. <br />
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[28] B.G. Charlton, From nutty professor to buddy love: personality types in modern science, Med Hypotheses 8 (2007), pp. 243–244. <br />
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[29] R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, The bell curve: intelligence and class structure in American life, New York, Forbes (1994).<br />
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[30] G. Miller, The mating mind: how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, Heinemann, London (2000).<br />
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[31] A. Pierce, G.F. Miller, R. Arden and L. Gottfredson, Why is intelligence correlated with semen quality? Biochemical pathways common to sperm and neurons, and the evolutionary genetics of general fitness, Commun Integr Biol 2 (2009), pp. 1–3.<br />
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[32] B.G. Charlton, Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – an example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 625–628. <br />
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[33] B.G. Charlton, First a hero of science and now a martyr to science: the James Watson Affair – political correctness crushes free scientific communication, Med Hypotheses 70 (2008), pp. 1077–1080. <br />
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[34] B.G. Charlton, Replacing education with psychometrics: how learning about IQ almost-completely changed my mind about education, Med Hypotheses 73 (2009), pp. 273–277. <br />
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[35] G. Clark, A Farewell to Alms: a brief economic history of the world, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA (2007).<br />
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[36] K.E. Stanovitch, The robot’s rebellion: finding meaning in the age of Darwin, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2004).<br />
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[37] B.G. Charlton, Alienation, recovered animism and altered states of consciousness, Med Hypotheses 68 (2007), pp. 727–731.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-56852283673570285122009-10-13T03:23:00.000-07:002009-10-13T03:26:38.540-07:00Truthfulness in science should be an iron lawAre you an honest scientist? Truthfulness in science should be an iron law, not a vague aspiration<br /><br />Bruce G. Charlton<br /><br />Medical Hypotheses. 2009; Volume 73: 633-635 <br /><br />***<br /><br />Summary<br /><br />Anyone who has been a scientist for more than a couple of decades will realize that there has been a progressive and pervasive decline in the honesty of scientific communications. Yet real science simply must be an arena where truth is the rule; or else the activity simply stops being science and becomes something else: Zombie science. Although all humans ought to be truthful at all times; science is the one area of social functioning in which truth is the primary value, and truthfulness the core evaluation. Truth-telling and truth-seeking should not, therefore, be regarded as unattainable aspirations for scientists, but as iron laws, continually and universally operative. Yet such is the endemic state of corruption that an insistence on truthfulness in science seems perverse, aggressive, dangerous, or simply utopian. Not so: truthfulness in science is not utopian and was indeed taken for granted (albeit subject to normal human imperfections) just a few decades ago. Furthermore, as Jacob Bronowski argued, humans cannot be honest only in important matters while being expedient in minor matters: truth is all of a piece. There are always so many incentives to lie that truthfulness is either a habit or else it declines. This means that in order to be truthful in the face of opposition, scientists need to find a philosophical basis which will sustain a life of habitual truth and support them through the pressure to be expedient (or agreeable) rather than honest. The best hope of saving science from a progressive descent into Zombiedom seems to be a moral Great Awakening: an ethical revolution focused on re-establishing the primary purpose of science: which is the pursuit of truth. Such an Awakening would necessarily begin with individual commitment, but to have any impact it would need to progress rapidly to institutional forms. The most realistic prospect is that some sub-specialties of science might self-identify as being engaged primarily in the pursuit of truth, might form invisible colleges, and (supported by strong ethical systems to which their participants subscribe) impose on their members a stricter and more honest standard of behaviour. From such seeds of truth, real science might again re-grow. However, at present, I can detect no sign of any such thing as a principled adherence to perfect truthfulness among our complacent, arrogant and ever-more-powerful scientific leadership – and that is the group of which a Great Awakening would need to take-hold even if the movement were originated elsewhere.<br /><br />***<br /><br />The decline of honesty in science<br /><br />Anyone who has been a scientist for more than 20 years will realize that there has been a progressive decline in the honesty of communications between scientists, between scientists and their institutions, and between scientists and their institutions and the outside world.<br /><br />Yet real science must be an arena where truth is the rule; or else the activity simply stops being science and becomes something else: Zombie science. Zombie science is a science that is dead, but is artificially kept moving by a continual infusion of funding. From a distance Zombie science looks like the real thing, the surface features of a science are in place – white coats, laboratories, computer programming, Ph.D’s, papers, conferences, prizes, etc. But the Zombie is not interested in the pursuit of truth – its actions are externally-controlled and directed at non-scientific goals, and inside the Zombie everything is rotten.<br /><br />The most egregious domain of untruthfulness is probably where scientists comment or write about their own work. Indeed, so pervasive are the petty misrepresentations and cautious lies, that it is likely that many scientists are now dishonest even with themselves, in the privacy of their own thoughts. Such things can happen to initially honest people either by force of habit, or because they know no better; and because lies breed lies in order to explain the discrepancies between predictions and observations.<br /><br />Lying to oneself may be one cause of the remarkable incoherence of so much modern scientific thinking. It is much easier to be coherent, and to recognize incoherence, when discourse is uncontaminated by deliberate misrepresentations. There is less to cover-up. Most scientists can think-straight only by being completely honest. If scientists are not honest even with themselves, then their work will be a mess.<br /><br />Scientists are usually too careful and clever to risk telling outright lies, but instead they push the envelope of exaggeration, selectivity and distortion as far as possible. And tolerance for this kind of untruthfulness has greatly increased over recent years. So it is now routine for scientists deliberately to ‘hype’ the significance of their status and performance, and ‘spin’ the importance of their research.<br /><br />Furthermore, it is entirely normal and unremarkable for scientists to spend their entire professional life doing work they know in their hearts to be trivial or bogus – preferring that which promotes their career over that which has the best chance of advancing science. Indeed, such misapplication of effort is positively encouraged in many places, including some of what were the very best places, because careerism is a more reliable route to high productivity than real science – and because senior scientists in the best places are expert at hyping mundane research to create a misleading impression of revolutionary importance.<br /><br />What is going on? How have matters reached this state? Everyone should be honest at all times and about everything, but especially scientists. Everyone should seriously aim for truthfulness – yet scientists, of all people, must not just aim but actually be truthful: otherwise the very raison d’etre of science is subverted.<br /><br />So although truthfulness is a basic, universal moral rule; science is the one area of social functioning in which truth is the primary value, and truthfulness the core evaluation. Truth-telling and truth-seeking should not, therefore, be regarded as unattainable ideals within science, but as iron laws, continually and universally operative.<br /><br />Causes of dishonesty in science<br /><br />Although some scientists are selfishly dishonest simply in order to promote their own careers, for most people quasi-altruistic arguments for lying (dishonesty in a good cause of helping others, or to be an agreeable colleague) are likely to be a more powerful inducement to routine untruthfulness than is the gaining of personal advantage.<br /><br />For example, scientists are pressured to be less-than-wholly-truthful for the benefit of their colleagues or institutions, or for official/political reasons. Often, scientists are unable to opt-out of administrative or managerial exercises which almost insist-upon dishonest responses – and for which colleagues expect dishonesty in order to promote the interests of the group. Project leaders may feel responsible for raising money to support their junior team members; and feel obliged to do whatever type of research is most generously funded, and to say or write whatever is necessary to obtain that funding.<br /><br />So, in a bureaucratic context where cautious dishonesty is rewarded, strict truthfulness is taboo and will cause trouble for colleagues, for teams, for institutions – there may be a serious risk that funding is removed, status damaged, or worse. When everyone else is exaggerating their achievement then any precisely accurate person will, de facto, be judged as even worse than their already modest claims. In this kind of situation, individual truthfulness may be interpreted as an irresponsible indulgence.<br /><br />Clearly then, even in the absence of the sort of direct coercion which prevails in many un-free societies, scientists may be subjected to such pressure that they are more-or-less forced to be dishonest; and this situation can (in decent people) lead to feelings of regret, or to shame and remorse. Unfortunately, regret and shame may not lead to remorse but instead to rationalization, to the elaborate construction of excuses, and eventually a denial of dishonesty.<br /><br />Yet, whatever are the motivations and reasons for dishonesty, it has been by such means that modern scientists have become inculcated into habitual falsity; until we have become used-to dishonesty, don’t notice dishonesty, eventually come to expect dishonesty.<br /><br />Roots of dishonesty in science<br /><br />My belief is that science has rotted from the head down – and the blame mostly lies with senior scientists in combination with the massive expansion and influence of peer review until it has become the core process of scientific evaluation.<br /><br />Overall, senior scientists have set a bad example of untruthfulness and self-seeking in their own behaviour, and they have also tended to administer science in such a way as to reward hype and careful-dishonesty, and punish modesty and strict truth-telling. And although some senior scientists have laudably refused to compromise their honesty, they have done this largely by quietly ‘opting out’, and not much by using their power and influence to create and advertise alternative processes and systems in which honest scientists might work.<br /><br />The corruption of science has been (mostly unintentionally) amplified by the replacement of ‘peer usage’ with peer review as the major mechanism of scientific evaluation. Peer review (of ever greater complexity) has been applied everywhere: to job appointments and promotions, to scientific publications and conferences, to ethical review and funding, to prizes and awards. And peer review processes are set-up and dominated by senior scientists.<br /><br />Peer usage was the traditional process of scientific evaluation during the Golden Age of science (extending up to about the mid-1960s). Peer usage means that the validity of science is judged retrospectively by whether or not it has been used by peers, i.e. whether ideas or facts turned-out to be useful in further science done by researchers in the same field. For example, a piece of research might be evaluated by its validity in predicting future observations or as a basis for making effective interventions. Peer usage is distinctive to science, probably almost definitive of science.<br /><br />Peer review, by contrast, means that science is judged by the opinion of other scientists in the same field. Peer review is not distinctive to science, but is found in all academic subjects and in many formal bureaucracies. When peer usage was replaced by peer review, then all the major scientific evaluation processes – their measurement metrics, their rewards and their sanctions - were brought under the direct control of senior scientists whose opinions thereby became the ultimate arbiter of validity. By making its validity a mere matter of professional opinion, the crucial link between science and the natural world was broken, and the door opened to unrestrained error as well as to corruption.<br /><br />The over-expansion and domination of peer review in science is therefore a sign of scientific decline and decadence, not (as so commonly asserted) a sign of increased rigour. Peer review as the ultimate arbiter represents the conversion of science to generic bureaucracy; a replacement of testing by opinion; a replacement of objectivity by subjectivity. And the increased role for subjectivity in science has created space into which dishonesty has expanded.<br /><br />In a nutshell, the inducements to dishonesty have come from outside of science – from politics, government administration and the media (for example) all of whom are continually attempting to distort science to the needs of their own agendas and covert real science to Zombie science. But whatever the origin of the pressures to corrupt science, it is sadly obvious that scientific leaders have mostly themselves been corrupted by these pressures rather than courageously resisting them. And these same leaders have degraded hypothesis-testing real science into an elaborate expression of professional opinion (‘peer review’) that is formally indistinguishable from bureaucratic power-games.<br /><br />Is there a future for honesty?<br /><br />Such is our state of pervasive corruption that an insistence on truthfulness in science seems perverse, aggressive, dangerous, or simply utopian. Not so. Truthfulness in science is not utopian. Indeed it was mundane reality, taken for granted (albeit subject to normal human imperfections) just a few decades ago. Old-style science had many faults, but deliberate and systematic misrepresentation was not one of them.<br /><br />To become systematically truthful in a modern scientific environment would be to inflict damage on one’s own career; on one’s chances of getting jobs, promotions, publications, grants and so on. And in a world of dishonesty, of hype, spin and inflated estimations – the occasional truthful individual will be judged by the prevailing corrupt standards. To be truthful would also be to risk becoming exceedingly unpopular with colleagues and employers – since a strictly honest scientist would be perceived as endangering the status and security of those around them.<br /><br />Nonetheless, science must be honest, and the only answer to dishonesty is honesty; and this is up to individuals. The necessary first step is for scientists who are concerned about truth to acknowledge the prevailing state of corruption, and then to make a personal resolution to be truthful in all things at all times: to become both truth-tellers and truth-seekers.