Triplet Arp 274 [Courtesy NASA] Sistine Chapel #1 [courtesy Wikimedia]

Is there any "conspiracy" or "group-think" among scientists that would cast doubt on evolution, big bang cosmology or related scientific theories?

David H. Bailey
29 Apr 2012 (c) 2012

Introduction

Some creationist and intelligent design material claims that scientists have conspired to keep from the public eye some important evidence undermining evolution (or other theories in the science-religion arena), or, at the least, that there is some "group-think" phenomenon going on, wherein scientists are reluctant to publish material that would draw these established theories into question. As a single example, the 2008 movie "Expelled" claimed that creationist and intelligent design writers have been systematically shut out from scientific journals and conferences, due to a "conspiracy" among the scientific establishment. In a similar vein, Philip Skell, a retired chemistry professor at Pennsylvania State University recently wrote that an unquestioning acceptance of Darwinism has persisted in the field of biology "mainly because too many scientists were afraid to challenge what had become a philosophical orthodoxy among their colleagues" [Skell2005].

Similar claims have been made about the emerging scientific consensus on global warming and the extent of human causation, and so the two movements (creationism and global warming skepticism) have joined forces to pressure legislators in several U.S. states to require that students be taught "all sides of evidence" on these issues [Kaufman2010].

How do scientists respond to these claims?

Conspiracies and the scientific enterprise

To begin with, there is a proper forum for debating scientific issues, one that has been established for centuries and is an essential part of what is properly known as modern science. This forum is most assuredly not amateur websites, newspaper columns, television news channels, or legislative bodies. Instead, the proper forum for scientific debate is the system of peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences sponsored by major scientific societies. When these issues are "debated" in any other settings, particularly by persons who are not active researchers in the particular field, such discussions should not be taken as serious scientific debate. And real scientific controversies are debated, sometimes rather heatedly, in scientific journals, conferences and even in blog posts and the like written by professional scientists.

Indeed, to professional scientists actively engaged in peer-reviewed research, claims that various sectors of the scientific community are engaged in a "conspiracy" to silence critics and to keep the "truth" from the public are most absurd nonsense. How, in a worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of competitive researchers, from every nation on earth and from countless different cultural backgrounds, could a secret "conspiracy" be maintained? As Ben Franklin wrote in his Poor Richard's Almanack, "Three can keep a secret, provided two of them are dead." [Franklin1732]. Or as the present author once quipped, tongue-in-cheek, in response to a state legislator who was skeptical of evolution (and who had suggested conspiracy), "You have no idea how humiliating this is to me -- there is a secret conspiracy among leading scientists, but no one deemed me important enough to be included!"

Here is another way to think about such claims: Worldwide, there are tens of thousands of senior scientists now in their 50s or 60s who have seen their retirement savings decimated by recent financial crashes, and who now wonder if the day will ever come when they are financially well off enough to either retire or at least conduct their research without the constant stress and distraction of applying for grants (most of which are never funded due to recent cutbacks in scientific budgets worldwide). Thousands of others are among the unfortunate homeowners who now face foreclosure due to the mortgage crisis. Compounding their financial stress is the fact that many of these same scientists now have children attending college, or soon to attend college, and they face financial ruin in the wake of rapidly escalating tuition bills (also a consequence of tight state and national budgets). Yet all one of these many scientists needs to do, to garner both worldwide fame and considerable fortune through book contracts and speaking fees, is to expose the conspiracy -- come forward with solid, unmistakable evidence countering one of more of these theories. After all, as emphasized in a recent Science letter signed by numerous prominent scientists (after brief mention of the prevailing theories of geology, big bang cosmology and evolution), "Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong." [Gleick2010].

So why haven't any of these scientists come forward to unveil the conspiracy? Obviously, because there is no conspiracy to unveil! There is no substantive evidence that any central precept in the arena of evolution, geology and cosmology is significantly in error (although errors will doubtless continue to be uncovered in peripheral issues).

