Michael Riordon - Bold Scientists: Dispatches from the Battle for Honest Science

Bold Scientists: Dispatches from the Battle for Honest Science
2014 Michael Riordon

First published in 2014 by
Between the Lines
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Riordon, Michael, 1944, author
Bold scientists : dispatches from the battle for honest science / Michael Riordon.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77113-124-7 (pbk.).
ISBN 978-1-77113-124-7 (epub).
ISBN 978-1-77113-124-7 (pdf).

1. SciencePolitical aspects. 2. ResearchPolitical aspects. 3. ScientistsCanadaInterviews. 4. ScientistsInterviews. I. Title.

Q 175.5. R 55 2014 500 C 2014-902459-2

Cover design by Gordon Robertson
Text design by Gordon Robertson

Between the Lines gratefully acknowledges assistance for its publishing activities from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program and through the Ontario Book Initiative, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For the wondrous Brian

My deep thanks to:

The bold thinkers who trusted me with their thoughts, stories, and challenges.

And many kind folks who provided suggestions and contacts, smoothed my travels, asked questions and made arguments, invaluable for testing and clarifying free-range thought.

And the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, without which this book would not exist. They are essential, and under constant threat from the wrecking crews. Also the Access Copyright Foundation, which supported the creation of a companion blog, Nature, Science & Power: Questions need to be asked.

And all who care enough to think for themselves, to imagine, to ask questions, and to resist the seduction of easy answers in a world where easy answers always carry price tags.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.

SIR FRANCIS BACON , Essays, 1625

S CIENTISTS KNOW . Sometimes they know less than they think they know, but often they know more than most of us, at least in the particular realms they study. In a time when science carries a certain authority, we tend to believe its practitioners as some of us believe clergy. They are supposed to know.

Sadly, some scientists turn this trust into a lucrative trade as experts for hire, paid to convince the rest of us that we have nothing to fear from whatever product or process their benefactor designates: genetic manipulation, smoking, nuclear power, pharmaceuticals, tar sands, global warming. The pay is good, and a well-trained mind can rationalize almost anything. Other scientists go about their work with their heads down, wrap themselves in innocence, and deny any responsibility for malignant end uses of their knowledge. In doing so, they disconnect cause from effect.

I went looking for scientists of another kind, people who create new paths by defying the status quo, bending the rules, and asking prickly questions they arent supposed to ask. Such actions have costs. But these thinkers have each concluded in their own way that the price of silence and complicity is intolerable. These are not famous people, except in circles that know enough to appreciate their contributions. I hope youll find each of them as unique and splendid as I do.

My original impulse to write this book sprang from an encounter some years ago with 17th-century politician-philosopher Francis Bacon. I was writing a radio play about the origins of the King James Bible, which was published during Bacons lifetime. Bacon famously asserted that if we could break down nature into its partsher parts, he saidwe would learn her secrets and thus be able to control her to our benefit. The tool he proposed for this conquest was analytical science.

Four hundred years later, Id say the results are mixed, and questions need to be asked. Some of them are vital to our survival.

Im no scientist, but my work as a writer is propelled by a spirit of restless inquiry, a lifelong habit of asking questions and then questioning the answers. I consider this spirit fundamental to any pursuit of knowledge, including science.

Bold Scientists emerged from my own fear, anger, and curiosity. Im afraid for the earth, for imagination, for compassion, truth telling, humility, and common sense. We are so smart in our inventions that we believe were omniscient, and so powerful in our effects that we believe were omnipotent. But we are neither, and believing we are makes us crazy.

Im angry because so few people hold so much power, with no just cause, and do so much harm with it. Im angry because so many of us fail to exercise the limited but real power we still have. I include myself in that charge: its not that I do nothing, but neither do I do enough.

To satisfy my curiosity, Ive searched for a range of scientists in Canada, the United States, and Central America who insist on revealing knowledge that the authorities would prefer to conceal. The scientists you meet here may seem a random selection, but I chose them carefully for who they are, what knowledge they pursue, what they find, and what they risk.

Bold Scientists plumbs the deepening fault lines between nature, science, and power. By nature I mean the universe, which is not of our making and in which we are becoming, more and more, a pest. By science I mean the pursuit of knowledge, which can be sought and used in infinite ways. And by power I mean the capacity to act, which all of us have.

Tyrants are fond of telling us there is no alternative. They lie. There are alternatives, always. When tyrants prevent us from seeing them, visionaries insist on imagining alternatives and fighting for them.

Bold Scientists emerges from that imagining and that fight. I think of it as an antidote to despair.

When the River Roared

A T KAWEHNO:KE the leaves have fallen. The air is crisp, the sky laden with dark cloud, winter pending. Traffic whines overhead, crossing the steel-grate bridge between Canada and the United States. Linking the two countries, the bridge stands squarely on Akwesasne Mohawk land. Off the islands south shore, the bulk freighter Maccoa glides east. The freighter, registered in Cyprus, rides low in the water, its passage through the St. Lawrence Seaway marked by a deep throb.

Flowing around Kawehno:ke, named Cornwall Island by English invaders, the St. Lawrence Riverso named by French invaderslicks at manicured shores and wetlands bustling with invisible life. On a windless day the river flows deep and flat, slate grey, silent. It wasnt always so docile.