necessity of personally evaluating evidence. Unfortunately, both viewpoints are not fully developed in the same place; we must actively seek the conflicting arguments.
Suppose a scientist writes a paper that has repeated ambivalent statements such as “X may be true, as indicated by Y and Z; on the other hand, . . .” That scientist may be objective, but the paper probably has little impact, because it leaves most readers with the impression that the subject is a morass of conflicting, irreconcilable evidence. Only a few readers will take the time to evaluate the conflicting evidence.
Now suppose that one scientist writes a paper saying, “X, not Y, is probable because. . .” and another scientist counters with “Y, not X, is probable because. . .” Clearly, the reader is challenged to evaluate these viewpoints and reach a personal conclusion. This dynamic opposition may generate a healthy and active debate plus subsequent research. “All things come into being and pass away through strife” [Heraclitus, ~550-475 B.C.]. Science gains, and the only losers are the advocates of the minority view. Even they lose little prestige, because their role is remembered more for its active involvement in a fascinating problem than for being ‘wrong’, if the losers show in print that they have changed their minds because of more convincing evidence. In contrast, the loser who continues as a voice in the wilderness does lose credibility (even if he or she is right).
“It is not enough to observe, experiment, theorize, calculate and communicate; we must also argue, criticize, debate, expound, summarize, and otherwise transform the information that we have obtained individually into reliable, well established, public knowledge.” [Ziman, 1969]
Given two contradictory datasets or theories (e.g., light as waves vs. particles), the scientific community gains if some scientists simply assume each and then pursue its ramifications. This incremental work eventually may offer a reconciliation or solution of the original conflict. Temporary abandonment of objectivity thus can promote progress.
Science is not democratic. Often a lone dissenter sways the opinions of the scientific community. The only compulsion to follow the majority view is peer pressure, which we first discovered in elementary school and which haunts us the rest of our lives.
A consensus evolves from conflicting individual views most readily if the debating scientists have similar backgrounds. Divergent scientific backgrounds cause divergent expectations, substantially delaying evolution of a consensus. For example, geology has gone through prolonged polarizations of views between Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere geologists on the questions of continental drift and the origin of granites. In both cases, the locally observable geologic examples were more convincing to a community than were arguments based on geographically remote examples.
This heterogeneity of perspectives and objectives is an asset to science, in spite of delayed consensus. It promotes group objectivity and improves error-checking of ideas. In contrast, groups that are isolated, homogeneous, or hierarchical tend to have similar perspectives. For example, Soviet science has lagged Western science in several fields, due partly to isolation and partly to a hierarchy that discouraged challenging of the leaders’ opinions.
***
The cold-fusion fiasco is an excellent example of the robustness of group objectivity, in contrast to individual subjectivity. In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that they had produced nuclear fusion in a test tube under ordinary laboratory conditions. The announcement was premature: they had not rigorously isolated variables and thoroughly explored the phenomenon. The rush to public announcement, which did not even wait for simultaneous presentation to peers at a scientific meeting, was generated by several factors: the staggering possible benefit to humanity of cheap nuclear power, the Nobel-level accolades that would accrue to the
