A propos: A very humble and quiet question
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When I wrote my last message, I had the intuition that the list was
reaching about how much it could handle in terms of debate given its
composition. I was indeed surprised to see the message reprinted by
Sanyakhu-Sheps Amare because I found it to be misbalanced in its two
parts (the Central Park linear analogy was certainly much more convinc-
ing than the discussion of Mbeki's intentions). But another Cherokee
woman informed us a while ago about a project to make DNA tests manda-
tory to Native American Indians in the US state of Vermont to prove who
they are (http://www.dickshovel.com/maslack.html). Thus I think that
one may see how "minorities" are suspicious of what science may do to
them. In that respect the contribution may help to discuss "scientifi-
cally" the relevance of Cherokee's fears.
Thus I tried to give my best in my last message, to show some of the
West shortcomings:
* failure to discuss prostitution and its role in AIDS transmission
(thus the recount of Lutaya's helicopter flight);
* failure to acknowledge the role that persons like Lutaya had in curb-
ing the epidemics (without him what would have been governments' or
NGOs' efforts? Let us hypothetically imagine Claudia Schiffer an-
nouncing in 1989 an HIV positive test, it would have been an elec-
trical shock in Germany. This is the kind of shock that Lutaya's
song generated);
* failure to discuss the way research spending is done:
I believe from my own experience of research that most R&D is still
public, but the human trials Phase are financed by pharmaceuticals.
I would have liked to propose research ideas for a vaccine, or at least
share the ideas that I had when I read the papers of Zagury in 1987.
But I would feel too timid to do so. People would tell me "who are you
to talk so much scientific nonsense?" Thus it seemed much easier to
discuss political issues than research ones. In fact I wouldn't mind
someone explaining to me why such or such research idea would not work,
but we seem to only want to discuss great results.
I am appending a text that concluded the discussion with Dr. Eugene
Garfield that may shed some light on how research discussions could
take place in the future.
Christian Labadie
mailto:CLabadie@t-online.de
--
Does progress have a tail?
By S.
Dear Dr. Garfield,
Recently, I have met my former director for chemistry studies. After
many years of scientific research accompanied with the success of nu-
merous well cited publications, he is now unemployed and does neither
find a position at the university nor in research, nor in the companies
for which he had done applied research. There is nothing more sad than
an unemployed professor. Other colleagues had to accept positions as
administrators for "Windows-NT" or as presentators of drugs to doctors.
This generation of which I am speaking has still seen cows dragging
loads when they were children. They went to farms to pick up the milk
and eventually did take part in the work on the fields. They have seen
and committed themselves to the last 20 years of progress. Today they
find themselves with nothing. Their own publications don't belong to
them any longer as they had given all their rights to the editors who
now sell these articles online. Regarding their inventions they won't
earn a penny. The scientific "soul" of those researchers who are unem-
ployed is dying within themselves, as for keeping with the progress of
science, one has to continue to read, to lead or to practice science in
the lab.
Today the question for those unemployed of keeping up to date in their
field is a similar question as the one that arises for developing coun-
tries in order to join the global progress. I think that this online
meeting is perhaps an occasion to think about the recommendations one
could make to developing countries regarding knowledge. Thus, I would
like share my impressions as a chemist on scientific activity and pro-
gress.
I don't know how women of this group feel about the question asked by
Christian regarding citations <<Would it be possible to also describe
citations as a communication process?>>. When I meet a women at a con-
ference who works on the same subject as I do and who talks about re-
sults that resemble mine, I'm happy. It is reassuring. It's a confirma-
tion of the quality of my work. Therefore, yes certainly, citations are
from that point of view a sort of communication.
Men seem to react differently, become silent, don't surrender anything
due to being afraid that someone could steal their results. They don't
speak until everything is completed like defining a territory that be-
longs to them. They tend to claim a domain of science. Isn't it a domi-
nant behaviour typical for men to want to be the first? It does not
leave much place for dialogue. Nonetheless << you can't find anything
in the sciences that isn't questioned, and that isn't uncertain; that's
the nature of empirical inquiry >> as has been quoted recently by Chom-
sky.
In some cases it is even fundamental that one revisits science, that
one repeats the tests. But if a scientist has no possibility to publish
her/his results, or if she/he is accused of plagiarism, then there is
little chance that she/he will spend time on that. Indeed, you have
written in one of your essays that we will read this summer <<I've al-
ways believed that authors should be held by journal editors to the
same 'due diligence' standards required of inventors by patent offices.
That is, authors should formally assert and verify that their ideas are
original and do not replicate discoveries already reported in the ar-
chives.>> [Garfield 1994].
Even sometimes a researcher could re-make a test by coincidence and
publish its results without necessarily noticing that it has already
been published. Regarding this matter you reply to Mohammed: <<If you
are referring to bibliographic plagiarism or bibliographic amnesia then
I think you should read what has been written about using bibliographic
coupling to uncover such cases. In other words, if an author fails to
cite the correct references then you should look at the papers he does
cite and track their citation histories. This will frequently uncover
unwitting or deliberate duplications of research.>>.
