Scientific controversy

“ And by investigation, I do not mean the hasty, captious, angry notice of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of pronouncing on a question; but the slow, modest, pains-taking examination, that is content to wait upon Nature, and humbly follow out her disclosures, however opposed to preconceived theories or mortifying to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they discredit the science they really profess, by their despotic arrogance and exclusive skepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very science they love, affect more liberality and candor. ”

“ Such cases have seemed to me almost the only ones for which it is worth while entering into controversy.”... “These polemics of the scientific world are very unfortunate things; they form the great stain to which the beautiful edifice of scientific truth is subject. ”

“ During the untoward series of industrial dislocations which have—let us be courageous and admit it boldly—throttled the business life of our fair city these past days, there has been a great deal of loose talk about scientific prevention of scientific—scientific! Now, let me tell you that the most unscientific thing in the world is science! ”

“ It is probably not too much to say that the hope of progress--moral and intellectual as well as material--in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity. ”

“ Such has true science ever been and such it should be. And such science is springing up in our times; but, on the one hand, such true science is denied and refuted by [523] all those scientific people who defend the existing order of society, and, on the other hand, it is considered empty, unnecessary, unscientific science by those who are engrossed in experimental science. ”

“ Each one gives views and ideas new to the rest. When science is a republic, then it gains; and though I am no republican in other matters, I am in that.” Other causes there were, doubtless, tending to his isolation,265 amongst them an old jealousy, now long dead, against the Royal Institution on the part of some of the Fellows of the Royal Society. Above all, probably, was his detestation of controversy.
PRIORITY IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.
PRIORITY IN PUBLICATION.
Priority in scientific discovery was a matter which deeply concerned one whose life was devoted to scientific pioneering. ”

“ That is, you lay down certain false principles, repudiated by reason and common sense, and which all real science rejects with contempt, call these false principles science, and when we protest, you cry out with all your lungs, aided by all the simpletons of the age, that we are hostile to science, would prevent free scientific investigation, restrain free manly thought, and would keep the people from getting a glimpse of the truth that would emancipate them, and place them on the same line with the baboon or the gorilla! ”

“ So in biological research we see the disastrous effects of individual and national rivalry. They are shown in the contradictory results of false methods of observation, in the endless repetition of similar painful experiments, in the strife of conflicting theories, and in the practical failure of results obtained from the lower animals when applied to the human race.
The moral sense of a noble profession may well be appealed to, to create a conscience which shall check the present grave abuses of so-called research. ”

“ Many persons however, actuated by the very kindest of motives, but insufficiently acquainted with the necessity, conditions, results, and advantages of experiments, unwittingly obstruct the discovery of new knowledge in physiology and pathology, by attempting to prevent experiments being made upon animals. ”

“ The present astounding multiplication of drugs, of inoculations, of mutilations in the practice of medicine, with the eager attempt to prove each new invention by a formidable array of imperfect statistics, is a striking object-lesson in the present day, of the error into which false methods of research have led many members of a noble and humane profession. It is a fallacy necessarily proceeding from a wrong view of what science really is. ”

“ II.—I say we have despised science. "What!" you exclaim, "are we not foremost in all discovery, [9] and is not the whole world giddy by reason, or unreason, of our inventions?" Yes; but do you suppose that is national work? That work is all done in spite of the nation; by private people's zeal and money. We are glad enough, indeed, to make our profit of science; we snap up anything in the way of a scientific bone that has meat on it, eagerly enough; but if the scientific man comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. What have we publicly done for science? ”

“ Is not this same thing the cause of the confidence of men in positive critical-experimental science, and of the devout attitude of the crowd towards that which it preaches? At first it seems strange, that the theory of evolution can in any manner justify people in their evil ways; and it seems as though the scientific theory of evolution has to deal only with facts, and that it does nothing else but observe facts. ”

“ Is it to continue, without other limitations against cruelty than those which are self-imposed, without legal restriction or restraint, so long as civilization endures, ever widening its scope, ever increasing the hecatombs of its victims, until uncounted milions shall have been sacrificed? Is protest against excess to grow weaker, until the ideal of humaneness in the laboratory shall become a scoff and a byword? Is approval of any research in the name of Science to become stronger until it shall cover the vivisection of human beings as well as the exploitation of animals? ”

“ "Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences should be settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs must be met by something more than empty and unsupported assertions. Yet during the two years through which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length. Professor Owen has not ventured to bring forward a single preparation in support of his often-repeated assertions.
"The case stands thus, therefore:—Not only are the statements made by me in consonance with the doctrines of the best older authorities, and with those of all recent investigators, but I am quite ready to demonstrate them on the first monkey that comes to hand; ”

“ He not only calls his methods scientific: he contends that there are no other scientific methods. When you express your natural loathing for his cruelty and your natural contempt for his stupidity, he imagines that you are attacking science. ”

“ The march of Science is bit by bit conquering even the provinces which most stubbornly refuse allegiance to it. But, meanwhile, among the obstacles it has to overcome are certain prejudices and misconceptions which are the grounds of a deep-seated dread. No better illustration can be given of the general suspicion and dislike of science as science than the great stress which is laid on the "iniquity of vivisection," because experiments on animals are pursued for purely scientific purposes. ”

