A further look at
your bio, John paints a rather bitter picture of someone with impressive credentials who changed at some point in his life.
I've had experiences with people lying about me at work. It can be quite a bizarre experience. And there are always researchers here and there who fake their work or steal credit for someone else's. But I have a hard time buying it to be as widespread as your paper implies. What makes that field so problematic?
I am not sure how to reply to this. Much of "A Habit of Lies" just reports the facts. I never had any doubt that my work was correct because, in physical and evolutionary respects it made more sense than the alternatives. Nonetheless I don't deny other people the right to a viewpoint, my objection is to ignoring alternatives, not to disagreeing with them. The lie is not disagreeing with my work, it is the act of reporting
two theories despite the knowledge that
three have been published.
I went into science as somebody who believes in rational scientific method and I was shocked at some of the behaviours I saw, which are just deceit - the instance I describe is not the only instance I have seen. I was shocked also at the refusal of the scientific authorities to address such matters. There is a book called "A Rum Affair" by Karl Sabbagh about John Heslop Harrison (HH), a well known Professor in the mid 20th century at, I think, at Newcastle University. He was a powerful and well connected scientist and he was a liar. The greater part of his scientific output consisted of fabricated observations and fabricated interpretations. Not only that, but his behaviour was known to the scientific hierarchy during his later career. A private report was commissioned, from a Cambridge don, Simon Raven. It documented the evidence against HH. The report was then lodged in Trinity College library and no action was taken.
Behaviour like this, both the frauds and the cover up are much more common than you are acknowledging and it is continuing today. In the case of "A Habit of Lies," I can show that scientists in Cambridge and elsewhere have falsely reported their field, I can show that their departments and institutes know about these fabrications and refuse to act. I can show the same of journals - notably "Nature" and "Science" - basically, just the same behaviour as 40 years before.
Let me be clear - fraud is a crime and scientific fraud is not a victimless crime. I find it bizarre that you, and others like you, choose to comment on the anger of the victim of fraud but do not comment on the fraud. Victims of are entitled to express their anger at such behaviour and I make no apology for writing "A Habit of Lies," in part as an expression of my own, righteous anger. However, "A Habit of Lies" is more than just anger. It is in the interests of the entire scientific community, the entire community, that scientific frauds should be corrected. "A Habit of Lies" remains the only correction of the frauds to which I refer.
My subsequent work arose from "A Habit of Lies," particularly from Popper's evolutionary approach to scientific method. I think it is an interesting piece of work; indeed, I think bioepistemic evolution and its applications have proven to the most interesting pieces of scientific work I have ever done. However I do not intend to forget its roots. I am not willing, in my presentation of it, to wipe the slate clean and posture as if everything in science is rosy.
Now, as when I worked in science, there is far too much institutionally validated deception calling itself science. There is far too much shallow rubbish masquerading as deep thought, imposed from above and immunized from any criticism. I, at least as much as anyone else, have both the right and the expertise needed to point those things out.
