Gessner's Mistake, or A Defence Against the Sea-Devil: How the Mechanism of Science Functions. Column for Kompyuterra #98

←
Dmytro Shabanov
→

← Dmytro Shabanov → How We Are Deceived: An Analysis of a Portion of Anti-Vaccination Arguments from a "Primary Source" Gessner's Mistake, or A Defence Against the Sea-Devil: How the Mechanism of Science Functions First, Second, and Third Replicators According to Susan Blackmore, the Origin of Life, and a General Schema of Phase Transitions in Evolution

Column for Kompyuterra #97 Column for Kompyuterra #98 Column for Kompyuterra #99

Apothecaries and other vagrants give the bodies of cattle various appearances according to desire… I have seen in our country a vagrant who exhibited such a creature under the guise of a basilisk. Conrad Gessner We live in a world that has been fundamentally transformed by science. Had it not been for the scientific revolution, the number of people on Earth would be many times smaller, their way of life would be entirely different, and the modes of communication we now employ would have been inconceivable. Each of us may be certain: as we exist today, we exist thanks to science—this universal mechanism for gathering and expanding information about reality. The foundation of science is the transmission of information from person to person. Ultimately, this mechanism evolved on the basis of cultural inheritance—the transmission of information from individual to individual through learning. Cultural inheritance plays a significant role in adaptation to the environment in social insects (especially bees and ants), in birds (especially corvids and parrots), and in many mammals (especially carnivores, cetaceans, and primates). In the formation of our genus and species, the perfection of the mechanism of cultural inheritance (the development of language) played a decisive role. Approximately 200,000 years ago our species appeared—with an enormous brain (which has shrunk somewhat over the past several tens of thousands of years), complex social organisation, flexible behaviour, and sophisticated language. The steady growth of the human population, linked to technological progress, has been observed for a long time. Yet the true leap that transformed the world around us occurred only over the past few centuries. There are probably several reasons for this. One of them is that by that time a mechanism had formed for collecting useful information and purging it of unreliable fabrications. Let me emphasise: the collection of scientific information is not a purely private matter of science. Behind it stand electricity, engines, reduced child mortality, the communications networks that have united the globe, LED lamps, and automatic washing machines. What, then, has changed in it? To make the changes in our handling of information clearer, I shall recount the story of one of the classics in the branch of science closest to me. I speak of Conrad Gessner (1516–1565). [IMG_1] A brief digression. There is a style of writing that irritates me—that of passing judgement on the classics of science from the vantage point of current knowledge. A schoolboy who has picked up certain facts from the history of biology stands ready to clap the short-sighted Lamarck on the shoulder and point out Cuvier's errors. In doing so, any sense of an entirely different era and of the stature of the persons under discussion is lost. Do not suppose that in the title "Gessner's mistake" I have invested even a trace of irony at the expense of this most worthy man. He deserves our respect. In Gessner's day science was still small, and a single person could make a substantial contribution to its several branches. The son of parents who were not wealthy and died early, raised by an uncle of limited education, Gessner devoted himself to science with his whole soul. A philologist by training, he accomplished much in the field of comparative linguistics. He left his mark on mineralogy, medicine, and even the history of literature. But what chiefly captivated him was botany and zoology. Gessner is the author of the first multi-volume work on zoology, in which he integrated everything that had been learned about animals over the preceding two thousand years. In botanical systematics Gessner is a forerunner of Linnaeus. In Gessner one finds hierarchical classification, binomial nomenclature (not universally applied), and the principle of constructing a system on the basis of generative organs. Gessner read in nearly all European languages and cited every book known in his day. Naturally, the question of which sources could be trusted and which could not became acute for him. He exposed numerous forgeries and myths (see the epigraph), but, alas, he also believed many of them sufficiently to include them in his book. For example, Gessner recorded in his book the tale of a certain Geraldus concerning "Lenten geese," which hatch from the fruits of a particular tree and are therefore not counted as meat food. The veracity of this story was confirmed to Gessner under oath by a Zurich clergyman. [IMG_2] The Historia Animalium of Gessner contained about a thousand illustrations. Some of them represented genuine scientific value for their time—look, for instance, at these sturgeons (but note the incorrectly drawn caudal fins). Others are obvious fables, such as the whale-serpent and the sea-devil. Alas, it is precisely these fantastical illustrations from Gessner that designers use to adorn books devoted to medieval myths. [IMG_3] Gessner has earned the distinction of being considered the creator of the first zoological museum—a "cabinet of natural history." He understood that textual descriptions must be supported by definite objects accessible to other researchers, and was the first to collect such materialised knowledge. When, as he fought an outbreak of plague, he became infected himself (dying before the age of 50!), he reportedly asked to be carried to die in this museum, his beloved creation. [IMG_4] I am saddened that so vivid and worthy a man as Gessner has remained in the memory of most biologists as the author of books overflowing with fabrications. In reality, he strove to purify the sources of his information, and on the whole proved more critical than his age. His younger and longer-lived successor, Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), included even more fables in his books. And yet Gessner, of course, was mistaken. From the perspective of our own time, he would have needed to be far more critical—far, far more so. Can it be said that modern science rests exclusively on reliable facts? No. The most authoritative journals in the world are currently overwhelmed by an epidemic of retractions of articles whose authors have been found guilty of dishonest data reporting. Does this mean that science is unreliable? No. And it is precisely scientists who are engaged in purging science of dishonest work—not fighters against scientific conspiracies. Nevertheless, conspiracy theories emerge one after another. Of late I have read (and in part even heard) many arguments in favour of the following theory. The healthcare systems of Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries are subordinate to conspirators within the WHO (World Health Organisation). Members of this conspiracy conceal the fact that vaccines are harmful to health, and impose costly and dangerous procedures on broad segments of the population. The diseases that vaccines allegedly protect against are, by one version, trifles; by