The Knowledge Wars by Peter Doherty

Author:Peter Doherty
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780522862867
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BELIEF, EVIDENCE AND THE POWER OF NARRATIVE

10

INVENTED NARRATIVE AND DELIBERATE IGNORANCE

MUCH OF THE PUBLIC scepticism and/or denial about anthropogenic global warming, the value of vaccinating children, fluoridating water supplies and so forth is driven by protagonists who are not, and may never have been, working scientists. When that is the case, we simply waste our (and everybody else’s) time if we try to refute such objections from the basis of the best available evidence. But what are we dealing with here and how do we respond appropriately? One thing we might borrow from those in the propaganda business is the use of the power of fiction. My personal view is that science in the public space needs much more help from professional storytellers. On the whole, because the approach and value systems are so different, trained scientists are not known for writing good fiction (at least at book length), and there are few scientists/novelists who draw themes and characters from the contemporary research culture.

Science fiction and forensics aside, any discussion of the scientific novel tends to hark back to CP Snow’s insights on the interaction between academia, science and power, or to the early works of Aldous Huxley that drew heavily on biology research of the Second World War. Notable recent exceptions are Allegra Goodman’s Intuition, which deals with life in and around a modern biomedical research laboratory, and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour, which illuminates the tensions between the environmental scientist’s perspective and responsible action to mitigate habitat destruction, versus immediate needs related to jobs and economic activity. And there is Ian McEwan’s Solar, which explores innovation in solar technology and has a particularly despicable Nobel Prize–winning physicist as a central character. With his Enduring Love, which features de Clerambault’s syndrome, McEwan was also a pioneer in the emergent ‘neuronovel’ genre, a well-known example being Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, about autism. Writing in a more history-of-science context can give a compelling narrative, like Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter and Longitude, which tell us respectively about the lives of the great astronomer and the clockmaker John Harrison. Both deal with the tension between innovative thinking and established power.

Fiction allows characters to act and argue in ways that are extremely confrontational without turning off the reader or viewer. Outside the realm of invented narrative, working scientists are too often unaware that the robust exchange of conflicting data and differing viewpoints that is so characteristic of their culture can seem like profound criticism, hostility and even heresy to someone who has not been raised in a social context that emphasises questioning, generalisation and objectivity. But, if society is to move forward, we need to keep the view in the public mind that evidence trumps dogma. Good fiction can help to make that case.

We all live with some level of personal fiction, even if it’s the fictional idea (for scientists) that, despite prior experience, our brilliant experiments will always work! The advice of Winston Churchill that ‘if you’re

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