<br /><br />Honest individuals are clearly necessary for an honest system of science – they are the basis of all that is good in science. However, honest individuals do not necessarily create an honest system. Individual honesty is not sufficient but needs to be supported by new social structures. Scientific truth cannot, over the long stretch, be a product of solitary activity. A solitary truth-seeker who is unsupported either by tradition or community will degenerate into mere eccentricity, eventually to be intimidated and crushed by the organized power of untruthfulness.<br /><br />Furthermore, as Jacob Bronowski argued, humans cannot be honest only in important matters while being expedient in minor matters: truth is all of a piece. There are so many incentives to be untruthful that truthfulness is either a habit, or else truthfulness declines. This means that in order to retain their principles in the face of opposition, scientists need to find a philosophical basis which will sustain a life of habitual truth and support them through the pressure to be expedient (or agreeable) rather than honest.<br /><br />A Great Awakening to truth in science<br /><br />The best hope of saving science from a progressive descent into complete Zombiedom seems to be a moral Great Awakening: an ethical revolution focused on re-establishing the primary purpose of science: the pursuit of truth.<br /><br />In using the phrase, I am thinking of something akin to the periodic evangelical Great Awakenings which have swept the USA throughout its history, and have (arguably) served periodically to roll-back the advance of societal corruption, and generate improved ethical behaviour.<br /><br />Such an Awakening would necessarily begin with individual commitment, but to have any impact it would need to progress rapidly to institutional forms. In effect there would need to be a ‘Church’ of truth; or, rather, many such Churches – especially in the different scientific fields or invisible colleges of active scholars and researchers.<br /><br />I use the word ‘Church’ because nothing less morally-potent than a Church would suffice to overcome the many immediate incentives for seeking status, power, wealth and security. Nothing less powerfully-motivating could, I feel, nurture and sustain the requisite individual commitment. If truth-pursuing groups were not actually religiously-based (and, given the high proportion of atheists in science, this is probable), then such groups would need to be sustained by secular ethical systems of at least equal strength to religion, equally devoted to transcendental ideals, equally capable of eliciting courage, self-sacrifice and adherence to principle.<br /><br />The most realistic prospect is that some sub-specialties of science might self-identify as being engaged primarily in the pursuit of truth and (supported by strong ethical systems to which their participants subscribe) impose on their members a stricter and more honest standard of behaviour. Since science must be truthful in order to thrive qua science, any such truthful sub-specialities would be expected to thrive over the long term (this is assuming they can attract scientists of sufficient calibre backed-up with sufficient resources). From such seeds of truth, real science might again re-grow.<br /><br />Could it happen? – could there really be a Great Awakening to truth in science in which scientists in specific disciplines or en masse would simply start being truthful about all things great and small, and would swiftly organize to support each other in this principle? I am hopeful that some kind of moral renewal might potentially occur in science, but I am not optimistic. I am hopeful – or else I would not be writing this. But I am not optimistic, because there appears to be little awareness of the endemic state of corruption – presumably because the relentless but incremental expansion of dishonesty has been so gradual that it failed to cause sufficient alarm; and at each step in the decline scientists quickly habituated to the new situation.<br /><br />At present, I can detect no sign of anything like a principled adherence to perfect truthfulness among our complacent, arrogant and ever-more-powerful scientific leadership – and that is the group among which a Great Awakening would need to take-hold; even if, as seems likely, the movement originated elsewhere.<br /><br /><br />Further reading: The above polemical essay builds upon the argument of several of my previous publications including: ‘Peer usage versus peer review’ (BMJ 2007; 335:451); Zombie science’ (Medical Hypotheses 2008; 71:327–329); ‘The vital role of transcendental truth in science’ (Medical Hypotheses 2009; 72:373–376); and ‘Are you an honest academic?’ (Oxford Magazine 2009; 287:8–10).Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-45834807649744540622009-08-31T22:27:00.000-07:002009-08-31T22:35:31.704-07:00Reliable but dumb, or smart but slapdash?Bruce G Charlton<br /><br />Why it is ‘better’ to be reliable but dumb than smart but slapdash: Are intelligence (IQ) and Conscientiousness best regarded as gifts or virtues?<br /><br />Medical Hypotheses. 2009; Volume 73: 465-467 <br /><br />Editorial<br /><br />Summary<br /><br />The psychological attributes of intelligence and personality are usually seen as being quite distinct in nature: higher intelligence being regarded a ‘gift’ (bestowed mostly by heredity); while personality or ‘character’ is morally evaluated by others, on the assumption that it is mostly a consequence of choice? So a teacher is more likely to praise a child for their highly Conscientious personality (high ‘C’) – an ability to take the long view, work hard with self-discipline and persevere in the face of difficulty – than for possessing high IQ. Even in science, where high intelligence is greatly valued, it is seen as being more virtuous to be a reliable and steady worker. Yet it is probable that both IQ and personality traits (such as high-C) are about-equally inherited ‘gifts’ (heritability of both likely to be in excess of 0.5). Rankings of both IQ and C are generally stable throughout life (although absolute levels of both will typically increase throughout the lifespan, with IQ peaking in late-teens and C probably peaking in middle age). Furthermore, high IQ is not just an ability to be used only as required; higher IQ also carries various behavioural predispositions – as reflected in the positive correlation with the personality trait of Openness to Experience; and characteristically ‘left-wing’ or ‘enlightened’ socio-political values among high IQ individuals. However, IQ is ‘effortless’ while high-C emerges mainly in tough situations where exceptional effort is required. So we probably tend to regard personality in moral terms because this fits with a social system that provides incentives for virtuous behaviour (including Conscientiousness). In conclusion, high IQ should probably more often be regarded in morally evaluative terms because it is associated with behavioural predispositions; while C should probably be interpreted with more emphasis on its being a gift or natural ability. In particular, people with high levels of C are very lucky in modern societies, since they are usually well-rewarded for this aptitude. This includes science, where it seems that C has been selected-for more rigorously than IQ. Indeed, those ‘gifted’ with high Conscientiousness are in some ways even luckier than the very intelligent – because there are more jobs for reliable and hard-working people (even if they are relatively ‘dumb’) than for smart people with undependable personalities.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Moral evaluations of intelligence and personality<br /><br />The psychological attributes of intelligence and personality are usually seen as being quite distinct in nature: higher intelligence being regarded as a morally-neutral aptitude which is a lucky ‘gift’; while personality or ‘character’ is morally evaluated by others, on the assumption that it is mostly a consequence of choices. So a teacher is much more likely repeatedly to praise a child for exceptional self-discipline and hard work than for being of high intelligence. In other words, virtue is seen as an aspect of character/personality rather than intelligence.<br /><br />General intelligence (aka. ‘g factor’ intelligence, or ‘intelligence quotient’ or IQ) [1], [2], [3] and [4] and the ‘Big Five’ personality trait of Conscientiousness [5], [6] and [7] are the two main measurable psychological factors, higher levels of which are predictive of better educational and job performance [8] and [9]. IQ is the aptitude that enables a person to think abstractly and logically, to solve a wide range of novel problems, and to learn rapidly.<br /><br />The personality trait of Conscientiousness (‘C’) incorporates features such as perseverance, self-discipline, meticulousness, and long-termism. In a nutshell, Conscientiousness is the capacity to work hard at a task over the long-term despite finding the task uninteresting and despite receiving no immediate reward.<br /><br />The usual conceptualization sees IQ as a gift and C as a virtue; i.e. intelligence as an ability available to be used when necessary and personality traits such as Conscientiousness as a moral disposition to make better or worse behavioural choices. The mainstream idea would be that people are not responsible for the level of their intelligence but are responsible for their behaviour. So apparently it makes sense to praise Conscientiousness as virtuous but not similarly to praise IQ.<br /><br />However, I will argue that – while there are indeed practical reasons to praise good behaviour – in reality IQ has morally-relevant elements, while high-C (and other valued personality traits) should also be regarded as a gift. So, both intelligence and personality can be regarded either as gifts or as virtues, according to context.<br /><br />Intelligence is regarded as a gift<br /><br />Most people regard intelligence as a ‘gift’ – and highly intelligent children have sometimes been termed gifted. This interpretation is accurate, in the sense that the main known determinant of general intelligence is heredity: people inherit intelligence from their parents [1], [2], [3] and [4]. While bad experiences (such as starvation and disease in the womb or during infancy) can pull intelligence downwards, it is at present difficult or impossible significantly to raise a person’s real, underlying, long-term predictive general intelligence by any kind of environmental intervention[10]. (It may, however, be possible to raise IQ scores by practicing IQ tests and other focused interventions; but this does not cash-out into significant and prolonged general benefits in terms of education and employment).<br /><br />IQ is calculated by testing groups of people at different ages, and (usually) putting their scores into rank order and organizing rankings onto a normal distribution curve with a mean average IQ of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Using this type of calculation, intelligence scores/rankings are relatively stable throughout life – so that a child of 8 with high IQ will usually grow to become an adult with similarly high IQ, and vice versa [1], [2], [3] and [4].<br /><br />Because intelligence is a gift which is substantially hereditary and stable throughout life, on the whole it is regarded as a result of ‘luck’ and something for which people should be grateful; and not, therefore, as a virtue deserving of moral approbation or praise. Indeed, people with high intelligence may be given less help than they need, and may be held to a higher standard of behaviour, precisely because they are regarded as lucky.<br /><br />Higher intelligence is socially valued more highly than lower intelligence, probably because people with a higher IQ are on average more useful economically [11] (having higher economic productivity, on average); nonetheless the most intelligent people are not usually regarded as intrinsically virtuous nor especially morally praiseworthy. And although it is true that people of low intelligence may attract hurtful and insulting descriptors such as dumb, dull, slow or stupid; nonetheless, a person with these attributes is not regarded as intrinsically wicked.<br /><br />Personality traits are morally evaluated<br /><br />There is a contrast between IQ and personality in respect of moral evaluations. While IQ is seen as a gift there is a spontaneous tendency to regard personality as a morally distinguishing feature – as a visible marker of a person’s underlying moral nature. It is quite normal to praise the most diligent people for their high capacity for hard work, and at the same time to regard them as merely fortunate if they are also of high intelligence.<br /><br />Yet it is probable that both IQ and personality traits (such as the ability to work hard) are almost-equally hereditary ‘gifts’. The heritability of IQ is generally quoted as between 0.5 and 0.8 (probably at the higher end) [1], [2], [3] and [4] and the heritability of personality is quoted as being around 0.5 [5], [6] and [7]. However, the estimate of personality heritability is certainly an underestimate due to the sub-optimal conceptualization of personality traits, and especially to the lesser precision of current personality measurement methods compared with IQ tests [4]. To the extent that these things can be observed in everyday experience, both IQ and personality are probably about-equally inherited; and the high IQ and extra-hard-working person should about-equally thank their genes rather than congratulate themselves.<br /><br />Furthermore, rankings of personality, like IQ, are generally stable throughout life; so that a highly Conscientious child will probably grow into a highly Conscientious adult and vice versa (whatever their familial, educational and socially experiences may be). However, it is also important to recognize that average personality traits change through the lifespan – e.g. Conscientiousness levels increase through early adult life, while Extraversion declines [12]. The high-C personality type which enables people to work hard, be self-disciplined and pursue long-term goals is therefore, in this sense, no more ‘virtuous’ than the high IQ ability quickly to do complex verbal, mathematic and symbolic puzzles.<br /><br />But Conscientiousness is often regarded as highly moral behaviour, and an exceptionally-reliable individual will probably be regarded as virtuous even when they are of low IQ. However, in contrast, a person who is low in C is likely to be feckless, distractible, slapdash, and focused on short-term rewards – even when they are very intelligent. These behaviours are regarded as moral deficiencies; and the coexistence of high IQ in some ways makes it worse, because it is often felt that clever people ‘should know better’. Of course, low-C traits are negatively evaluated probably for the obvious reason that they are not very useful socially – indeed a person of very low Conscientiousness is likely to be a poor student and troublesome employee under most circumstances.<br /><br />Aside, it should be noted that low-C may also be associated with some positively-evaluated attributes; especially creativity (insofar as highly creative people tend to have very high IQ and moderately high ‘Psychoticism’ which trait includes moderately-low Conscientiousness [13]). I have previously suggested that selecting for very high-C will therefore – as an unintended side effect – tend to reduce the average level of creativity; and that this may have happened in science over the past several decades [14].<br /><br />Furthermore, it has been argued that in the hunter gatherer societies of our ancestors it would probably have been advantageous for most people to have lower levels of C than seem to be optimal nowadays; in the sense that it was more important for hunter gatherers to react spontaneously and quickly to immediate stimuli; and less important for them to plan far ahead, or to be able to persevere in the unrewarding and often repetitive tasks that characterize much of formal education or agricultural and industrial employment [7].<br /><br />But in modern societies, it is certainly an advantage (on average) to have higher levels of C.