It is worth pointing out that even in the highly publicized 2009 "climategate" episode (wherein an email exchange between some leading U.K. climate scientists suggested that their report was being "dressed" for public consumption), the conclusion of multiple blue-ribbon scientific panels who subsequently reviewed the matter was that there was no significant wrongdoing, and furthermore the climate scientists' research work and conclusions were basically sound (although they could have been more careful in their usage of statistical methods) [Adam2010]. Indeed, as 255 prominent scientists declared (in the same 2010 Science article mentioned above), the basic facts of climate change and the likely contribution of human activity to this change remain rather compelling, and point to the the need for world governments to take action [Gleick2010].

Furthermore, claims of "conspiracy" or "group-think" among scientists are countered by the numerous examples of public controversies that have erupted among scientists in the past few years. How can a "conspiracy" possibly be maintained within a community whose members so clearly express disagreements with others in their community? Here are a few examples of such controversies, documented in some cases below by press reports but still nonetheless representing the exchanges of qualified scientists.

The "hobbit" fossils

One of the best examples of public scientific controversy can be seen in the aftermath of 2004 discovery of Homo floresiensis, the remarkable new hominin fossil more commonly known as the "hobbit" due to its diminutive size, which remarkably co-existed with humans until as recently as 17,000 years ago [Brown2004; Wade2004]. The discoverers pointed out that the fossil combined an unusual mix of human and early hominid features, including a nearly complete skull that most resembled Homo erectus, but with legs more akin to Australopithecines. The authors theorized that the specimen represented a distinct species of hominins, and its diminutive size was due to an effect known as "island dwarfism" (the evolutionary reduction in size of a species confined to an island or other domain with limited resources).

A heated and rather public controversy ensued, which has been chronicled in illuminating detail in a recent article by Kenneth Krause [Krause2009]. The initial salvo was from biologists Maciej Hennenberg and Alan Thorne, who dismissed the notion of a separate species, saying that the small skull instead represented merely a case of microcephaly, a malady that causes dwarfism in afflicted humans. In response, Brown and Morwood acerbically described Henneberg and Thorne's article as "an extremely poorly informed, and ill designed, piece of 'research'." The microcephaly explanation was then boosted by a paper published by Indonesian researcher Teuku Jacob in the prestigious National Academy of Science, after a detailed comparison of the hobbit bones with the skeletal features of regional humans. What's more, Robert Martin of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago published a paper drawing into question the initial claim that the Hobbits had descended from Homo erectus.

But then Dean Falk, a leading expert on hominid brain evolution at Florida State University, compared Flores casts with molds made from the braincases of several great apes, an australopithecine, a Homo erectus, an average-sized Homo sapiens, a pygmy, and a microcephalic Homo sapiens. She found that although the Flores find closely resembled Australopithecine africanus (a hominin species that lived 2-3 million years ago) in terms of relative brain-to-body size, its brain's general shape was most similar to that of Homo erectus. Falk also observed that the Flores specimen's cast bore little likeness to that of the pygmy and was least similar, among the various candidates, to microcephalic humans.

Subsequently additional hobbit skeletons were found, casting more doubt on the microcephaly alternative explanation. Some published studies concluded that the tools found on Flores were quite similar to those of Homo erectus, but others said they were more similar to apes and australopithecines. Still other studies analyzed the feet of the specimen, and additional studies were published on the cranium. Critics of the new species designation have asserted that there are numerous other pathologies that need to be examined. For example, a 2010 study noted similarities between anatomical features of the Flores specimens and persons afflicted with hypothyroid cretinism (iodine deficiency) [Oxnard2010]. The consensus of peer-reviewed studies seems to be shifting to support the original hypothesis, namely that the Flores skeletons represent a related but distinct hominin species, although others sharply disagree [Callaway2009; NS2010; Kaplan2011].