another, fabrications; by a third, divine punishment, and it is unnecessary to protect oneself against them by vaccination. The fact that artificial immunisation has created an environment in which these diseases cannot spread effectively is a cunning deception perpetrated by pro-vaccination advocates, deliberately inserted into medical and biology textbooks. What is real is one thing only—the profits reaped by vaccine manufacturers, and the delight of our overseas enemies, who rub their hands as they watch unnecessary injections undermine the health of their geopolitical competitors. And indeed: if a clergyman could commit perjury in order to preserve his ability to eat goose during Lent, is it really to be supposed that physicians are not prepared to sacrifice the health of children for the sake of their own incomes? Are there many alternatives to the picture I have described? I have encountered the theory that vaccination technology is perfect and requires no improvement nowhere. The basic version, as reflected in textbooks, in the statements of physicians, and in the scientific publications of epidemiologists, is as follows. Vaccination is an important and serious procedure, associated with certain risks. However, its effect far exceeds those risks. Vaccination helped to completely defeat the "red death"—smallpox—and to greatly reduce the danger from many other infections. The growth of the human population in the second half of the twentieth century was in substantial measure a result of the mass application of vaccines. The procedure of vaccination should be improved by developing safer and more effective vaccines, monitoring their effects, and all the while continuously maintaining immunity in the majority of the population, preventing epidemics of controllable diseases. On what basis can one choose between the second version (let us call it the basic version) and the first (although I presented it earlier, it is properly called the alternative version—it is alternative to the position of the overwhelming majority of the medical and scientific community)? One mechanism for such a choice is controlled studies. If we had populations identical from the standpoint of immunity and epidemic risk, had tested healthcare practices based on the basic and alternative versions on them, and then compared the results through impartial statistics… This can be forgotten. There are no such studies and no possibility—organisational or ethical—for conducting them. We must therefore seek something else. The primary argument is, of course, statistics. As far as I am aware, it convincingly confirms the basic version, though it is not entirely adequate (of many possible examples I shall cite one, written about by Dr Komarovsky). And the issue is not only that the accepted procedure conceals post-vaccination complications; it also conceals the number of victims of controllable infections (for more detail—again from Komarovsky). The alternative camp disputes all statistics. Did you personally collect it? Very well. Let us set statistics aside. What remains? Personal experience. Information from other people. Common sense. Logic. Some of us have personally witnessed the consequences of infectious diseases; others have witnessed post-vaccination complications. Infectious diseases are usually diagnosed more reliably, but there are not so many of them—those diseases that vaccination effectively opposes have become rare. Post-vaccination complications are frequently diagnosed by non-professionals who employ the logic of "after this, therefore because of this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). Then comes the principle of rumour amplification (recall what "Chinese whispers" is). In cases where vaccination resolves only part of the problem (as with BCG and tuberculosis), and the action of infections remains apparent, vaccines are made out to be causes of the infection rather than means of combating it. Thus, personal experience is important but, alas, does not provide a complete picture. And therefore I shall draw your attention to one further argument, for which I recalled Gessner. The alternative version is incompatible with the way in which the mechanism of science functions. I once discussed the theory that all of evolutionary biology is the product of a conspiracy of evolutionists. If my argument is reduced to a single phrase, it amounts to the claim that science is not something unified that can be managed from a single malevolent centre. Science is not monolithic. The medical community is not monolithic. The people who work with vaccines do not constitute a unitary, tightly managed organisation. Beyond the interests of their community, each of them also has personal interests (often in some respects at odds with those of colleagues) and their own conceptions of the boundaries of the permissible and the impermissible. Do I assert that everything is in order with medicine today? Alas, no. Its present state alarms me. But I think that the healthcare system has not yet collapsed, not because the state compels self-interested and dishonest physicians to work. No. Despite ruinous reforms and disproportionate funding (institutions for "the people" are one thing, those for the servants of the people quite another), medicine survives only because many decent people work within it. I can believe in the most serious shortcomings of the healthcare system, but I do not believe in a total conspiracy that has bound together all those connected to immunology as a science and to vaccination as a practice. And what of the alternative version? It rests on phenomena akin to the very sea-devil depicted in the illustration above. These are buttressed by the authority of particular individuals and break away from the collective knowledge accumulated through the operation of the scientific mechanism. It is precisely for this reason that exposer-figures such as Galina Chervonska or Alexander Kotok acquire particular significance within the anti-vaccination movement. The personality of whoever drily expounds the fundamentals of immunology is not especially important—in the view of anti-vaccinationists, such persons merely voice the disinformation devised in the secret centres of the conspiracy. But Chervonska and Kotok—they are heroes, knights who dared to throw down a challenge to a terrible dragon… This is one of the reasons why I ventured, in my previous column, to discuss the arguments of G.P. Chervonska personally. This is a situation in which personalities are of fundamental importance. And it is precisely for this reason that I had to base my discussion on words spoken by Chervonska herself—so that no one could say that the wild claims I was examining had been slanderously attributed to her by the criminal pro-vaccination lobby… The alternative version does not withstand comparison with reality, and the hero-denouncers who support it prove to be deceivers and manipulators. What then remains for us to do? What Gessner did—collect and interpret facts, only purging them of errors and forgeries more carefully than he did. ← Dmytro Shabanov →

How We Are Deceived: An Analysis of a Portion of Anti-Vaccination Arguments from a "Primary Source" Gessner's Mistake, or A Defence Against the Sea-Devil: How the Mechanism of Science Functions First, Second, and Third Replicators According to Susan Blackmore, the Origin of Life, and a General Schema of Phase Transitions in Evolution

Column for Kompyuterra #97 Column for Kompyuterra #98 Column for Kompyuterra #99