<br /><br />Moral evaluation of personality<br /><br />The evidence therefore suggests that it is likely that although the two psychological attributes of IQ and C are not highly-correlated (see Ref. [13] for review); the ability to work hard and with self-discipline and the ability of general intelligence are about-equally inherited, about-equally stable throughout life, and about-equally difficult to change either by self-determination or by the social interventions of other people. It seems that we as individuals are pretty much ‘stuck with’ the intelligence and the personalities with which we were born; and it is strange that exceptional IQ should be regarded as a gift while exceptional C is regarded as being the praiseworthy result of resolution and effort.<br /><br />It might be argued that personality traits are associated with moral behaviours in a way that IQ is not. Certainly personality traits do have moral aspects. Three of the Big Five – Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism – have one extreme which would generally be immoral [6] and [7]. For example, it would generally be regarded as ‘bad behaviour’ to be low in Agreeableness since this would include selfishness, uncooperativeness, emotional coldness, unfriendliness, unhelpfulness. Likewise it may be regarded as socially-undesirable to be high in Neuroticism since this would include proneness to mood swings, irritability and anger.<br /><br />But the reason that humans apparently spontaneously regard personality in moral terms is presumably because humans respond to incentives. Society would probably wish to encourage pro-social behaviour by praising it, on the basis that even though personality rankings cannot be much changed by whole-population interventions, at the individual level behaviour can be shaped by incentives – by rewards and punishments.<br /><br />Furthermore, high-C behaviour takes more effort than low-C behaviour. Although the ability to work hard on topics that are uninteresting is mostly hereditary, and therefore a gift, hard work is still hard work, and it is still easier not to work hard! Slapdash, distractible behaviour is undemanding, takes less effort. So, unless there is system of incentives which encourages hard work, then the default position is to work less hard, or not to work at all.<br /><br />However, when the same incentives are applied to the whole of a group of people varying in C; it is unreasonable and may be cruel to expect that the Conscientiousness gap between high and low individuals to disappear. Although all students might work harder, at least while the incentives were being applied, the gap between high-C and low-C students would remain, and the size of this gap might increase. Certainly, this is what has been found with IQ, when attempting to close various IQ-testing ‘gaps’. And, insofar as C is like IQ (heritable and stable), the possible size of improvement due to interventions is likely to be modest or negligible [2]. The accumulated experience of trying to improve general intelligence (in developed nations) is that it is difficult or impossible to produce sustained long-term improvements in intelligence, especially when the improvements are tested by independent outcomes such performance in employment. Improvements are often superficial results of specific training which only enhance specific types of test performance or evaluations done while under the influence of structured motivational systems [10].<br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />Personality clearly has a moral dimension, but something similar could also be said of intelligence in the indirect sense that higher intelligence is associated with reduced levels of a range of social pathologies including crime and family breakdown [15].<br /><br />Furthermore intelligence is associated with several aspects of personality and behaviour. There is a positive association between IQ and the Big Five trait of Openness to Experience – which means that more-intelligent people are more likely to seek novelty, enjoy artistic experiences, and be imaginative [7]. Furthermore, intelligence is associated positively with atheism and also with what have been termed ‘enlightened’ values such as left-wing or ‘liberal’ and anti-traditional/anti-conservative views [16]. So that IQ is associated with several morally-evaluated socio-political views which could be judged as virtuous, adaptive, mistaken or even damaging – according to one’s socio-political and religious perspective.<br /><br />I do not, however, wish to press the similarity of personality and intelligence too hard since these attributes may have a somewhat distinct evolutionary rationale, and selectional basis [17]. My main point is that, although we regard intelligence and personality as different kinds of psychological attributes, in fact they are similar in several important ways.<br /><br />Nonetheless, in sum, it seems that our traditional interpretations of intelligence and personality require modification. IQ is not just an ability which can be used as required; instead higher IQ is also a predisposition which on average includes a bias towards some types of behaviours and away from others. And high conscientiousness – such as the ability to take the long view, work hard and persevere in the face of difficulty – should probably be interpreted with more emphasis on its being a gift in much the same sense as high intelligence – despite the fact that IQ is ‘effortless’ while high-C emerges mainly in tough situations where exceptional diligence is required.<br /><br />People with high levels of IQ are mostly very lucky, as is widely recognized; but people with high-C are very lucky too, because they are usually well-rewarded for this aptitude in modern society; and indeed rewarded in science too, where it seems that self-discipline is now selected-for more rigorously than IQ [14].<br /><br />Indeed, in some ways those ‘gifted’ with high-C are even luckier than very intelligent people, because there are always going to be more jobs for reliable and hard-working people (even if they are relatively ‘dumb’) than jobs which are suitable for smart people who are undependable, short-termist and slapdash.<br /><br />References<br /><br />[1] U. Neisser et al., Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, Am Psychol 51 (1996), pp. 77–101. <br /><br />[2] A.R. Jensen, The g factor: the science of mental ability, Praeger, Westport, CT, USA (1988).<br /><br />[3] N.J. Mackintosh, IQ and human intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1998).<br /><br />[4] I.J. Deary, Intelligence: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001).<br /><br />[5] J.R. Harris, The nurture assumption: why children turn out the way they do, Bloomsbury, London (1998).<br /><br />[6] G. Matthews, I.J. Deary and M.C. Whiteman, Personality traits, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (2003).<br /><br />[7] D. Nettle, Personality: what makes you the way you are, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK (2007).<br /><br />[8] M.R. Barrick and M.K. Mount, The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta analysis, Pers Psychol 44 (1991), pp. 1–26. <br /><br />[9] A.L. Duckworth and M.E.P. Seligman, Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents, Psychol Sci 12 (2005), pp. 939–944. <br /><br />[10] H.H. Spitz, The raising of intelligence: a selected history of attempts to raise retarded intelligence, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, USA (1986).<br /><br />[11] L.S. Gottfredson, Implications of cognitive differences for schooling within diverse societies. In: C.L. Frisby and C.R. Reynolds, Editors, Comprehensive handbook of multicultural school psychology, Wiley, New York (2005), pp. 517–554.<br /><br />[12] P.T. Costa and R.R. McCrae, Stability and change in personality from adolescence through adulthood. In: C.F. Halverson Jr, G.A. Kohnstamm and R.P. Martin, Editors, The developing structure of temperament and personality from infancy to adulthood, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, USA (1994), pp. 139–150.<br /><br />[13] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).<br /><br />[14] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243. <br /><br />[15] R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, The bell curve: intelligence and class structure in American life, Forbes, New York (1994).<br /><br />[16] I.J. Deary, C.D. Batty and C.R. Gale, Bright children become enlightened adults, Psychol Sci 19 (2008), pp. 1–6. <br /><br />[17] L. Penke, J.J. Denissen and G.F. Miller, The evolutionary genetics of personality, Eur J Personality 21 (2007), pp. 549–587.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-56116325083472135122009-07-11T05:24:00.000-07:002009-07-11T05:33:36.566-07:00Replacing education with psychometricsBruce G Charlton<br /><br />Replacing education with psychometrics: How learning about IQ almost-completely changed my mind about education.<br /><br />Medical Hypotheses. 2009; 73: 273-277 <br /><br />***<br /><br />Summary<br /><br />I myself am a prime example of the way in which ignorance of IQ leads to a distorted understanding of education (and many other matters). I have been writing on the subject of education – especially higher education, science and medical education – for about 20 years, but now believe that many of my earlier ideas were wrong for the simple reason that I did not know about IQ. Since discovering the basic facts about IQ, several of my convictions have undergone a U-turn. Just how radically my ideas were changed has been brought home by two recent books: Real Education by Charles Murray and Spent by Geoffrey Miller. Since IQ and personality are substantially hereditary and rankings (although not absolute levels) are highly stable throughout a persons adult life, this implies that differential educational attainment within a society is mostly determined by heredity and therefore not by differences in educational experience. This implies that education is about selection more than enhancement, and educational qualifications mainly serve to ‘signal’ or quantify a person’s hereditary attributes. So education mostly functions as an extremely slow, inefficient and imprecise form of psychometric testing. It would therefore be easy to construct a modern educational system that was both more efficient and more effective than the current one. I now advocate a substantial reduction in the average amount of formal education and the proportion of the population attending higher education institutions. At the age of about sixteen each person could leave school with a set of knowledge-based examination results demonstrating their level of competence in a core knowledge curriculum; and with usefully precise and valid psychometric measurements of their general intelligence and personality (especially their age ranked degree of Conscientiousness). However, such change would result in a massive down-sizing of the educational system and this is a key underlying reason why IQ has become a taboo subject. Miller suggests that academics at the most expensive, elite, intelligence-screening universities tend to be sceptical of psychometric testing; precisely because they do not want to be undercut by cheaper, faster, more-reliable IQ and personality evaluations.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Introduction<br /><br />It was only in early 2007 that I began properly to engage, for the first time in my professional career, with the literature on IQ. Surprisingly, this engagement had been stimulated by a book of economic history. And learning the basic facts about IQ rapidly changed my views on many things, none more so than education.<br /><br />Just how radically my ideas about education were changed by learning about IQ has been brought home by two recent books: Real Education By Charles Murray [1] and Spent by Geoffrey Miller [2]. In line with analyses of Murray and Miller, I would now repudiate many of my previous opinions on the subject, and advocate a substantial reduction in the average amount of formal education and the proportion of the population attending higher education. In general, I now believe that many years of formal education can and should be substantially (but not entirely!) replaced with ‘psychometric’ measures of intelligence and personality as a basis for evaluating career potential.<br /><br />In this article I use my own experience as a case study of the potentially-disruptive influence of psychometric knowledge, and discuss further the reasons why basic IQ facts have been so effectively concealed, confused and denied by mainstream elite intellectual opinion in the UK and USA.<br /><br />The importance of IQ<br /><br />I have been writing on the subject of education for about 20 years (especially on higher education, science and medical education), but I now believe that much of what I wrote was wrong for the simple reason that I did not know about IQ. Personality traits are important in a similar way to IQ, however personality measurement is currently less reliable and valid than IQ testing, and less-well quantified.<br /><br />In the early 2000s I argued that modern formal education should be directed primarily at inculcating the ability to think abstractly and systematically [3] and that therefore the structure and not the specific content of education was critical (although ‘science’ – broadly defined – was likely to be the best basis for this type of education [4]). I suggested that higher education should be regarded as a non-vocational process, in which most degrees are modular, and modules were optional and multi-disciplinary, so that each student would assemble their own degree program in a minimally-constrained, ‘pick and mix’ fashion [5]. I also contended that since abstract systemizing cognition was so essential to modernizing societies, a major aim of social reform should be to include as many people as possible in formal education for as long as possible [6].<br /><br />All of these views I would now regard as mistaken – and the reason is mostly my new understanding of IQ [7], [8], [9] and [10]. Miller concisely explains the basic facts about IQ:<br /><br />“General intelligence (a.k.a. IQ, general cognitive ability, the g factor) is a way of quantifying intelligence’s variability among people. It is the best-established, most predictive, most heritable mental trait ever discovered in psychology. Whether measured with formal IQ tests or assessed through informal conversations and observations, intelligence predicts objective performance and learning ability across all important life-domains that show reliable individual differences” [2].<br /><br />The crux of my new understanding is that IQ, and to a lesser but important extent personality traits, are highly predictive of educational attainment. This is a very old finding, and scientifically uncontroversial – but the implications have still not been acknowledged.<br /><br />Since IQ is very substantially inherited with a true heritability of about 80% [7], [8], [9] and [10] and personality too has about a 50% heritability [11] and [12]; and since both IQ and personality rankings are highly stable throughout a persons adult life [13] (it is, for example, very difficult for educational interventions to have any significant and lasting effect on underlying IQ [1]) – then this implies that differential educational attainment within societies is mostly determined by heredity and therefore not by differences in educational experience.<br /><br />(The other big factor which influences attainment is of course the large element of chance – which affects individuals unpredictably. However, chance is not completely random, in the sense that many outcomes such as accidental injuries and a range of illnesses are also correlated with IQ and personality [14]).<br /><br />When full account has been taken of IQ and personality (and the measured effects of IQ and personality have been increased to take account of the inevitable imprecision of IQ measurements and the even greater difficulties of determining personality), and when the presumed effects of chance have also been subtracted – then there is not much variation of outcomes left-over within which educational differences could have an effect. Of course there will be some systemic effect of educational differences, but the effect is likely to be very much smaller than generally assumed, and even the direction of the education effect may be hard to detect when other more powerful factors are operative [1].