Other examples in prehuman fossils

Another good example of public controversy in the area of human evolution was seen in 2009,when a team of researchers led by famed anthropologist Tim White of U.C. Berkeley published their finding of a rather complete fossil skeleton named Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi, which was dated to 4.4 million years ago. This is more than one million years older than Lucy, the famous skeleton of the species Australopithecus afarensis [Wilford2009]. White's team concluded that the skeleton was likely in the path that led to modern humans. However, in May 2010, a team led by Thure Cerling of the University of Utah published a study questioning this conclusion, noting that an analysis of soils and silica in the area surrounding the find indicated a tree-savana or bush-savana environment (and thus not a likely habitat for hominins) [Wilford2010]. White's team testily replied that the Cerling team ignored "the totality of the fossil, geological and geochemical evidence" presented it the original papers, including the abundant presence of fossilized mammals adapted to wooded life. This fact, according to White, established that Ardi lived in "closed habitats," not in open savanna and thus was plausibly a human ancestor [Wilford2010]. In February 2011, Terry Harrison of the Center for the Study of Human origins at New York University and some other researchers again questioned whether Ardi is a human ancestor, saying that this species may have split off from the main branch of ancient apes before the last common ancestor linking humans and chimps. In response, Tim White called the Harrison team's article a "six page illustrated op-ed piece" [Harmon2011].

A closely related controversy is the status of a newly discovered species known as Australopithecus sediba (or A. sediba, for short), which was discovered by Lee Berger and his nine-year-old son Matthew in 2008. These fossils, which have been dated as between 1.977 and 1.980 million years ago, are also thought to be the true ancestors of Homo sapiens by some. This is based on findings such as its hands, which are more humanlike than that of Homo habilis, which other scientists believe was the proper ancestor. These controversies are summarized in a nicely written feature article in the April 2012 Scientific American [Wong2012].

Other examples in biology

In December 2010, a team of NASA-funded researchers led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a young astrobiologist, startled the scientific world with an announcement that they had coaxed a species of bacteria originally found on the shores of Mono Lake in California to utilize arsenic as a substitute for phosphorus, one of the six primary elements of all known life on earth. Cultured in an laboratory environment starved of phosphorus but with plenty of arsenic, generation after generation the bacteria colony substituted more arsenic into its biological processes, until experiments showed that arsenic had even been incorporated into the organism's DNA [Overbye2010a; WolfeSimon2010].

The Wolfe-Simon paper has already generated significant controversy, with some scientists questioning whether the NASA team's conclusions are justified based on their experimental results [Hayden2012]. Rosie Redfield, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia, in a blog posted shortly after the announcement, called the NASA team's analysis "shameful" and concluded, "If this data was presented by a PhD student at their committee meeting, I'd send them back to the bench to do more cleanup and controls." [Redfield2010]. Steven Benner, an astrobiologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida, noted that because these researchers challenged well-established knowledge about biochemistry, their burden of proof was very high. Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, he said, "This is an exceptional claim, and exceptional claims require exceptional proof." [Brown2010].

One other example worth mentioning in the evolutionary biology arena is the recent public spat over a theory, variously known as "kin selection" or "inclusive fitness," which has been devised to explain the evolution of complex social systems such as those seen in ants and bees. This theory, which originated with William Hamilton in 1964, hypothesizes that altruistic behavior, such as a worker bee caring for the offspring of a queen (rather than producing and caring for its own offspring), can arise when the worker is closely related to the queen. In August 2010, Edward O. Wilson, one of the world's pre-eminent biologists, teamed with mathematical biologists Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita to argue that it was not necessary to invoke Hamilton's theory to explain this behavior. Several leading scientists quickly criticized the Wilson-Nowak-Tarnita paper. These criticisms came to a head in March 2011 with an open letter signed by nearly 150 evolutionary biologists, published in the prestigious journal Nature. In spite of these criticisms, Wilson, Nowak and Tarnita remain unmoved. Nowak, for instance, regards this and other such letters as "the reactions of people who are clinging to an obsolete theory" [Pennisi2011].

