The Bandwagon

IF someone of Galileo’s towering intellectual stature had to put up with all that, it should come as no surprise that similar rough treatment has been common for scientific innovators ever since. I find the process disturbing but in a way it is comforting to look back at scientific history and realize that bucking the canon does not necessarily mean being wrong. I cannot tell you how delighted I am that Craig Venter got so rich from human genomics after fellow scientists blocked his federal research funding. On the other hand, poor Alfred Wegener’s success in revolutionizing geoscience came posthumously after a lifetime of derision for his ideas on continental motion. I am no Galileo (nor a Venter or Wegener), but the “tumultuous rabble” that he described has not changed a bit.

Something is wrong with the scientific enterprise as a whole if it routinely punishes innovation in this way. Astute scientists quickly realize that it is more rewarding in some very practical ways to stay within the mainstream. The peer-review system controls the fate of proposals for research funding and of manuscripts submitted to scientific journals. Being an insider also gets you invitations to membership on advisory panels that guide NASA’s exploration planning. And letters of recommendation from recognized authority figures determine who wins the cutthroat competition for jobs.