<br /><br />I found the fact that differences in educational attainment within a society are mostly due to heredity to be a stunning conclusion, which effectively demolished most of what I believed about education. My understanding of what education was doing was radically reshaped, and my beliefs about the justifiable duration and proper focus of the system of formal education were transformed. I began to realize that the educational system in modern societies was operating under false pretences. It seems that current educational systems are barely ‘fit for purpose’ and (lacking a proper understanding of IQ) are in many instances progressively getting worse rather than better.<br /><br />In sum, education is more about selection than enhancement, and educational qualifications mostly serve to ‘signal’ or quantify a person’s hereditary attributes [15] – especially IQ and personality. Differential educational experience does not seem to have much of a systemic effect on people’s ability to think or work.<br /><br />To put it another way – education mostly functions as an extremely slow, inefficient and imprecise form of psychometric testing. And because this fact is poorly understood, those aspects of modern education which are not psychometric are consequently neglected and misdirected.<br /><br />Policy implications of psychometrics<br /><br />If psychometric measures of IQ and personality were available, then it would be easy to construct a modern educational system that was both more efficient and more effective than the current one. However, such change would result in a massive down-sizing of the educational system – with substantial and permanent loss of jobs and status for educational professionals of all types including teachers, professors, administrators and managers.<br /><br />According to Geoffrey Miller’s analysis [2], this impact on educational professionals is likely to be a key underlying reason why IQ has become a taboo subject, and why the basic facts of IQ have been so effectively obfuscated. Miller notes that it is the ultra-elite, most-selective and heavily research-oriented universities which are the focus of IQ resistance. At the same time more functionally-orientated institutions, such as the United States military, have for many decades quietly been using IQ as a tool to assist with selection and training allocations [16].<br /><br />“Is it an accident that researchers at the most expensive, elite, IQ-screening universities tend to be most sceptical of IQ tests? I think not. Universities offer a costly, slow, unreliable intelligence-indicating product that competes directly with cheap, fast, more-reliable IQ tests. (…) Harvard and Yale sell nicely printed sheets of paper called degrees that cost about $160,000 (…). To obtain the degree, one must demonstrate a decent level of Conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness in one’s coursework, but above all, one must have the intelligence to get admitted, based on SAT scores and high school grades. Thus the Harvard degree is basically an IQ guarantee”.<br /><br />“Elite universities do not want to be undercut by competitors. They do not want their expensive IQ-warranties to suffer competition from cheap, fast IQ tests which would commodify the intelligence-display market and drive down costs. Therefore, elite universities have a hypocritical, love-hate relationship with intelligence tests”.<br /><br />The vulnerability of the elite institutions to IQ knowledge is because most of the assumed advantages of an expensive elite education can be ascribed to their historic ability to select the top stratum of IQ (and also the most desirable personality types): given the stability and predictive power of these traits the elite students are therefore pre-determined to be (on average) highly successful.<br /><br />Consequently the most elite institutions and their graduates have in the past few decades, both via academic publications and in the mass media, thoroughly obscured the basic and validated facts about IQ. We now have a situation where the high predictive powers of IQ and personality and the stable and hereditary nature of these traits are routinely concealed, confused or (in extremis) explicitly denied by some of the most prestigious and best-educated members of modern society [17].<br /><br /><br />Four mistaken beliefs resulting from my lack of IQ knowledge<br /><br />I will summarize under four heading my main pre-IQ errors regarding education.<br /><br />Mistaken belief number 1: Modern formal education should be directed primarily at inculcating the ability to think abstractly and systematically [3].<br /><br />Revision: Modern formal education should be directed primarily at inculcating specific knowledge content.<br /><br />Abstract systematic thinking is exceptionally important in modern societies. And I used to believe that that abstract systematic thinking was mostly a product of formal education – indeed I regarded this as the main function of formal education [3]. But I now recognize that abstract systematic thinking is pretty close to a definition of IQ; and that strongly IQ related (or heavily ‘g-loaded’) educational outcomes – such as differentials in reading comprehension and mathematical ability – are very difficult/impossible to improve in a real and sustained fashion by educational interventions [1].<br /><br />In other words, a person’s level of ability to think abstractly and systematically is mostly a biological given – and not a consequence of formal education. The implication is that formal education should not be focusing on trying to do what it cannot do – i.e. enhance IQ. Instead, formal education should focus on educational goals where is can make a difference: i.e. the teaching of specific knowledge [1].<br /><br />Mistaken belief number 2: Structure not content of formal education is crucial [5].<br /><br />Revision: Content not structure of education is crucial.<br /><br />I used to think that it did not matter what subject was studied in formal education, so long as the method of education was one which nurtured abstract systematic thinking [3]. I believed that how we learned was more important than what we learned, because I believed that abstract systematic thinking was a result of formal education – and this cognitive ability was more important than any particular body of information which had been memorized.<br /><br />This line of reasoning meant that I favoured ‘pick and mix’, wide choice and multi-disciplinary curricula as a method of improving motivation by allowing students to study what most interested them, and giving students practice in learning new material and applying systematic thinking in many knowledge domains [5].<br /><br />The reason that I believed all this has been summarized by Geoffrey Miller:<br /><br />“The highly selective credential with little relevant content [such as an elite college degree in any subject] often trumps the less-selective credential with very relevant content. Nor are such preferences irrational. General intelligence is such a powerful predictor of job performance that a content-free IQ guarantee can be much more valuable to an employer or graduate school than a set of rote-learned content with no IQ guarantee” [2].<br /><br />Since IQ is such a powerful influence on educational (and other) outcomes [18], the value of specific educational content is therefore only apparent when IQ has been controlled-for. Since IQ is routinely ignored or denied, the value of educational content is not apparent in outcomes which are sensitive to differences in general intelligence.<br /><br />Murray argues that variations in the structure and methods of education are not able significantly to influence those educational outcomes which are ‘g-loaded’ such as reading comprehension or mathematic reasoning [1]. Numerous attempts to raise real long-term intelligence (rather than merely raising specific test scores) have failed [19]. However, the subject matter being studied will (obviously!) make a big difference to what gets learned. Once we set aside the delusional goal of enhancing IQ by educational reform, then the subject matter – or curriculum – becomes a more important focus than educational structure and methods.<br /><br />Charles Murray therefore endorses the approach to ‘Cultural Literacy’ or a core knowledge curriculum pioneered by Ed Hirsch (www.coreknowledge.org). This educational philosophy focuses on constructing a comprehensive curriculum of the factual material that people should know, or ‘need to know’. Over the past couple of decades some detailed and well-validated programmes of study have been developed for the USA, and these can be purchased by educational institutions and also home-schooling parents.<br /><br />It is claimed that such a core knowledge curriculum should enable the student to become a citizen participating at the highest possible social level, and that a shared education in core knowledge should hold society together with a stronger ‘cultural glue’. If such benefits are real, then school, especially between the ages of about 6 and 14, is the best place to follow such a program; since, although the core curriculum involves more than mere memorization, nonetheless memorization is an important element – and young children can memorize information much more easily and lastingly than adults [1].<br /><br />Understanding IQ has therefore provoked me into a U-turn on the matter of curricula. I now believe that what we learn in formal education is more important than how we learn, because what we learn can have a lasting effect on what we know; while how we learn does not, after all, teach us how to think.<br /><br />Mistaken belief number 3: A major aim of social reform should be to include as many people as possible in formal education for as long as possible. Ever-more people should get ever-more education for the foreseeable future [6].<br /><br />Revision: The system of formal education is hugely over-expanded and should be substantially reduced (to considerably less than half its current size). The average person should receive fewer years of formal education, fewer people should attend higher education institutions and do fewer bachelor’s degrees, and those in higher education should – on average – complete the process in fewer years.<br /><br />The proportion of school leavers entering higher education in the UK has at least trebled over the past three decades, from around 15% to more than 45%. The rationale behind this vast expansion was based on the observation of higher all-round performance among college graduates – better performance in jobs, and also a wide range of other good outcomes including improved health and happiness [6].<br /><br />However, it turns out that almost all of this differential in behaviours can be explained in terms of selection for (mostly hereditary) intelligence, rather than these improvements being something added to individuals by their educational experience. The main extra information provided by the successful completion of prolonged educational programs (i.e. extra in addition to signalling IQ) is that educational certification provides a broadly-reliable signal of a highly-Conscientious personality.<br /><br />Miller has neatly described this trait: “Conscientiousness is the Big Five personality trait that includes such characteristics as integrity, reliability, predictability, consistency, and punctuality. It predicts respect for social norms and responsibilities, and the likelihood of fulfilling promises and contracts. A century ago, people would have called it character, principle, honor, or moral fiber. (…) Conscientiousness is lower on average in juveniles, and it matures slowly with age” [2].<br /><br />Other attributes of a highly-Conscientious personality are self-discipline, perseverance and long-termism [20].<br /><br />But a person’s degree of Conscientiousness is not a product of their educational experience; rather it is a mostly-inherited psychological attribute which develops throughout life, the relative (or differential) possession of which is stable throughout life [13]. In other words, Conscientiousness is (mostly) an innate ability in a similar sense to intelligence – and similarly difficult to influence by educational means.<br /><br />It turns out that modern formal education is mainly signalling [15], or providing indirect evidence about, a person’s IQ and personality abilities which they have mostly inherited [1] and [2]. This means that imposing an ever-increasing number of years of formal education for an ever-increasing proportion of the population is ever-increasingly inefficient – and is wasting years of people’s lives, wasting vast amounts of money on the education provision, and imposing huge economic and social ‘opportunity costs’ by forcing people to remain in formal education when their time would often be better spent doing something else (for example something economically-productive or something more personally-fulfilling).<br /><br />Mistaken belief number 4: Higher education should be regarded as a general, non-vocational process, in which most degrees are modular and multi-disciplinary; and where specialization or vocational preparation should be a relatively brief and ‘last-minute’ training at the end of a long process of education [3], [5] and [6].<br /><br />Revision: The period of general education should not extend much beyond about 16 (the approximate age of IQ maturity), and this general education should be focused on the basic skills of literacy and numeracy together with a core knowledge curriculum.<br /><br />At the age of about 16 each person could potentially leave school with a set of knowledge-based examination results demonstrating their level of competence in a core knowledge curriculum; and with usefully precise and valid psychometric measurements of their general intelligence and personality (especially their age ranked degree of Conscientiousness). The combination of psychometric measures of IQ and Conscientiousness would serve the same kind of function as educational evaluations do at present, providing a basis for employment selection or valid predictions to guide the allocation of access to further levels of formal education.<br /><br />Beyond this I believe that most education should be ‘functional’ or vocational, in the sense of being a relatively-focused training in the knowledge and skills required to do something specific. This functional post-sixteen formal higher education could vary in duration from weeks or months (for semi-skilled jobs) to several years (for access to the starting level of the most highly skilled and knowledge-intensive professions such as architecture, engineering, medicine or law).<br /><br />But when IQ and personality measurements are available, then the majority of ‘white collar’ jobs – jobs such as management, administration, or school teaching (up to the age of about 16) – would no longer require a college degree. Instead specific knowledge-based training would be provided ‘on the job’, presumably by the traditional mixture of a formally-structured curriculum for imparting the core knowledge and systematic elements with apprenticeship and individual instruction in order to impart specialized skills.<br /><br />Murray also suggests that much specialist educational certification for careers could in principle be better done by rigorous public examinations such as those for accountancy, than by the medium of minimum-duration college degrees [1].<br /><br />Measuring personality<br /><br />The main unsolved problem for this psychometric approach is the evaluation of personality. Most of the current evidence for the predictive and explanatory power of personality comes from self-rating questionnaires, and clearly these would not be suitable for educational and job evaluations since it is facile to learn the responses which would lead to a high rating for Conscientiousness.<br /><br />Rather than being simply asserted in a questionnaire, a Conscientious, persevering, self-disciplined personality requires to be demonstrated in actual practice. The modern educational system has, inadvertently, evolved in the direction of requiring higher levels of Conscientiousness [20]. The main factor in this evolution has been the progressive lengthening of the educational process (in the UK the modal average age for leaving formal education has increased from 16 to about 21 in the space of 30 years), but educational evaluations have also become less IQ-orientated (less g-loaded) and more dependent upon the ability of students frequently and punctually to complete neat and regular course work assignments [20] and [21].