Political correctness and scientific research

We've all heard stories, I'm sure, of how climate change sceptics find it very difficult to make their voices heard, much less attract funding for scientific research, if they don't go along with the 'party line' that global warming is man-made, is about to kill us all, and necessitates the spending of countless billions (nay: trillions!) of dollars (that we don't have) on emergency measures (none of which are known to be effective) to contain or even reverse it.

It looks like the same agenda is being applied to tobacco research - and, by implication, to other areas as well. The New Scientist reports:

"I'VE been called a traitor," says Michael Siegel, a public-health doctor at Boston University in Massachusetts. "It's been a character assassination." This treatment seems surprising as, reading Siegel's CV, you'd think he was a poster boy for the anti-smoking movement. He regularly publishes research on the harmful effects of passive smoking and has testified in support of indoor smoking bans in more than 50 US cities.

Despite these credentials, Siegel has come under fire from colleagues in the field of smoking research. His offence was to post messages on the widely read mailing list Tobacco Policy Talk, in which he questioned one of the medical claims about passive smoking, as well as the wisdom of extreme measures such as outdoor smoking bans.

In front of his peers, funders and potential future employers, other contributors posted messages accusing Siegel of taking money from the tobacco industry. When Siegel stood his ground, the administrators kicked him off the list, cutting off a key source of news in his field. "It felt like I was excommunicated, says Siegel. "I was shocked: I've been a leader in the movement for 21 years."

Siegel's case is perhaps the most clear-cut example of a disturbing trend in the anti-smoking movement. There are genuine scientific questions over some of the more extreme claims made about the dangers of passive smoking and the best strategies to reduce smoking rates, but a few researchers who have voiced them have seen their reputations smeared and the debate stifled.

Putting aside the question of whether such tactics are ethical, they could ultimately backfire. About half of US states and many parts of Europe do not yet ban smoking even indoors in public places like bars and restaurants, so the anti-smoking movement cannot afford to lose credibility.

On the other hand, in some parts of the US, particularly California, the anti-smoking movement has grown so strong that smoking bans outdoors and in private apartments are in force in a few places, and being considered in more. These measures are at least partly based on disputed medical claims, so it is vital their accuracy be determined. But questioning the orthodoxy seems to be frowned on. "It's censorship," says Siegel. "We're heading towards scientific McCarthyism."

There's more at the link.

This is yet another manifestation of political correctness in research - and it's very worrying. As New Scientist itself opines in an editorial:

The evidence that third-hand smoke has any physiological effects is tenuous, yet much of the media - and some health organisations - reported it as fact. It is the World Health Organization's 20th World No Tobacco Day next month, but if claims like these can't be supported by sound science, the danger is that people will stop listening to the message.

When the scientific community is more interested in political correctness than in rigorous analysis, more concerned with opinion polls than with hard facts, more oriented towards serving the powers that be and their pre-conceived agendas than challenging such powers to orient their agendas toward and around the truth . . . there can be nothing but trouble ahead.

Peter