Whistleblowing scientists
A simply tremendous program was on ABC Radio National’s ‘All In The Mind’ on Saturday, featuring the “degradation rituals” dissident scientists face when they come up with results that challenge the order of things. The program, with guests Prof Brian Martin and Dr Sandrine Thérèse, both science sociologists, features examples of whistleblowing fallouts that include the treatment of a scientist who reported adverse cellular responses to mobile phone emissions. One of the most interesting features of Martin’s and Thérèse’s analysis is that it codifies peer and public attacks on dissident scientists in anthropological terms (such as “degradation ritual”). This makes it easier to tease out what is happening when, for example, methodology that is the gold standard, or entirely uncontroversial, becomes ‘faulty methodology’ in the cases of ‘controversial science’ (such as mobile phone technology).
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2010/2901944.htm
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