<br /><br />However, the modern educational system is not explicitly aware that it is measuring Conscientiousness – the changes have been an accidental by-product of other trends, and there was not a deliberate attempt to enhance Conscientiousness-selectivity as a matter of policy. Because the educational system is blind to the consequences of its own actions, there are counter-pressures to make course work easier and more-interesting and to offer more choices – when in fact it would be a more efficient and accurate measure of Conscientiousness to have students complete compulsory, dull and irrelevant tasks which required a great deal of toil and effort!<br /><br />However, it may be socially-preferable to have students prove their Conscientiousness in the realm of economic employment rather than by setting them pointless and grinding work in a formal educational context. There are plenty of dull and demanding but necessary jobs, the successful and sufficiently-prolonged accomplishment of which could serve as a valid and accurate reliable signal of Conscientiousness. So it would be more useful for people to prove their level of Conscientiousness in the arena of paid work, than by having this measurement task done by formal educational institutions.<br /><br />An alternative suggestion for evaluating Conscientiousness comes from Geoffrey Miller, who advocates using broad surveys of opinion from families, peers, employers or any reliable and informed person who is in prolonged social contact with the subject [2].<br /><br />Conclusions<br /><br />I have previously written about the extraordinary way in which knowledge of IQ in particular, and psychometrics in general, is ‘hidden in plain sight’ in modern culture [17]. The basic facts about IQ are accessible, abundant and convincing for those who take the trouble to look; but modern mainstream intellectual culture has for around half a decade ‘immunized’ most educated people against looking-at or learning about IQ by multiple forms of misinformation and denigration [22] and [23].<br /><br />The recent books of Murray and Miller marshal more strongly than before the evidence that one major reason for its taboo status is that IQ knowledge has extremely damaging implications for the vast and expanding system of formal education which employs many intellectuals directly, and which provides almost all other intellectuals with the credentials upon which their status and employability depend. Miller’s phrase is worth repeating: “they do not want their expensive IQ-warranties to suffer competition from cheap, fast IQ tests which would commodify the intelligence-display market and drive down costs” [2].<br /><br />Murray argues that a properly-demanding 4 year, general and core knowledge-based, ‘liberal arts’ degree would be valuable as a pre-specialization education for the high IQ intellectual elite [1]. Perhaps because I am a product of the (now disappeared) traditional English system of early educational specialization, I am unconvinced about the systematic benefits of general education at a college level. I suspect that the most efficient pattern of higher education would be to specialize at age 16 (or earlier for the highest IQ individuals) on completion of the standard core knowledge program; and that liberal arts should mainly be seen as an avocation (done for reasons of personal fulfilment) rather than a vocation (done as a job).<br /><br />In other words, a liberal arts education beyond core knowledge could, and perhaps should, be optional and provided by the market, rather than being included in the educational ‘system’. For example, in the UK such an education is universally available without any residential requirement at a reasonable price and high quality via the Open University (www3.open.ac.uk/about).<br /><br />But in a system where objective IQ and personality evaluations were available as signals of aptitude, it could be left to ‘the market’ to decide whether the possession of a rigorous 4 year general liberal arts degree opened more doors; or attracted any extra premium of status, salary or conditions compared with a specialized, early vocational degree such as medicine, law, architecture, engineering, or one of the sciences. (There would presumably also be some specialist arts and humanities degrees, mainly vocationally-orientated towards training high-level school and college teachers – as was the traditional English practice until about 40 years ago [3].)<br /><br />In summary, modern societies are currently vastly over-provided with formal education, and this education has the wrong emphasis. In particular, the job of sorting people by their general aptitude could be done more accurately, cheaply and quickly by using psychometrics to measure IQ and Conscientiousness. This would free-up time and energy for early training in key skills such as reading, writing and mathematics; and to focus on a core knowledge curriculum.<br /><br />However, for reasons related to self-interest, the intellectual class do not want people to know the basic facts about IQ; and since the intellectual class provide the information upon which the rest of society depends for their understanding – consequently most people do not know the basic facts about IQ. And lacking knowledge of IQ, people are not able to understand the education system and what it actually does.<br /><br />I can point to myself as a prime example of the way in which ignorance of IQ leads to a distorted understanding of education. Before I knew about the basic facts of IQ, I had articulated what seemed to be a rational and coherent set of beliefs about education. But since discovering the facts about IQ several of my convictions have undergone what amounts to a U-turn.<br /><br />Acknowledgements<br /><br />“A Farewell to Alms: a brief economic history of the world” by Gregory Clark (Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, USA, 2007) was the book of economic history which first stimulated my (belated) engagement with the scientific literature of intelligence and personality. The web pages of Steve Sailer have since provided both an invaluable introduction and also a higher education in the subject (e.g. www.isteve.com/Articles_IQ.htm).<br /><br />References<br /><br />[1] C. Murray, Real education: four simple truths for bringing America’s schools back to reality, Crown Forum, New York (2008).<br /><br />[2] G. Miller, Spent: sex, evolution and consumer behaviour, Viking, New York (2009).<br /><br />[3] B.G. Charlton and P. Andras, Auditing as a tool of public policy – the misuse of quality assurance techniques in the UK university expansion, Eur Polit Sci 2 (2002), pp. 24–35.<br /><br />[4] B.G. Charlton, Science as a general education: conceptual science should constitute the compulsory core of multi-disciplinary undergraduate degrees, Med Hypotheses 66 (2006), pp. 451–453. <br /><br />[5] Charlton BG, Andras P. The educational function and implications for teaching of multi-disciplinary modular (MDM) undergraduate degrees. OxCHEPS Occasional Paper No. 12; 2003. http://oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk<br /><br />[6] B.G. Charlton and P. Andras, Universities and social progress in modernizing societies: how educational expansion has replaced socialism as an instrument of political reform, CQ (Crit Quart) 47 (2005), pp. 30–39. <br /><br />[7] N.J. Mackintosh, IQ and human intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1998).<br /><br />[8] A.R. Jensen, The g factor: the science of mental ability, Praeger, Westport, CT, USA (1988).<br /><br />[9] U. Neisser et al., Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, Am Psychol 51 (1996), pp. 77–101. <br /><br />[10] I.J. Deary, Intelligence: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001).<br /><br />[11] J.R. Harris, The nurture assumption: why children turn out the way they do, Bloomsbury, London (1998).<br /><br />[12] D. Nettle, Personality: what makes you the way you are, Oxford University Press (2007).<br /><br />[13] P.T. Costa and R.R. McCrae, Stability and change in personality from adolescence through adulthood. In: C.F. Halverson Jr., G.A. Kohnstamm and R.P. Martin, Editors, The developing structure of temperament and personality from infancy to adulthood, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, USA (1994), pp. 139–150.<br /><br />[14] G.D. Batty, I.J. Deary and L.S. Gottfredson, Pre-morbid (early life) IQ and later mortality risk: systematic review, Ann Epidemiol 17 (2007), pp. 278–288.<br /><br />[15] Caplan B. Mixed signals: Why Becker, Cowen, and Kling should reconsider the signaling model of education. <http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/02/mixed_signals.html>. Accessed 06.04.09.<br /><br /><br />[16] R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, The bell curve: intelligence and class structure in American life, Forbes, New York (1994).<br /><br />[17] B.G. Charlton, Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – an example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 625–628. <br /><br />[18] L.S. Gottfredson, Implications of cognitive differences for schooling within diverse societies. In: C.L. Frisby and C.R. Reynolds, Editors, Comprehensive handbook of multicultural school psychology, Wiley, New York (2005), pp. 517–554.<br /><br />[19] Spitz HH. The raising of intelligence: a selected history of attempts to raise retarded intelligence. Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Erlbaum; 1986.<br /><br />[20] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243. <br /><br />[21] Charlton BG. Sex ratios in the most-selective elite undergraduate US colleges and universities are consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems increasingly select for conscientious personality compared with intelligence. Med Hypotheses; in press, doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.03.016.<br /><br />[22] A. Wooldridge, Measuring the mind: education and psychology in England, c.1860–c.1990, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1994).<br /><br />[23] L.S. Gottfredson, Logical fallacies used to dismiss the evidence on intelligence testing. In: R. Phelps, Editor, Correcting fallacies about educational and psychological testing, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (2009), pp. 11–65.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-79220392438471578892009-05-27T03:09:00.000-07:002009-05-27T03:16:34.892-07:00Do elite US colleges choose personality over IQ?Sex ratios in the most-selective elite US undergraduate colleges and universities are consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems increasingly select for conscientious personality compared with intelligence <br /><br />Medical Hypotheses. 2009; 73: 127-129 <br /><br />Bruce G. Charlton, , Editor-in-Chief, Medical Hypotheses<br /><br />Professor of Theoretical Medicine University of Buckingham, UK<br /><br /><br />Summary<br /><br />The main predictors of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait termed ‘Conscientiousness’ (C). I have previously argued that increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for the personality trait of Conscientiousness and consequently less selective for IQ. I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more conscientious than men. To estimate the proportion of men and women expected at highly-selective schools, I performed demonstration calculations based on three plausible estimates of male and female IQ averages and standard deviations. The expected percentage of men at elite undergraduate colleges (selecting students with IQ above 130 – i.e. in the top 2% of the population) were 66%, 61% and 74%. When these estimates were compared with the sex ratios at 33 elite colleges and universities, only two technical institutes had more than 60% men. Elite US colleges and universities therefore seem to be selecting primarily on the basis of something other than IQ – probably conscientiousness. There is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not being admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools, probably because their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low. This analysis is therefore consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems tend to select more strongly for Conscientiousness than for IQ. The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most-selective US schools are not primarily an intelligence elite, as commonly assumed, but instead an elite for Conscientious personality.<br /><br />***<br /><br />IQ and C predict educational attainment<br /><br />Evidence from a range of studies suggests that the main determinants of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait variously described as ‘Conscientiousness’, self-discipline, perseverance or something similar (see Ref. [1] for review). IQ is (roughly speaking) that cognitive ability which enables people to think abstractly and learn quickly; Conscientiousness (broadly synonymous with perseverance or self-discipline) is the personality trait that enables people to work hard for long periods at dull tasks, to think before acting and to take a long term view.<br /><br />I have previously argued that a combination of the increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and the increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for Conscientiousness (C) [1]. My argument is that, because C is not closely correlated with intelligence, then demand for increasing levels of C will inevitably lead to reduced selectivity for intelligence. Ever-higher levels of C will usually only be attainable by progressively relaxing standards for IQ.<br /><br />If this reasoning is correct, it would be predicted that the most highly-educated and most educationally-selected people would be characterized more by their extremely-high Conscientiousness than by their extremely-high intelligence. More precisely, there would be a trend for educational selectivity to increase average ranking for C more than the average ranking for IQ.<br /><br />Sex ratios at the most-selective US colleges and universities<br /><br />I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more Conscientious than men.<br /><br />Most IQ studies find a greater proportion of men than women among very high IQ adults. For example, the US national 2008 SAT results show a higher proportion of men than women scoring in the highest band for the most g-loaded sections (Critical Reading and Mathematics) [2]. This male domination of the highest scorers in IQ testing is consistent with IQ surveys going back over many decades [3] and studies of creative and intellectual genius [4] and [5]. I will therefore assume a higher proportion of men than women at levels of very high IQ. In contrast, current evidence suggests that Conscientiousness, especially the academically-relevant sub-trait of self-discipline, is higher in women than men [1] and [6].<br /><br />On this basis alone, without any calculations, and if we assume equal proportions of men and women in the US population, no important differences in sex applications to college and a sex-blind policy of selectivity; it would be expected that there was a greater proportion of men than women at highly-selective elite colleges, and that the more selective the colleges the greater would be the expected proportion of men. By contrast, if there was an equal or greater-proportion of women at elite colleges then this would be consistent with C being more rigorously selected-for than IQ.<br /><br />Predicted proportion of men at elite schools – on the basis of IQ<br />To make this exercise more precise, it is helpful to estimate the proportion of men and women which would be expected at highly-selective schools.<br /><br />I have focused on predictions related to IQ because much more is known about IQ than C, and C cannot yet be quantified as precisely as IQ. An IQ of 130 is used as a plausible threshold for selectivity at elite universities: this is approximately two standard deviations above the average IQ and includes the top 2% of the population.<br /><br />However, the magnitude of the expected sex differential is relevant, since if the expected sex differential was small it could easily be swamped by statistical noise, or by other relevant variables. The magnitude of the predicted sex differential depends on the assumptions of male and female IQ average differences and distributions.