However this comes back to what Christian said: <<In ... respects [to]
uniqueness and obsolescence aren't legal and science citation indexes
rather different?>>. Because if it's possible to detect a re-edit or a
replication of tests by virtue of recursive search of citations, the
reader can not only help himself, but one could develop a programme
that does it automatically. The only question remains whether there is
a mistake, an offence, or an intention to damage. Don't we step into
the domain of collective conventions? If this is "bad" in the Western
countries, why should it necessarily be so elsewhere? Is there a law
that interdicts to repeat? In case of patents, in fact, there are trea-
ties. But are we obliged in a legally binding fashion to consider every
discovery as a patent? Isn't it a question of morality?
The question of double discoveries is not new. One may remember in fact
that Nicola Tesla had deposited more than hundreds of patents on oscil-
latory phenomena such as alternating current. His patents also cover
the x-ray before Roentgen and the radio before Marconi (according to
John J. O'Neill). Some of his patents haven't been honoured as it seems
to have been the case during the purchase of Westinghouse by General
Electrics ... probably because the financial market had understood the
danger a genius like him could represent for the world: due to a patent
he could become the lord of the world.
But this question of communication in science either as involuntary
repetition or volunteer former tests is also liked to knowledge and its
transmission. This is also a lightening question for developing coun-
tries. Is it possible to learn as well in a passive way (by reading) as
in an active way (by research) as how we in the West had the chance? I
do think that a combination reading, performing and writing helps.
Kerry Miller wrote [Rossin 2000]: <<Education relies primarily on
books. "Students" "learn" from "teachers" (each term, of course is
book-defined), but what they learn is not what the teacher knows, but
what the teacher *points to as "knowledge">>. He refers to the Phaedrus
of Plato in which Socrates explains why is opposed to archives:
<<'Theuth, my paragon of inventors,' - replied the king, -'the discov-
erer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will ac-
crue to those who practise it. So it is in this case; you, who are the
father of writing, have out of fondness for your offspring attributed
to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it
will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will
rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs
instead of on their own internal resources. What you have discovered is
a receipt of recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pu-
pils will have the reputation for it without reality: they will receive
a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in conse-
quence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part
quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom
instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.'>>
Reading these words, I can't prevent myself to think about unemployed
scientists, who still know but can't teach to whomever. Isn't it the
divorce between knowledge and progress?
In another text that we will read this summer, Georges Canguilhem cites
Vladimir Jankelevitch: <<Compared with the primal state, progress is a
form of decadence. The proof of that is that, in the long term, it pro-
duces nostalgia for lost origins and a desire for regeneration through
naivety: 'Degeneration is one of progress's illnesses'>>.
Jankelevitch had probably written this in search of answers for the
atrocities committed by Germany. In fact today, observing the persons
without an employment in Europe, the vagabonds, one can see a regres-
sion of their health (and not necessarily of their mental or moral but
really of their physical health as some of them have to live on the
streets and suffer from malnutrition). It is poignant to know that
among them there are some of the "authors" of the progress of which we
benefit. It does bring up a feeling of nostalgia, as those magical and
rare moment of "eureka" are only an instant in history.
The way we "worship" the pioneers of science, places more importance on
the progress itself than on the humans: only one person matters. But
isn't it a matter of convention? The inner engine of progress was in-
deed the well-being from which humans were supposed to benefit. Today
some of those who "generated" progress with their thoughts and efforts
are among those who "die" from its consequences (unemployment), and
they had witnessed the last days of a society that was almost self-
sufficient (autarchy). Among the important factors that made them self-
sufficient was the "knowledge" of the medicinal properties of plants. A
"science" that women were transmitting from generation to generation:
every single woman on that chain mattered and the discovery point was
lost. In our "developed" countries progress has erased a vast majority
of this traditional "knowledge", even the plants that those women were
gathering may disappeared. Our generation knows that it can no longer
claim this lost society and the scientific "show" must go on: progress
won't stop.
But should so-called "developing" countries repeat this error? Should
their development mean as well a loss of their traditional knowledge,
such as that of the plants?
The answer may lie in the model of conservation of the knowledge. In-
deed women place more importance in the communication that comes with
the transmission of knowledge (because everyone becomes actor of the
knowledge transmission). If we would not idealise the heroes of sci-
ence, the behaviour of scientists would be less dominant and more con-
siderate of the two contemporary catastrophes: mass-unemployment and
the exponential decay of bio-diversity.
What's your opinion about progress?
S.
--
Eugene Garfield (1994) The Concept of Citation Indexing: A Unique and
Innovative Tool for Navigating the Research Literature.
http://www.isinet.com/isi/hot/essays/1.html
Noam Chomsky (2000) Reply About Aids and Pharmaceuticals, etc.
http://www.zmag.org/chomaidsforum.htm
John J. O'Neill (194x) Prodigal Genius - The Life of Nikola Tesla
Antonion Rossin (2000) L'Anapesto - Elementi di linguaggio negativo.
Ed. Paideia, Firenze.
http://www.ns.sympathico.ca/kerryo/intro.htm
Georges Canguilhem (1998) The decline of the idea of progress. Economy
and Society Volume 27 Numbers 2&3 May 1998: 313-329
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