Normally one might suspect that a collection of articles ranging from art history to atomic energy, from terrorism to sewage disposal, would be leftovers hastily flung together to meet a commitment. Such is not the case here.

Dr. Brian Martin, who lectures at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia, has for many years done research in the field of intellectual suppression. For this volume he deliberately chose dissenting experts, in a variety of fields, to tell their stories, the aim being to see the commonality of criticism and the reactions from establishments subject to critical examination. In his introduction, Martin explains how establishment experts always have more power than critics, even when the gadflies are right. The power comes from the inherent prestige of high office, from control of what gets published, and from the backing of powerful and wealthy organizations. It is hard for lone individuals to make an impact (it is too easy to label them as cranks) unless these individuals have an expertise to match the establishment defenders. And even then it almost always is necessary for critics to get the support of a pressure group and some co-operation from the media.

This engaging collection begins with Sharon Beder's account of forcing the Sydney Water Board to acknowledge faults in its method of dumping nearly raw sewage into the ocean. The fact that Beder previously had worked as an engineer enabled her to face the authorities as an equal. The second account is by Mark Diesendorf, who has devoted much time to questioning socially undesirable scientific activity. He found himself forced to become an expert in the debate over fluoridation, a questionable form of mass medication adopted by much of the English-speaking world, and here he explains what went on. (My only criticism of the book is the confused way in which Diesendorf's material has been type-set.) Edward S. Herman then deals with the way democratic governments have seduced the mass media into believing, and spreading, the line that some countries are lepers deserving of the utmost condemnation and economic sanctions... plus the occasional righteously delivered bomb. The fact that a leper country overnight can turn into a friendly nation, or vice versa, somehow doesn't seem strange to editors and publishers, content to push the Establishment Line.

Harold Hillman's account of unsavory practices in the field of microbiology should have special interest to readers of this journal, and I'll return to it below.

In the late 1970s Michael Mallory and Gordon Moran innocently tried to explain that a portion of Simone Martini's famous Guido Riccio fresco, in Siena, Italy, had been done by a close follower. They were amazed at the passions that erupted and how experts refused to accept evidence that in other situations they would accept. Too many people had money and prestige at stake for the truth to be accepted.

The final article is an account of Dhirendra Sharma's lonely battle to question the Indian Government's policy to develop atomic power (and weapons) while ignoring renewable (especially solar) energy. With virtually no help from colleagues -- most of whom were dependent on the establishment for their incomes -- Sharma grimly struggled against the might of the establishment. In the end it was only public support from overseas colleagues that enabled him to retire with dignity from his university. We may feel that Sharma's ordeal couldn't happen in a democracy, but it does. Henry Hillman, a senior biologist at the University of Surrey (England), in a country that takes pride in its long tradition of parliamentary democracy, was treated shamefully. Of the two, I feel Hillman has had the worse of it. Sharma was a critic of scientific and energy policy. It is hard to get consensus in policy matters, as by definition the effects are so wide-ranging. While admiring his lone struggle, I can see the rationale for India's rulers wanting to become a nuclear power in a world which already has nuclear powers. But Hillman's case involves scientific research -- specific experimental results -- in which a country's defense or survival are not at stake.

From the start of his career, Hillman saw shoddy science being conducted, for example raw data manipulated, even deleted, to fit expected results. As years went by he became more and more suspicious of the basic fundamentals of his research fields. He therefore systematically looked at the techniques and assumptions used in sub-cellular fractionation, electron microscopy, histochemistry, chromatography, electrophoresis, and radioactive measurements. His request for funds denied (no-one wanting the basic assumptions challenged¹) he pressed on and found large areas where standard procedures had never been validated. They were taken for granted but easily could be wrong. This work was derided and suppressed. The same thing happened with much of his research. Despite hundreds of experiments demonstrating that a chemical, adenosine triphosphate, could show biochemical effects, his papers were rejected by journals, even though no-one could fault his work. The results contradicted orthodoxy, which was enough to have them rejected.

Using new techniques, Hillman was able to see a membrane surrounding the nucleolus. Since standard electron microscopy could not detect this membrane, journals refused to accept the research. Hillman went on to demonstrate that the orderly internal structure of cells, as depicted in textbooks, was impossible. While some of Hillman's colleagues privately conceded that the textbook explanations were rubbish, they refused to support him publicly against the establishment.

What I find amazing are Hillman's allegations regarding nervous tissue: he says he has shown that the CNS (Central Nervous System) is composed of only nerve cells and naked cells; that synapses don't exist and are an artifact of electron microscopy; and that the popular view of nerve transmission is highly dubious.

I've long wondered about the complicated way messages are thought to be relayed in our nervous systems: an electrical signal is switched into a chemical signal, back to an electrical signal, back to chemical, back to electrical.... No engineer would dream of designing such a system. But then Mother Nature didn't make us from scratch, but through evolution adapted existing features for new uses. Nevertheless the nerve-conduction system has never seemed sensible. My lack of scientific expertise prevents me from evaluating this work; but I have enough schooling in the sociology of science to see that Hillman has been a victim of establishment experts who simply don't want their comfortable world all shook up and to be forced to re-learn the basics.

Hillman had to resign. He writes (p.123): "I believe that I am the only tenured academic in Britain who has lost his tenure because of his or her scientific views."² The distressing thing about his forced resignation is that the Establishment were unable to refute many of his criticisms of scientific conduct and technique, and were unwilling to replicate his experiments. He was judged guilty not because he was found to be wrong, but because his work exposed dishonest science and awkward anomalies. This sort of behavior continues; in the cold fusion controversy a lot of bad language has been uttered and reputations smeared. Some Italian researchers felt strongly enough to go to court. They write, of the anti-cold-fusion Establishment:

"... the leaders of the scientific community don't want to do their homework and prove their point (either experimentally or theoretically). They simply dismiss everything that supports this new scientific development and, when cornered by fact and logic, they explode in a burst of insults, while, when required to give a proof of their charges (fraud like cold fusion should in the end be proven!), they appeal to the right of 'free press'" (Del Giudice & Preparata, 1996). Some people pay a high price for having ethical standards, as Brian Martin points out in his conclusion. There are lessons to be learned from these stories, he writes: most people are more obedient than necessary, even taking into consideration threats to career or character; it is hard to alter the behavior of an establishment that has become fixed over time (inertia itself is an impediment to change); but the hopeful part is that the lone individual, if determined and knowledgeable enough, can change the world.

Don Eldridge
P. O. Box 5563
West End, QLD
AUSTRALIA 4101

¹This reminds me of John Ott's Health and Light (N.Y.: Pocket Books, 1977), in which he outlined experiments that called into question a great deal of biological research in which sources of light were not controlled. To my knowledge, no one has gone back to redo the research. Correcting the mistakes of the past is not a fast-track way to promotion or prizes. Ott also demonstrated the harm done by using sunglasses, yet their use is still urged by "experts."

²This was tragically ironic, for a short time earlier Hillman had published an article in Times Higher Education Supplement dealing with academic freedom. He had ended his piece expressing thanks that he lived in a democratic country where tenure was respected.

References

Del Giudice, Emilio and Preparata, Guilianio (1996). Jury still out on cold fusion? Nature, 381, 729.

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