<br /><br />There are three mainstream explanations of why there are more men than women among the population of very high IQ people.<br /><br />1. Men have a higher average IQ than women, but the same variance. For instance, Lynn suggests that men have an average IQ about 4–5 points higher than women with the sexes having the same standard deviation (conventionally 15 IQ points) [7].<br /><br />2. Men and women have a near-identical average IQ, but men have a greater variance in IQ than women (higher standard deviation). For instance Hedges and Nowell present Project Talent data that suggest men and women have the same IQ, but men have a standard deviation around 10% greater than women [8].<br /><br />3. Men have both a higher average IQ and larger standard deviation of IQ than women. For instance, Hans Eysenck accepted Lynn’s estimate of about 4 IQ points difference in average IQ and also assumed that women had a standard deviation of 14 compared with the male standard deviation of 15 [4].<br /><br />We can use these ball-park estimates as the basis for calculating approximate expected sex ratios at elite US undergraduate schools.<br /><br />Therefore on the basis of IQ considered alone (Table 1), it would be expected to find a considerably greater proportion of men than women at elite undergraduate colleges. The prediction is that the most selective institutions would admit at least 60% men (and probably a higher proportion).<br /><br />Table 1. <br /><br />Demonstration calculations of the effect of plausible male versus female IQ averages and standard deviations on the proportion of men and women at elite colleges with threshold IQ of 130 for a US population with average mean IQ 100 (SD 15). Key: SD = standard deviation; M = men; W = women; av. = average.<br /><br />Assumption Mean IQ (SD) Percentage IQ > 130 Predicted % men at elite college <br /><br />M higher av. IQ than W: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 66% W 98 (15) 1.6% <br /> <br />M > SD than W: M 100 (15.75) 2.8% c. 61% W 100 (14.25) 1.8% <br /><br />Men higher av. IQ: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 74% & >SD than W W 98 (14) 1.1% <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So, any sex ratio less than this would imply that other qualities than IQ are actually determining selection; or alternatively that one or more of the assumptions are incorrect – for example there might be sexually differential patterns of application or selection.<br /><br />Using the About.com: College Admissions web pages (http://collegeapps.about.com/ – up to March 2009) I generated a list of sex ratios (the percentage of men) at three categories of elite US colleges and universities: (1) Ivy League plus several comparably-selective private research universities; (2) The top 10 public universities; (3) The top 10 liberal arts colleges.<br /><br />From Table 2 it is clear that almost all these 33 elite US undergraduate schools select approximately equal proportions of men and women with only two technical universities (Caltech and Georgia Tech) having a male sex ratio greater than 60%. If the assumptions hold, then the implication is that elite colleges seem to be selecting mainly on the basis of something other than IQ – probably Conscientiousness.<br /><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br />Table 2. <br /><br />Sex ratios at undergraduate level – percentage of men. Colleges with more than 60% men are marked with an asterisk.<br /><br />Ivy League and similar private research universities <br /><br />Brown 48% <br />Columbia 51% <br />Cornell 51% <br />Dartmouth 50% <br />Harvard 47% <br />Pennsylvania 49% <br />Princeton 53% <br />Yale 51% <br />Stanford 52% <br />Duke 51% <br />Chicago 50% <br />MIT 56% <br />*Caltech 71% <br /><br /> <br />Top 10 public universities <br /><br />Berkeley 46% <br />*Georgia Tech 71% <br />UCLA 45% <br />UCSD 48% <br />U Michigan 50% <br />UNC Chapel Hill 41% <br />Urbana Champaign 53% <br />U Virginia 45% <br />William and Mary 46% <br /><br /> <br />Top 10 liberal arts colleges: (NB: Wellesley is essentially a women’s college)<br /> <br />Amherst 50% <br />Carleton 47% <br />Claremont–McKenna 54% <br />Grinnell 46% <br />Haverford 46% <br />Middlebury 48% <br />Pomona 51% <br />Reed 45% <br />Swarthmore 48% <br />Wellesley 2% <br />Williams 49% <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It seems that there is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not getting admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools. The likely reason is that their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low, since these men probably lack the very high levels of C required to negotiate modern educational systems and achieve the very highest level of success (in the top 2% of attainment). These men with very high IQ but only moderate C are presumably attending a wide spectrum of less-selective and lower-ranked undergraduate schools, or (less plausibly) dropping-out of the educational system altogether.<br /><br />A further factor may be that colleges are also selecting on the basis of high sociability, which can be measured as the personality trait of Agreeableness [1]. Agreeableness is higher in women. High Agreeableness would not be expected to lead to better educational performance, but instead would be likely to enhance an applicant’s resume with a record of participation in societies, charities and sports together with general friendliness and club-ability – these factors may well be counted in favour of a student and would also tend differentially to favour the admission of women.<br /><br />My hypothesis [1] that Conscientiousness (and perhaps Agreeableness) count for more than IQ at the level of elite college admissions receives some support from this data set, and could be tested further by longitudinal studies which measured IQ and personality during childhood (rankings of IQ and personality tend to be stable throughout life), and followed-up students through the school and college examination and selection process to observe the interaction between these variables.<br /><br />The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most selective US universities are not so much an elite for intelligence, as is commonly assumed, but more of an elite in terms of traits such as perseverance and self-discipline.<br /><br />Acknowledgement<br /><br />My thanks to Richard Lynn for his help and advice in preparing this editorial.<br /><br />References<br /><br />[1] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243.<br /><br /><br />[2] College Board SAT, 2008 College Bound Seniors. <http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Total_Group_Report.pdf>; [accessed 19.03.09].<br /><br /><br />[3] B.G. Charlton, Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – an example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 625–628. <br /><br /><br />[4] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).<br /><br /><br />[5] C. Murray, Human accomplishment. The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences 800 BC to 1950, HarperCollins, New York (2003).<br /><br /><br />[6] A.L. Duckworth and M.E.P. Seligman, Self-discipline gives girls the edge, J Educ Psychol 98 (2006), pp. 198–208. <br /><br /><br />[7] R. Lynn and P. Irwing, Sex differences on the progressive matrices: a meta analysis, Intelligence 32 (2004), pp. 481–498.<br /><br /><br />[8] L.V. Hedges and A. Nowell, Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, Science 269 (1995), pp. 41–45.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-19160516363560329842009-04-24T03:39:00.000-07:002009-04-24T03:43:53.363-07:00Sleep Elaboration–Awake Pruning (SEAP) memory theoryThe Sleep Elaboration–Awake Pruning (SEAP) theory of memory: Long term memories grow in complexity during sleep and undergo selection while awake. Clinical, psychopharmacological and creative implications<br /><br />Medical Hypotheses; 73: 1-4<br /><br />Bruce G. Charlton and Peter Andras<br /><br />bruce.charlton@buckingham.ac.uk<br /><br />***<br /><br />Summary<br /><br />Long term memory (LTM) systems need to be adaptive such that they enhance an organism’s reproductive fitness and self-reproducing in order to maintain their complexity of communications over time in the face of entropic loss of information. Traditional ‘representation–consolidation’ accounts conceptualize memory adaptiveness as due to memories being ‘representations’ of the environment, and the longevity of memories as due to ‘consolidation’ processes. The assumption is that memory representations are formed while an animal is awake and interacting with the environment, and these memories are consolidated mainly while the animal is asleep. So the traditional view of memory is ‘instructionist’ and assumes that information is transferred from the environment into the brain. By contrast, we see memories as arising endogenously within the brain’s LTM system mainly during sleep, to create complex but probably maladaptive memories which are then simplified (‘pruned’) and selected during the awake period. When awake the LTM system is brought into a more intense interaction with past and present experience. Ours is therefore a ‘selectionist’ account of memory, and could be termed the Sleep Elaboration–Awake Pruning (or SEAP) theory. The SEAP theory explains the longevity of memories in the face of entropy by the tendency for memories to grow in complexity during sleep; and explains the adaptiveness of memory by selection for consistency with perceptions and previous memories during the awake state. Sleep is therefore that behavioural state during which most of the internal processing of the system of LTM occurs; and the reason sleep remains poorly understood is that its primary activity is the expansion of long term memories. By re-conceptualizing the relationship between memory, sleep and the environment; SEAP provides a radically new framework for memory research, with implications for the measurement of memory and the design of empirical investigations in clinical, psychopharmacological and creative domains. For example, it would be predicted that states of insufficient alertness such as delirium would produce errors of commission (memory distortion and false memories, as with psychotic delusions), while sleep deprivation would produce errors of memory omission (memory loss). Ultimately, the main argument in favour of SEAP is that long term memory must be a complex adaptive system, and complex systems arise, are selected and sustained according to the principles of systems theory; and therefore LTM cannot be functioning in the way assumed by ‘representation–consolidation’ theories.<br /><br />***<br /><br />The nature of long term memory: instructionist or selectionist?<br /><br />What follows is an ‘in principle’ argument about the basic nature of human long term memory. Although the details of real human memory may differ; if the premises concerning the nature of complex systems are correct, then memory ‘must’ work in something like the way we describe [1].<br /><br />Human long term memory is typically described as a brain system for the storage of information about what has happened to an organism, so that the organism will be able to use this information in the future in order better to survive and reproduce (i.e., to increase its ‘fitness’). The kind of thing which is ‘stored’ in the long term memory system includes external stimuli (perceived via the five senses) and internal body states (perceived via the autonomic nervous system and messenger molecules such as hormones) [2]. Long term memories (LTMs) are typically conceptualized in terms of changes to brain circuitry [3], for example changes in the pattern of synaptic sensitivities [4].<br /><br />The vast capacity of human long term memory implies that memory must be an extremely complex system, and all complex systems share basic formal properties [1], [5] and [6].<br /><br />The usual description has memories as ‘representations’ of environmental entities being formed while an animal is awake and alert; after which these memories are edited, sorted, combined, selected or pruned (i.e., ‘consolidated’) while the animal is asleep. This could be termed an awake elaboration–sleep simplification theory of memory, or an awake representation–sleep consolidation theory.<br /><br />In contrast, we propose almost the opposite idea: that memories are elaborated mostly during sleep (when the brain is more-or-less cut-off from interaction with its environment) and these memories are then selected or ‘pruned’ by interaction with other brain communications when awake. Our theory could be termed the Sleep Elaboration–Awake Pruning (or SEAP) theory of memory.<br /><br />The traditional ‘representation–consolidation’ view of memory is ‘instructionist’ because the environment is seen as instructing the brain during awake periods. In other words, the complexity of memory is ‘exogenous’ because it originates in the environment; and complexity is transferred from the environment into the brain such that brain complexity ‘represents’, or in-effect mirrors, environmental complexity; then subsequently this complex information in the brain is summarized and thereby simplified mainly during sleep (i.e., the ‘consolidation’ phase).<br /><br />By contrast, we see the complexity of memories as having an endogenous origin: i.e., originating within the brain. We suggest that complexity of memories is generated within the brain during sleep, to create elaborate memories which are then simplified (‘pruned’) mainly during the awake period of alertness, when the brain is brought into a more intense interaction with both its internal and external environment.<br /><br />So the SEAP theory sees complexity as arising in the brain (mostly during sleep), and the editing of this complexity as a secondary consequence of the brain interacting with the environment when the animal is awake and behaving. Instead of the complexity of memories deriving from the environment, the complexity of memories is reduced by interaction with the environment – such that (for instance) in response to experience some memories are lost, others are abbreviated, while other connected memories are separated.<br /><br />The SEAP theory is therefore akin to ‘selectionist’ accounts of neurobiology such as those provided by Edelman [7] and Gazzaniga [8]. SEAP is a selectionist theory of memory in which random variation and combination generates non-adaptive complexity; and in which complexity is reduced and adaptiveness emerges by a competitive selection mechanism of differential growth and extinction of complex systems. The complex systems which survive selection and grow are those which are more adaptive in that particular selection environment.<br /><br />Like Edelman and Gazzaniga we regard memories as a consequence of the generation of diversity and selection among variants. But we also believe that only systems of communications [5] undergo selection, and therefore it is not necessarily or usually the brain’s physical units (such as neurons) which are selected [1] and [6].<br /><br />SEAP is therefore based on the axiom derived from Luhmann’s theory of complex systems [5] that systems of communications are primary, and the communicating components of these systems (such as neurons) are secondary [6]. So that long term memories should properly be conceptualized as abstract systems of communications between neurons; and not the particular pattern of anatomical entities such as neurons or synapses.<br /><br />Growth of memory systems<br /><br />Memory systems need to be self-reproducing in order to maintain their complexity of communications over time in the face of the universal tendency for entropic loss of organised complexity: i.e., loss of information. In other words, the intrinsic tendency is for memories to be lost [4], and memory systems need a mechanism whereby complexity can be generated and information can be maintained despite this entropic tendency.<br /><br />According to the SEAP theory, self-reproduction of memories generates surplus memory communications and a tendency for expansion in complexity of the memory system. So that self-reproduction of the memory system randomly generates memory complexity, and growth of new memories and combinations of memories will in turn create competition between the newly-generated memories.