Lamark and other things

[Dave B]

This friend who I have known well since 1986 and I so happened to have gone out to a meal with just a few weeks ago; also 'chipped into a national debate’.And was sacked for ‘whistle-blowing’. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2009/01/29/karen-reissmann-plumps-for-out-of-court-settlement/ I am sure it had absolutely nothing at all to do with her many previous years of active trade unionism. 

[twc]

Hi Dave,I comprehend, but still stand by my claim.I’ve just devoured Ross Honeywill’s racy “Lamarck’s Evolution”.  It is really about Ted Steele, and is obviously sympathetic towards him.Even so, in Chapter 24 on the university dismissal, Honeywill makes it absolutely clear that the substantive issue was Steele’s going to the external press with a specific “whistle-blowing” allegation against the University that it had upgraded two honours students by “soft marking”—with the unstated implication of mercenary financial motives.As I said above, Steele’s public accusation was sufficient—on its own—to force the University’s hand, quite independently of his neo-Lamarckianism.Honeywill’s account is problematic in ways that whistle-blower advocate Brian Martin’s isn’t.  Honeywill claims his own account is not entirely factual, which leaves the reader in the dark over who said what and whether they even said it.  This is the journalistic writer at work on science and history.

Ross Honeywill wrote:

While some incidental characters have been imagined, they are not central to the story and amplify, but in no way alter, factual events.  Some plausible conversations between real people have been assembled using real events, with every endeavour made to ensure the dialogue is factually correct.

Nevertheless, Honeywill’s book contains fascinating secondary material on the remarkable scientific, personal and financial encouragement Steele gained from erstwhile anti-Darwinians Karl Popper and Arthur Koestler, who naturally had stakes in the demolition of strict Darwinism.It also contains unflattering material—as seen from Steele’s viewpoint—on his rough treatment by aging Darwinian Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar and [that lesser light] Nature editor Sir John Maddox.[Among the popular media, “the BBC was out to set him up”, while New Scientist, which often thrives on iconoclasm, was generally supportive of Steele.]

[Dave B]

I appreciate your additional material; I had only skimmed through that book.  Yes it was a ‘disclaimer’ on the back of the book I think. Steele is under a gagging order on condition of his ‘settlement’ I think. Perhaps 'we' don’t have any full appreciation of how comprehensive detailed and all encompassing putative ‘gagging orders’ might be? Other than from stuff like? http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/14/ban-on-nhs-gagging-orders  And therefore we are left to 'imagine'. I think Honeywell would have been unwise not to have put something like that on the back of his book anyway.(see addendum) I don’t dispute that the establishment was upset at the erupting ‘soft marking’ debate the details of which don’t concern me too much; even if it has been a bit of a cause célèbre in its own right. But if the establishment are going to make an example of someone and take them down it is always best to select an otherwise ‘unpopular’ individual. This probably is the most controversial biological life science debate since Darwin himself. I had the piss taken out of me, not for the first time, with the ‘rats tails’ thing when I raised it 10 years ago. So am I not allowed to fling a bit of colourful ‘neo Dawinist papacy’ stuff around? Even now I am not nailing my flag to the mast over it as the scientific ‘truth’. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts 2004 Exposing and opposing censorship: Backfiredynamics in freedom-of-speech strugglesS. Curry JansenMuhlenburg College, Pennsylvania, USABrian MartinUniversityof Wollongong, bmartin@uow.edu.au  In many court cases in which an individual sues a corporation or government,for example over wrongful dismissal, a settlement is reached, often witha payment to the individual. In such cases the settlement frequently includesa clause barring the individual from discussing the case publicly in future,including the very existence of the clause. These ‘confidentiality agreements’,better described as silencing or gagging clauses, serve a dual role, both ascensorship and as a means of hiding the censorship. Such gags may also beimposed, by extension, on employees of an organisation that has participatedin a settlement; employees familiar with but not directly involved in thecharges may also become subject to threats of legal action if they speak aboutthe contested events.  Nominally, the existence of a silencing clause is apparent; an inquisitivejournalist may be told that a settlement prevents the parties from speakingabout the case. But this reduces the news value of the case, reducing furthercoverage and thus ending the matter as far as most people are concerned. Forexample, outspoken biologist Ted Steele was dismissed from the University ofWollongongin February 2001; eventually, following two court cases and longnegotiations, a settlement was reached that included a silencing clause. Thedismissal, previously given prominent attention in the media, immediatelydropped from sight (Martin, 2002).

