Dr. H. Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal Science since 2019, recently described on Substack a discussion that occurred during the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In the closing plenary session, he posed to a “panel of scientific leaders” the question, “Who is a scientist?”
The answers from the audience “ranged from very narrow (just people who are doing or planning research) to very broad (every living human).”
Then Thorp offered his opinion:
My view is that everyone who contributes to the scientific enterprise is a scientist. It’s not just lab work that makes up science. It’s science policy, science communication, scientific illustration, science education and many other things. In fact, you could make the case that our current struggles aren’t about whether we’re succeeding in the laboratory but rather whether all of the other parts of science are succeeding. Perhaps they would do better if we recognized the participants as science rather than as so-called “alternative careers.”
Let’s call this the “We’re All Scientists” formulation. Needless to say, especially in mathematics and physics, that’s problematic even for those committed to social justice and inclusiveness. Thorp doesn’t define what is included in, and more importantly, who is excluded from “contributes to the scientific enterprise.” So, what we’re left with is yet another, “Let’s all hold hands around the campfire and sing kumbaya” exercise. Or, as my colleague Dr. Chuck Dinerstein put it, “a more erudite version of ‘everyone gets a trophy.’”
According to Thorp’s definition, even groups who impede science innovation and technology and outright quacks who promulgate dangerous disinformation could also be said to be participating in “science communication” and, therefore, are “scientists.”
Coincidentally, on February 21, a day before Thorp’s posting, his hometown paper, the Washington Post, had published an exposé of four such groups: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense, Front Line Doctors, Informed Consent Action Network and Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance. Each of these groups has enjoyed a financial bonanza from “routinely buck[ing] scientific consensus,” such as by selling quack nostrums and raising unfounded doubts about the safety of vaccines.
But according to Thorp’s formulation, we’re supposed to accept that they’re just unorthodox scientists performing science communication. Kind of like Edwin Goodwin, the amateur mathematician who convinced Indiana’s General Assembly in 1897 to legislate mathematics, claiming that he could square the circle by redefining as 3.2 the value of π, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. (For those who don’t remember high school math, π=3.14159… You can’t build a bridge or a space capsule using π=3.2.) Only the intervention of a Purdue University math professor who reschooled legislators as the bill neared a vote in the state senate saved Indiana from a monumental embarrassment.
Thorp also failed to mention that researchers who improperly manipulate data or purchase manuscripts from “paper mills” — a huge and expanding problem — should be expelled from the fraternity of legitimate scientists.
Thorp’s Substack post outlining his revisionist definition of a scientist was immediately greeted with astonishment and consternation in the form of two comments on it. The first consisted of a quote from a 2016 Caltech commencement speech by surgeon and writer Dr. Atul Gawande:
Related on the SLP
Science is not a major or a career. It is a commitment to a systematic way of thinking, an allegiance to a way of building knowledge and explaining the universe through testing and factual observation. The thing is, that isn’t a normal way of thinking. It is unnatural and counterintuitive. It has to be learned. Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense.
Here is the second:
A scientist is someone who follows the scientific method. Period. Unfortunately, we have reached a point in our culture where almost no one knows what the scientific method is, anymore. Broadening the definition of scientist out so much that it is meaningless is not helpful. This is a signature element of those forces of darkness that are frantic to destroy science; redefine the meaning of words so that no one knows what they are talking about anymore.
I knew well two previous highly distinguished editors of Science: Daniel Koshland and Donald Kennedy. They were incapable of such New Age drivel. But there’s more that shows that Science under Thorp is in the thrall of DEI. On August 15, I received an email that began thus:
Subscribing to Science is reason enough to become an AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] Member, but it’s just the start of what you’ll support. You’ll also be helping us create a more just future where everyone has a place in the sciences. (Emphasis added.)
That, of course, takes us back to Thorp’s theme of “everybody is a scientist.” And yes, I realize that a blurb like that is not a big deal, but other recent actions are. AAAS annually bestows the prestigious Cleveland Newcomb Prize, which is “awarded to the author or authors of an outstanding research article published in Science…. An eligible paper includes original research data, theory, or synthesis; is a fundamental contribution to basic knowledge or is a technical achievement of far-reaching consequence.”
What, then, deserved recognition for an article that contains “original research data, theory, or synthesis; a fundamental contribution to basic knowledge or is a technical achievement of far-reaching consequence.” Perhaps the description of a new “universal” flu or COVID vaccine that would induce an immune response to a conserved portion of the virus so that immunity would be long-lasting and not require yearly shots? Or possibly the discovery of a new, previously unknown subatomic particle that offers important insights into the nature of matter? Maybe a breakthrough in quantum computing that dwarfs the capacity of even current supercomputers?
Drum roll, please: The most recent Cleveland Newcomb Prize went to “Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and Northern Rockies.” I thought I was reading something from The Onion, like their memorable, “Scientists Awestruck By Biodiversity Within Single Italian Sub,” as in sub sandwich. The dispositive consideration was clearly in keeping with Thorpian reasoning: Many of the 89 coauthors are Native Americans, including Chief American Horse and Afraid of Bear-Cook).
One small step for science, one giant leap for inclusion. And a black eye for the AAAS.
Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. He was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology. Find him on Twitter @HenryIMiller