<br /><br />This competition between new memories leads to differential survival and extinction of memories and is the basis of the process of selection among memories in a manner precisely analogous to natural selection in biology, or the selection processes of the immune system. All types of selection share basic formal properties [6] and [9]. Natural selection and immune system selection both lead to adaptation to the environment, but by the generation of random complexity being subjected to pruning of ‘maladaptive’ (or, more exactly, less-adaptive) variants via interaction with the environment.<br /><br />Hence memory systems must tend to grow to ensure their own survival, and growth in this systemic sense entails growth in complexity. So the conclusion is that memory systems must have a tendency to grow in complexity; and superimposed on this tendency to growth are selection mechanisms that enforce adaptiveness.<br /><br />Selection of endogenously-generated memories occurs by interaction with other memories within the long term memory system, and also from the memory system’s interaction with other brain systems. Interaction between memories and their environment probably happens at the level of neurons – which are the units generating and receiving communications in the memory system. Presumably, individual long term memory (LTM) neurons will typically participate in ‘coding’ (communicating) more than one memory; and some LTM neurons will also participate in other neural systems.<br /><br />Selection of memory systems<br /><br />Selection is a consequence of these interactions at the neuron level between more than one memory sharing a particular neuron, and between memories and other brain functions in which that neuron participates. For example, a cortical neuron may participate in several memories relating to an individual person, and also in the awake processing relating to visual perception [4]. Some of these networks of communication will be compatible, and memories then may be combined and thus grow to generate more complex memories by including more neurons into the communications network, or by triggering more frequent communications from neurons already in the network.<br /><br />This may be conceptualized as memories being selected by their compatibility with ongoing personal experience. ‘False’ memories are therefore those contradicted by perceptions, while ‘true’ memories are those compatible with perceptions.<br /><br />And memories will also conflict and interfere, such that one memory system may suppress neuronal participation in another memory system; and such memories cannot be combined and cannot grow in complexity. Such memory systems are more likely to become extinct, and these memories be lost.<br /><br />The rationale by which memories either grow and increase in complexity, or interfere and reduce in complexity, are the structural and functional properties of the long term memory system – which are currently poorly understood. Presumably the sketchy current knowledge of how and why memory associations form, or how and why some memories rapidly disappear, are preliminary evidence concerning the structural and functional properties of the long term memory system.<br /><br />Memories are therefore subject to continual selection and reshaping by the organism’s ongoing waking experience, and each night memories will be elaborated and combined, so that the interaction between nocturnal memory growth and diurnal pruning means that memories will tend to evolve over time. Most memories will become extinct, but those which are not ‘contradicted’ by awake experience will continue to increase in complexity (mainly during sleep) until such a point that they do eventually lead to contradiction after which the erroneous memories will be pruned-back.<br /><br />Cyclical nocturnal growth of complexity and diurnal competitive pruning by the perceptual system is therefore the process by which long term memories on the one hand overcome the continuous tendency to loss of information by random entropic processes, and on the other hand maintain their adaptive relevance such that the long term memories (on average, and in the environment where they evolved) will tend to be fitness-increasing.<br /><br />The function of sleep in memory<br /><br />While sleep is advantageous to reproductive fitness in most (although not all [4] and [10]) animals, nonetheless understanding the ‘function of sleep’ has proved elusive [11]. While sleep very probably has to do with the editing and maintenance of long term memory [4], the specifics of this have proved hard to pin-down (e.g. [12] and [13]).<br /><br />The reason sleep remains poorly understood, we suggest, is that sleep does not really have ‘a function’ in terms of the organism as a whole. Rather, according to SEAP theory, sleep is the behavioural state during which most of the internal processing of the system of long term memory (LTM) occurs. The primary ‘function’ of sleep is therefore maintenance and increase of LTM complexity. Or, the function of sleep is the expansion of long term memories.<br /><br />This implies that serving as an adaptive ‘memory’ system for the organism is merely a secondary function of memory; and that sleep does not exist to improve the ‘accuracy’ (or adaptive relevance) of memories but instead to generate the complexity of memories.<br /><br />The main requirement for LTM is among complex animals living in complex and changing environments – i.e., situations in which organisms have a repertoire of potential behaviours, where each day generates different challenges, and when therefore animals stand potentially to benefit from memories of their previous experiences [4]. In such animals (including humans) LTM often has a vast information capacity, and therefore necessarily memory is vastly complex.<br /><br />The complexity of a system can be defined in terms of its having a much greater density of internal communication than its interactions with the non-system environment: in principle, the quantitative differential between internal communications and external interactions is a measure of system complexity [5] and [6]. Such internal complexity appears to an external observer as memory activity ‘autonomous’ from the rest of the organism, and with little or no communication between the LTM and its environment.<br /><br />In other words, the memory system (like any complex system) needs to be relatively cut-off from environmental interactions (especially the computationally-heavy load of visual stimulation). The long term memory system likewise needs to be all – but disengaged from initiating ‘action’ – therefore not engaged in purposive movement, with the organism either temporarily inert or merely performing repetitive and stereotyped motor behaviour. This set of conditions is closely approximated by the state of sleep [3] and [4].<br /><br />Sleep may therefore be considered as the cycle during which memory systems are most engaged in their primary activity of internal processing. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that sleep is important for memory functions [14] – but the perspective of abstract communication systems goes considerably further than this.<br /><br />From the perspective of the long term memory (LTM) system, sleep processing is its main activity; sleep allows its maintenance, self-reproduction and increase in complexity, and the ‘memory function’ of the LTM system is a subordinate activity which has evolved to enable the LTM system to emerge, survive and thrive in the context of the rest of the brain.<br /><br />In a metaphorical sense, the ‘memory function’ is merely rent paid by the LTM system to the organism.<br /><br />Clinical and behavioural implications of the SEAP theory<br /><br />Sleep<br /><br />Sleep disturbances – reduced amount or quality of sleep – are an extremely common aspect of clinical practice. Lack of alertness is another common clinical problem. According to the SEAP theory, both sleep disturbance and impaired alertness would both be expected to impair memory – but in different ways.<br /><br />Insufficient or too-often-interrupted sleep would presumably result in a reduction of complexity of communication in LTM: that is, a reduction in informational capacity of LTM. In summary, after sleep deprivation memories would be accurate and correct, but there would be a loss of content. The consequences of reduced complexity might include a reduction in potential total memory capacity of LTM, simplification of memories (less informational content, less combination of individual memories to form scenarios), and a greater probability of loss and extinction of memories. All of these predicted effects would be in principle measurable by properly designed memory tests.<br /><br />Because the SEAP theory predicts that the accuracy of memories is mainly a consequence of selection processes during the awake and alert period; so that a major consequence of reduced alertness would be reduced accuracy of memories. So long as sleep was un-impaired; lack of alertness would be expected to produce inaccurate or false memories but not to cause memory losses. There would be plenty of memories, and memories would not be lost to entropy, but memory information would be inaccurate, unreliable, maladaptive. This inaccuracy would happen because memories had not undergone effective selection by interaction with perceptual systems and other pre-existing memories which had themselves undergone selection. So memories might be incompatible with direct experience and also with previous knowledge.<br /><br />This situation of distorted and incoherent memories resembles the bizarre delusions which occur in psychotic states; and many psychotic states are associated with impaired alertness or ‘delirium’ [15]. Of course, sleep deprivation can itself be a cause of reduced alertness by causing increased sleepiness/impaired consciousness [16].<br /><br />So specific states of insufficient alertness would be expected to produce errors of commission (memory distortion, false memories, memory inaccuracy), while sleep deprivation would produce errors of memory omission (memory loss). These predictions are testable, given the development of specific psychological measurement instruments to distinguish these types of memory error.<br /><br />However, the specific consequences of sleep deprivation may be hard to predict without knowledge of the principles (or contingencies) of internal organization of the LTM. Furthermore, there may be various combinations of sleep loss and lack of alertness. One confusing factor is that sleep loss can itself produce drowsiness/delirium/lack of alertness (see below). These factors might explain the difficulties that sleep and memory researchers have experienced in precisely defining the function of sleep. For instance, the effects of ‘pure’ sleep deficiency on memory would be expected to be seen in terms of impairing the complexity of memories – but not necessarily on reducing the accuracy of memories.<br /><br />Psychopharmacology<br /><br />The SEAP theory implies that there is likely to be a trade-off and a phasic effect in the memory effects of some psychotropic drugs.<br /><br />There are many sedative drugs (e.g., benzodiazepines, sedative antihistamines) that improve sleep; and also several psychostimulant drugs (e.g., dexamphetamine, methylphenidate) that improve alertness. However, these mainstream drugs lack specificity of action, because sedatives tend to have hangover effects of drowsiness after wakening, while stimulant drugs tend to have ‘hangover’ effects of insomnia and other types of sleep disturbance [17].<br /><br />Therefore, the expected memory effect of sedatives might (assuming that sleep really is improved) be first to improve the recall of memories; but the secondary effect would be to impair the accuracy of memories (due to hangover and reduced alertness). The effect of psycho-stimulants might be the opposite: firstly to improve the accuracy of memories, then (when sleep disturbance became a problem) secondarily to impair sleep and increase the problem of memory losses.<br /><br />Perhaps no single drug would therefore be expected to improve memory, and the most likely possibility for pharmacological enhancement of memory would be alternate and sequential circadian dosages of short-acting stimulants and short-acting sedatives.<br /><br />Another possibility for memory enhancement might be methods for direct and specific brain stimulation – if it became possible technologically to initiate at will both restorative sleep and an awake and alert state of consciousness, and to impose these states alternately and sequentially.<br /><br />Creative trance<br /><br />It can be seen that the elaborative phase of long term memory bears considerable resemblance with the process of creativity as we usually understand it [18]. This suggests that most creative activity is likely to occur during sleep – indeed the characteristic ‘wide associative field’ of creative thinking has long been recognized as similar to the mental processes of dreaming. However, some creative people seem able to engage in associative thinking while relatively awake and alert – especially in a ‘trance’ state of altered consciousness of a kind traditionally associated with religious, spiritual, artistic and scientific breakthroughs and ‘eureka’ moments [19].<br /><br />Since the process of elaborative memory is prone to maladaptive errors of commission, the SEAP theory emphasises that the creative trance is also likely to suffer from the same errors of commission as occur during other states of impaired alertness – and the products of a creative trance state therefore typically require pruning or ‘editing’ by the alert mind (or by other people) in order to eliminate this type of error.<br /><br />Indeed, this two stage procedure of generation of raw material in a trance state of ‘impaired consciousness’ followed by the period of revision of critique in a state of alertness and clear consciousness is frequently seen in accounts of creativity. For example, the English poet and novelist Robert Graves described his writing procedure in precisely these terms: as firstly a self-induced trance state which generated the primary ‘raw material’, then a stage of making multiple revisions and re-shapings to the raw material when in a ‘normal’ state of alertness and concentration [20]. And the same stages are also observed in some examples of scientific creativity – the ‘breakthrough’ coming in a visionary state of actual sleep, sleepiness or some other altered state of consciousness – followed by a period of checking and validating [19].<br /><br />This model may also explain the role of alcohol in creativity, since a high proportion of creative geniuses (especially in the arts) also ‘abuse’ alcohol [18] and [22]. A very intelligent and knowledgeable person may find their creativity limited, and use the sedative (alertness-reducing) properties of alcohol to enable the associations which form the basic raw material of their creativity (so long as the dose of alcohol is not so great as to lead to inertia). The alcohol-fuelled raw material is then selected, pruned and revised when sober.<br /><br />Furthermore, creative geniuses may exhibit a phasic pattern of asocial versus social behaviour: a phase of solitude when they are cut-off from interaction with others so that their ideas (memories) may increase in complexity; followed by social engagement when these ideas are selected by interaction with the peer group.<br /><br />Autodidacts, who lack interaction with a peer group; are often very creative and original but their ideas often also tend to be wrong or ‘crazy’ because they have lacked the selection process of peer interaction. They have too much solitary introspective brooding, and not enough interaction. However, professionals working in institutions tend to generate ideas that are sensible and correct but which tend to be dull and unoriginal – merely incremental extrapolations from existing knowledge. They exhibit too much peer interaction, and not enough solitary brooding.<br /><br />The SEAP theory may therefore explain why most creative people are introverted [18], but that intermittent periods of peer interaction are also usually necessary.