[Dave B]

I seem to remember two people seriously engaged with me to some extent; Bob Malone and Pieter Lawrence?

[twc]

Dave B wrote:

I think Honeywill would have been unwise not to have put something like that on the back of his book anyway.

Unsure how well this protects him under Australian defamation law.

Dave B wrote:

But if the establishment are going to make an example of someone and take them down it is always best to select an otherwise ‘unpopular’ individual.

The medieval church acted otherwise over heliocentrism.If staff ‘popularity’ is a key point—and Steele, as activist, apparently made himself unpopular with many colleagues and thorn in the side of management—this still doesn't prove that his neo-Lamarckian science was the intended target.

Dave B wrote:

I don’t dispute that the establishment was upset at the erupting ‘soft marking’ debate the details of which don’t concern me too much; even if it has been a bit of a cause célèbre in its own right.

I don’t deny that capitalist administrators seek pretexts for getting around trade unions and legal terms of employment in order to dismiss “uncooperative” staff.  I therefore can’t deny your story but, without direct evidence, it remains for me a just-so-story.It’s inconceivable that Steele himself didn’t table documentary evidence and testimony for a neo-Lamarckian “scientific” vendetta out to sack him—such “evidence” and “testimony” appears to be nil.Additional such evidence seems never to have been committed to writing, or has been destroyed by others, or languishes out of sight under a suppression order, and so remains conjectural.On the other hand, Honeywill provides ample evidence of Steele’s non-reengagement by places other than Wollongong on the grounds of his neo-Lamarckian science.For example, Honeywill’s Chapter 21 describes a desperate down-and-out Steele accepting term employment at the Australian National University on condition of not pursuing his neo-Lamarckian science.  His term was quietly extended, although he broke the impossible injunction imposed upon him.Nevertheless Steele knew he was under pressure to seek permanent tenure elsewhere and, as it turned out, at Wollongong.  It’s possible that the false security of “permanent tenure” played its part in fuelling his devil-may-care assault on management’s judgement and integrity.When the axe fell, he was struck by utter disbelief.  Like Bligh in the NSW Rum Rebellion, though in the right, he bore the inviting stigma of one who had been rolled before.Whatever the case, Steele’s scientific passion exemplifies that of the revolutionary scientist.Science is the most subversive practice that humans engage in.In the long run, nature exacts her cruel vengeance on all mere human injunctions upon scientific enquiry, and defeats all vain attempts to gag scientific thought.

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Science is the most subversive practice that humans engage in.In the long run, nature exacts her cruel vengeance on all mere human injunctions upon scientific enquiry, and defeats all vain attempts to gag scientific thought.

This is very confused, twc.'Science practice', as 'subversive' as it is, is a human, and therefore a social and historical 'practice'.Your contrasting of a 'cruel, vengeful, nature', as the active element in the interaction, with the passivity of the 'merely human', is a throwback to 19th century thought about 'science' and its supposedly neutral method, which trumps humanity and its democratic political arrangements.In any 'long run', of course humans can gag scientific thought (by thermo-nuclear war, for example, and the destruction of, never mind scientific thought, but all human thought).That's why it is necessary to stress the fragility of 'science' and defend it to the hilt as human 'theory  and practice', and move away from the religious belief in 'science' as 'nature', as the 'reflection' of 'nature as it is', of human passivity in the production of 'scientific knowledge'.Without humans, there is no 'nature to be explored'.Marx sought the humanising of nature and the naturalising of humanity, not a 'natural god', as for the positivists, like you.No subject, no object. Both are required to produce knowledge. And the subject is the active element, as Marx said in his Theses on Feuerbach.The only truly subversive science is human democratic science.

[Author]

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