Examples in physics, astronomy and cosmology

Controversies also are commonplace in the world of physics, where experiments involving state-of-the-art equipment sometimes give contradictory results until additional work clarifies the competing claims. Perhaps the best-known example was the September 2011 announcement that scientists conducting an experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy (an experimental facility under the Italian Alps), had measured neutrinos traveling at faster than the speed of light, which would contract Einstein's special theory of relativity [Overbye2011b]. In the wake of this finding, some physicists proposed frameworks where such a phenomenon might be plausible, but others were unconvinced and insisted that there must be a flaw in the experimental measurements. Finally, in March 2012, the matter was settled when the original research team announced that they had found a problem with a cable connecting to a GPS receiver that might explain the discrepancy. Shortly thereafter another team of researchers who share the same underground laboratory, announced their finding that precisely confirmed Einstein's theory. Thus while the earlier announcement caused considerable sensation for a few months, in the end the matter was resolved by more careful experimental methods [Overbye2011b].

Another example occurred in April 2011, when researchers at the Tevatron collider in Illinois announced a "bump" in their data that suggested a new and as yet unidentified particle, evidently outside the scope of the current "standard model" of physics, had been detected [Gefter2011]. Within a few weeks, dozens of papers had been written attempting to present explanations of the new results. However, in June 2011 another research team, after performing an independent analysis using a different detector, reported that they saw no "bump" whatsoever -- indeed, their experiment showed "good agreement with the standard model." Additional work by both teams will be required to resolve this glaring discrepancy, but in the meantime at least one of the participants acknowledged that "It's been a little bit tense over the last few days. ... [I]t's like two sports teams competing." [Mckee2011].

Big bang cosmology, especially string theory and the recently hypothesized "multiverse," is another arena of active controversy. Since the 1970s, string theorists been exploring the notion that all physical phenomena are, at the lowest level of reality, tiny vibrating strings and membranes vastly smaller even than a proton. Among the advantages of string theory is that it appears to neatly represent all known physical forces, including gravity. The original dream of string theory was that theorists could eventually derive a single, unique theory, from which all aspects of our current physical laws, including various constants such as the speed of light and the strength of gravitational attraction, could be deduced. Instead, recent research in the field has led to an enormous ensemble of possible universe designs, which by one reckoning number 10500. Some researchers have reacted to these developments by redoubling their efforts to derive a unique theory. Others have resorted to the anthropic principle, saying that the reason that our universe is so remarkably well-suited for intelligent life is merely an anthropic-principle-based selection effect -- if it were not so finely tuned for intelligent life, we wouldn't be here discussing the topic -- see Anthropic and Multiverse.

But string theory and the multiverse have their detractors, even among researchers intimately familiar with research in the field. Mathematician Peter Woit writes that "any further progress toward understanding the most fundamental constituents of the universe will require physicists to abandon the now ossified ideology of supersymmetry and superstring theory that has dominated the last two decades" [Woit2006, pg. 264]. In a similar vein, physicist Lee Smolin writes, in sharp criticism of the string theory-multiverse community [Smolin2006, pg. 352]:

We physicists need to confront the crisis facing us. A scientific theory that makes no predictions and therefore is not subject to experiment can never fail, but such a theory can never succeed either, as long as science stands for knowledge gained from rational argument borne out by evidence. There needs to be an honest evaluation of the wisdom of sticking to a research program that has failed after decades to find grounding in either experimental results or precise mathematical formulation. String theorists need to face the possibility that they will turn out to have been wrong and others right.

Conclusion

In summary, there is no evidence whatsoever that there is any sort of "conspiracy" or "group-think" among scientists in the areas of geology, evolution, physics or cosmology. To the contrary, when one peers beneath the smooth public veneer of the world of scientific research, one finds, more often than not, heated debates and disagreements, particularly at the forefront of research where genuine issues remain unresolved. In fact, in a real sense, virtually every scientific paper ever published (and hundreds of thousands are published each year) represents one voice in a debate, either supporting or debunking some other hypothesis or study. Indeed, it is utterly absurd to think that a "conspiracy" or "group-think" could persist more than momentarily in a worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of professional scientists, representing many different nations, cultures and religious traditions, who competitively critique each other's work in scientific journals and conferences, and who evaluate each other's research proposals in highly competitive bids for government funding.

Thus, while the system of scientific publication and review is not foolproof, and there have been lapses, nonetheless it works very well in rooting out sloppy reasoning, weak experimental support, as well as any attempts to impose an "orthodoxy" in the field. Scientific progress is real.

References

[See Bibliography].