<br />Conclusion<br /><br />The Sleep Elaboration–Awake Pruning theory of memory is not merely a reversal of the mainstream instructionist theory of memory since the putative memory processes are quite distinct. In particular, SEAP regards the complexity of memories as being endogenously-derived rather than ‘representing’ environmental complexity; and SEAP replaces the concept of ‘consolidation’ during sleep with interactional pruning while awake. Ultimately, the main argument in favour of SEAP (or something similar) is that long term memory must be a complex adaptive system, and that complex systems arise and are sustained along the lines we have described, and not in the way assumed by ‘representation–consolidation’ theories of memory.<br /><br />Therefore, by re-conceptualizing the relationship between memory, sleep and the environment; SEAP provides a radically new framework for memory research, with implications for the measurement of memory and the design of empirical investigations in clinical, psychopharmacological and creative domains.<br /><br />References<br /><br />[1] Charlton BG, Andras P. Complex biological memory conceptualized as an abstract communication system–human long term memories grow in complexity during sleep and undergo selection while awake. In: Perlovsky LI, Kozma R, editors. Understanding complex systems (series): neurodynamics of cognition and consciousness, www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/books/papers/315.pdf; 2007 [accessed 12 March 2009].<br /><br />[2] A.R. Damasio, Descartes error: emotion, reason and the human brain, Putnam, New York (1994).<br /><br />[3] J.A. Hobson, The dream drugstore, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (2002).<br /><br />[4] J.L. Kavanau, Memory, sleep and dynamic stabilization of neural circuitry: evolutionary perspectives, Neurosci Biobehav Rev 20 (1996), pp. 289–311. <br /><br />[5] N. Luhmann, Social systems, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA (1996).<br /><br />[6] B.G. Charlton and P. Andras, The modernization imperative, Imprint Academic, Exeter, UK (2003).<br /><br />[7] G.M. Edelman, Neural Darwinism: the theory of neuronal group selection, Basic Books, New York (1987).<br /><br />[8] M. Gazzaniga, Nature’s mind: biological roots of thinking, emotions, sexuality and intelligence, Penguin, London (1994).<br /><br />[9] D.L. Hull, Science and selection, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (2001).<br /><br />[10] J.L. Kavanau, Is sleep’s ’supreme mystery’ unraveling? An evolutionary analysis of sleep encounters no mystery; nor does life’s earliest sleep, recently discovered in jellyfish, Med Hypotheses 66 (2006), pp. 3–9. <br /><br />[11] J.M. Siegel, Why we sleep, Sci Am (November) (2003), pp. 92–97. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (18)<br /><br />[12] P. Maquet, The role of sleep in learning and memory, Science 294 (2001), pp. 1048–1052. <br /><br />[13] J.M. Siegel, The REM sleep–memory consolidation hypothesis, Science 294 (2001), pp. 1058–1063. <br /><br />[14] M.P. Walker and R. Stickgold, Sleep, memory, and plasticity, Ann Rev Psychol 57 (2006), pp. 139–166. <br /><br />[15] B.G. Charlton, Theory of mind delusions and bizarre delusions in an evolutionary perspective: psychiatry and the social brain. In: M. Brune, H. Ribbert and W. Schiefenhovel, Editors, The social brain – evolution and pathology, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2003), pp. 315–338.<br /><br />[16] B.G. Charlton and J.L. Kavanau, Delirium and psychotic symptoms – an integrative model, Med Hypotheses 58 (2002), pp. 24–27. <br /><br />[17] D. Healy, Psychiatric drugs explained (4th ed.), Churchill Livingstone, Oxford (2004).<br /><br />[18] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).<br /><br />[19] B.G. Charlton, Alienation, recovered animism and altered states of consciousness, Med Hypotheses 68 (2007), pp. 727–731. <br /><br />[20] M. Seymour-Smith, Robert Graves: his life and work, Paladin, London (1982) p. 99–100 [1987 edition].<br /><br />[22] B.G. Charlton, Scientific discovery, peak experiences and the Col-oh-nell Flastratus! phenomenon, Med Hypotheses 69 (2007), pp. 475–477.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4837354812326654966.post-49633731073376220882009-04-02T03:32:00.000-07:002009-04-02T03:36:59.762-07:00Robert 'Humphrey' Havard - Medical 'Inkling'Charlton, BG. Reflections on a scientific paper of 1926 by the medical ‘Inkling’ Robert Emlyn ‘Humphrey’ Havard (1901–1985). Medical Hypotheses. 2009; Volume 72: Pages 619-620 <br /><br />Summary<br /><br />Robert Emlyn Havard (1901–1985; general practitioner and sometimes medical scientist) was the only non-literary member of the Inklings – a1930s and 1940s Oxford University club which included Lewis and Tolkien. Despite spending most of his time in family medicine, Havard was a productive medical scientist. While still a student at Cambridge University, Havard co-authored an influential study published in the Journal of Physiology of 1926 entitled ‘The influence of exercise on the inorganic phosphates in the blood and urine’. The style and structure of this paper provides a charming window into the elite medical science of the 1920s.<br />Article Outline<br /><br />Havard: The medical Inkling<br /><br />The Inklings was a group of friends and colleagues who gathered around Lewis in Oxford University during the 1930s and 1940s [1]. The group would meet weekly after dinner in the evening at Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College to read works-in-progress, and more informally to converse in the Eagle and Child (‘Bird and Baby’) pub in St Giles.<br /><br />Lewis is now world famous as author of the Narnia fairy stories, and was probably the greatest lay Christian writer of the 20th century. The other world famous Inkling was Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Charles Williams the novelist, poet and theologian was a later member. Other well-known Inklings included the philosopher Owen Barfield, Nevill Coghill – who became known as a Shakespearian director and published the best known modern English version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the ‘angry young man’ novelist and literary scholar John Wain, and the biographer Lord David Cecil. Lewis’s brother Warren (‘Warnie’) was usually in attendance: he was a popular historian of the France of Louis XIV. Tolkien’s youngest son Christopher later joined, and is now the only surviving Inkling – Christopher Tolkien is the most important scholar of his father’s work.<br /><br />In a recent book on the Inklings, The company they kept [2], Diana Pavlac Glyer notes that almost all of the regular members of the group were active authors – producing academic books, essays, novels, stories, plays and poems. The Inklings essentially functioned as a writers’ group that provided mutual encouragement, criticism and editorial assistance. Superficially at least, the odd-man-out was Robert Emlyn Havard (1901–1985), who was a general practitioner and sometimes medical scientist and the family physician for both Lewis and Tolkien.<br /><br />Havard appears in fictional form as the somnolent but shrewd character ‘Dolbear’ in Tolkien’s posthumously published story The Notion Club papers [3]; and Lewis’s Prince Caspian is dedicated to Havard’s daughter [4]. He had various nicknames bestowed on him by the group including ‘Humphrey’, ‘the Red Admiral’ (due to a beard grown while in the navy) and UQ – which stood for the ‘Useless Quack’. Indeed, in his sneering and pervasively unreliable biography of Lewis, Havard is depicted by AN Wilson as something of a buffoon [5].<br /><br />This was far from the case, as can be seen from Havard’s early career as a medical scientist. The most complete account of Havard’s life so-far is by Walter Hooper in his Lewis: a companion and guide [6]. Havard began by taking a first class degree in chemistry at Keble College, Oxford then studying medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and Guy’s Hospital in London to graduate with the Oxford medical degree of BM BCh in 1927. He took an Oxford DM (Doctor of Medicine) in 1934 while working at Leeds University in the Biochemistry Department, and in the same year returned to Oxford as a research fellow in The Queen’s College, and around this time became a general practitioner.<br /><br />Despite spending most of his time in general medical practice, Havard was a productive medical scientist with his name on more than two dozen papers published in first rank journals such as Nature, the Lancet, Biochemical Journal and the Journal of Physiology. He had three spells of research and publication – the first mainly to do with human biochemistry during the mid 1920s while he was still a medical student; a second studying more clinical aspects of biochemistry from the early 1930s as a medical graduate doing a doctorate in Leeds and Oxford, and the third from the early 1940s when working on anti-malarial drugs while an above-conscription-age volunteer for military service during world war two [2].<br /><br />Exercise, phosphates and fun<br /><br />During his days as a medical undergraduate in Cambridge, Havard co-authored (with George Adam Reay) an influential study published in the Journal of Physiology of 1926 entitled ’The influence of exercise on the inorganic phosphates in the blood and urine’. It was this amiable paper, with its depictions of a time when doing science was akin to an undergraduate ‘jape’, that provoked the following reflections.<br /><br />This paper was certainly not earth-shattering, nonetheless seems to have been one of the most cited of that year’s volume of J. Physiol. There are currently 13 references to be found on the Google Scholar database (http://scholar.google.co.uk) (quite a lot for such an old paper) with the most recent reference in 1971.<br /><br />The style and structure provides a charming window onto the very different science of the early 1920s; with its un-translated ‘varsity’ slang, ‘clubby’ style of referencing which lists only authors surnames without initials (in 1926 the membership of the Physiological Society was less than 400 [7]) and delightful vignettes concerning the conduct of experiments.<br /><br />One striking feature is that the experimental methodology reported in the paper is described as having changed significantly throughout the period of the experiment, and results are given both for before and after these trial-and-error modifications. A modern scientific paper would surely omit the earlier failed attempts. Indeed, the style of this article is less like a modern paper than a slice of laboratory life. The impression is that these scientific pioneers wanted to share not just their results, but the nuts and bolts of how results were generated.<br /><br />Havard and Reay describe how ‘the exercise took the form of the subject running up and down the laboratory stairs, 40 ft in height, until he was exhausted’ during and after which many one cubic centimetre blood samples were taken from the subject’s finger in order to measure the phosphate etc. – which seems likely to have been a painful procedure. However, one of the main subjects listed was ‘R.E.H.’ himself, so he could not be accused of inflicting on others something he avoided himself.<br /><br />Indeed, all the experimental subjects are listed by their initials, and presumably therefore identifiable by those ‘in the know’ (so, none of our present-day worries about ‘confidentiality’ are in evidence). In one of the tables we are told that that subjects include G.B. described as ‘A rowing man’, W.E.T. a ‘Rugby “Blue”’ (a ‘Blue’ was awarded to Oxford undergraduates for competing at the highest level of university sport), H.K.B.O. a ‘Running “Blue”’, E.H.F a ‘Sprinter’; and again Havard himself who is, by contrast to these athletes, only ‘Partly trained’.<br /><br />Collecting urine samples was a problem – we are informed that H.K.B.O. (despite – or maybe because? – of being a Running Blue) was unable to produce a urine sample for 7 min after his exercise. In another experiment R.H.B (‘Running’) was ‘as exhausted and distressed as any of the untrained subjects’ – which must have been rather humiliating for him. But then R.H.B seems not to have been a Blue.<br /><br />Three women were included as subjects. Miss (I assume it was a Miss) M.M. did exercise which was rather disdainfully dismissed as ‘not very vigorous’; Miss B.E.H. managed ‘more vigorous’ exercise; while the Amazonian Miss C.E.L. was able to perform ‘very vigorous’ exercise – unfortunately however after these exertions she was depicted as ‘very exhausted’. Havard noted, with obvious regret, that the women produced ‘anomalous results’ which were ‘difficult to account for’.<br /><br />In conclusion the authors reported that phosphate goes up a little then markedly down on exercise, and that trained men show less of these exercise-induced changes in their blood inorganic phosphate.<br /><br />A snapshot from a lost era<br /><br />My interest in this paper was stimulated because it presents in microcosm a snapshot of science from an all-but lost era of the ‘invisible college’ of collaborating and competing researchers who knew each other well-enough to dispense with formalities, and whose world was essentially private despite publication in widely circulated journals [8]. To the hard-nosed professional modern scientist, such early 20th century papers look eccentric and idiosyncratic. The paper is indeed ‘amateur’, but mostly in a desirable sense of describing science as an avocation done for intrinsic reasons and the esteem of peers, rather than a vocation rewarded by a secure income and managerial power.<br /><br />But much more important and striking is the total absence of exaggeration, hype, or spin: the paper’s openness, candour – in a word honesty. This marks the biggest and most dismaying contrast between publications of the science of 80 years ago and of modern science. There has indeed been a loss of innocence, collegiality and fun; but a loss of unvarnished truthfulness is the most serious change against current practice [9].<br /><br />I have said that Havard was not himself a writer, but on the evidence of this early article, Havard was an unusually vivid scientific author from his mid-twenties. Indeed he wrote essays and journalistic reviews dating back to his student days and continuing through into the 1950s. Furthermore, Havard contributed posthumous memoirs of both Lewis [10] and Tolkien [11].<br /><br />All of which helps explain why, despite not being a literary man, ‘Humphrey’s’ presence at the Inklings meetings was so highly valued.<br /><br />Acknowledgements<br /><br />I am grateful to Robert Havard’s eldest son John, who kindly gave me a list of some of his father’s publications, and provided fascinating background information by means of e-mail and telephone conversations. John Havard’s brother Mark (i.e. RE Havard’s second son) also corresponded, and reminded me that the doctor in CS Lewis’s 1943 novel Perelandra was named ‘Humphrey’.<br />References<br /><br />[1] H. Carpenter, The inklings, George Allen and Unwin, London (1981).<br /><br />[2] D.P. Glyer, The company they keep: CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien and writers in community, Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio (2007).<br /><br />[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Notion Club papers, Morgoth’s ring: history of middle earth volume IX, HarperCollins, London (1992).<br /><br />[4] C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, Geoffrey Bles, London (1951).<br /><br />[5] A.N. Wilson, CS Lewis: A biography, Collins, London (1990).<br /><br />[6] R.E. Havard and G.A. Reay, The influence of exercise on the inorganic phosphates of the blood and urine, J Physiol 61 (1926), pp. 35–48.<br /><br />[7] W.F. Bynum, A short history of the physiological society 1926–1976, J Physiol 263 (1976), pp. 23–72. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (0)<br /><br />[8] T. Kealey, Sex, science and profits: how people evolved to make money, William Heinemann, London (2008).<br /><br />[9] B.G. Charlton, The vital role of transcendental truth in science, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 373–376.<br /><br />[10] R.E. Havard, Philia: Jack at ease. In: T. James and C.S. Como, Editors, Lewis at the breakfast table and other reminiscences, Harvest/HBJ Book, New York (1979), pp. 215–228.<br /><br />[11] R.E. Havard and J.R.R. Professor, Tolkien: a personal memoir, Mythlore 17 (1990), pp. 61–62.Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.com