“ Science unchecked by practice will certainly lead us astray in the future, as it has done in the past, and just as a 'lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,' so a new scientific fact imperfectly understood has potentialities for evil which are unbounded. ”

“ In truth, the extreme absurdity of our later anti-geologists in virtually contending, in the [Pg 416] controversy, that their ignorance of an interesting science, founded on millions of determined facts, ought to be permitted to weigh against the knowledge of the men who have studied it most thoroughly, forms their best defence. It secures them against all save neglect. ”

“ It is the ever-open appeal to the final court of fact, of what is, that condemns false assumptions, guarantees the truth of science, and safeguards the freedom of scientific inquiry. To allow any group of men, however eminent, or any body of science, however sound, [254] to deprive us of this right of appeal and bid us disbelieve in the evidence of our own senses, if it contradicts their theories, would be to submit to the tyranny of dogmatism, and to be faithless to the cause of truth. ”

“ But we are engaged on a scientific enquiry,—and if there be one principle more than another upon which Science insists, it is that we should prove all things, not by authority, but by evidence,—and that we should seek evidence, not in pre-conceived ideas as to what should be, but in observation of what is. Accordingly, while we are most ready to accept Transformism or Darwinism should we find solid reasons for doing so, we are bound, for the sake of Science, to demand unimpeachable proofs before subscribing to doctrines which are made responsible for so much. ”

“ Upon the living bodies of Amerian soldiers, upon lunatics in asylums and babes in institutions and patients in charity hospitals, experiments of this character have already taken place. Is utility to Science to be considered the standard by which human actions are to be judged? Then, even within the present century, experimentation upon human beings may be openly acknowledged as a defensible method of investigation. ”

“ Instead of previously employing and paying scientific investigators to make experiments in physiological and chemical science, to enable us to combat it successfully, we vainly attempt to apply our present stock of chemical and physiological knowledge to ward off the difficulty. ”

“ It is true that were we to judge the handling of the question by the knowledge of to-day, we might be astonished at the narrow-mindedness of the judges, trying to uphold their untenable views against the established results of scientific research. ”

“ Is the great German one who brings discredit upon his class by thinking instead of knowing? and is the party which characterizes the creative conceptions of Nature as degradations, to be accepted as the arbiter of the proper limits of science? We remain of opinion that scientific men are the best judges of the legitimacy of their own inquiries, and that they will honor themselves most by the bold and fearless prosecution of these inquiries, let them lead wherever they may. ”

“ The world knows something of the history of scientific controversies, and will listen with caution, but it rejects upon principle the application of scientific tests, and refuses point blank to subscribe to any articles of scientific belief, or to acknowledge an infallible scientific head. ”

“ But man not having been taken into account when these conceptions were first formed, and when this method was fixed, the question comes to be—how does this application of them answer when man forms the object of research? For it is at least possible, that, in his case, the usual mode of scientific procedure may misgive.
It is unfair to condemn anything unheard. It is idle and unreasonable to charge any science with futility without at least endeavouring to substantiate the charge, and to point out the causes of its failure. ”

“ No harm can come, and I believe much good would come, from our perfect readiness to accede to, nay, to advocate, the antivivisectionist desire to limit all experimentations to chartered institutions or to such private investigators as might be selected by a properly chosen authority.... At present the greatest harm is done true science by men who conduct experiments without preliminary knowledge to choose, without judgement to carry out, withoutout true scientific training or method, and only in the interest of vanity. ”

“ Reform canot make headway so long as the dungeon is dark and the laboratory is locked. The strongest line of defence is the maintenance of ignorance, even though we have the curious anomaly, existing nowhere else, of Science covering herself with darkness and hiding behind ignorance. It was one of the ablest advocates for vivisection that America has produced, who, in an address before the American Academy of Medicine, condemned the secrecy of the physiological laboratory as "a grave and profound mistake," adding that "if there be necessary secrecy, there is wrong." ”

“ The scientific temper is capable of regenerating mankind and providing an issue for all our troubles. The results of science, in the form of mechanism, poison gas, and the yellow press, bid fair to lead to the total downfall of our civilization. ”

“ But how could such things form an ideal of scientific knowledge? How could it be in the spirit, and to the interest, of science to recognize them? They would merely be for science brute facts which it was forbidden to investigate. And must not science on principle hold out for the right to inquire into everything, to test every belief, however true it may seem? How, then, can it be the ideal of science to adopt an ideal which would stop inquiry?
Nor will it suffice in reply to point to the fact that the sciences continually assume the truth of the premisses they argue from. ”

“ They are wrong in alleging that the ideas for which they can find no foundation in the subjects to which scientific method has hitherto been applied, are therefore unscientific, or sure to disappear under scientific investigation. ”

“ We can take a steam-engine or a watch to pieces, examine their parts, repair them, and put them together again, thus proving our knowledge in this realm of Nature. But a living thing cannot be treated in the same way. Not only the difference of animal type forbids destructive method of investigation, but as the type rises in the scale of creation the growing fact of individual idiosyncrasy increases the uncertainty of erroneous method.
Therefore the law of scientific research, which forbids the destruction of phenomena to be studied, is profoundly true. ”