Academic morals

Some nationalists purvey national origin stories about which they care deeply, sometimes not that far from the creation stories told by what used to be called primitive tribesmen, and react badly to alternative versions of these stories. Some black people, understandably, react badly to any suggestion that black people might not be as clever as white people – a suggestion which, as it happens, is complicated by the fact that black people are better at some brain things while white people are better at other brain things. Academic Reich at reference 1 pokes at the first of these issues while academics Herrnstein & Murray at reference 2 poke at the second, with all three getting some stick as a result. So before coming back to these two books in posts to come, I thought to air some thoughts on academic morality more generally, morality in the sense of whether there were fields of research which were better left fallow, better left unploughed. When it is better not to poke? And if one has poked, when it is better to keep the knowledge so acquired to oneself?

A relaxed view of the academy is that academics are seekers after knowledge and they should be free to go where their quest takes them, within very broad limits. They should be free to talk to other academics, free to publish their work as they see fit. Trying to set narrow limits, to give a bit of direction from the outside, in an effort to be helpful, usually turns out to hinder rather than to help.

And if it so happens that some of their product is put to bad uses in the world outside, that is the fault and responsibility of the world outside. The academics live in the cloister, in the ivory tower, and are not responsible for the bad uses to which their knowledge might be put –rather as Facebook declines to take responsibility for the stuff circulating on its platform.

I leave aside the case where there is real and present danger of attracting the attention of the religious or political authorities. In the way that one might have in early modern Europe, in Stalin’s Soviet Union or, I dare say, in many Muslim countries now.

Bad uses

I see three areas where there might be problems.

• Making knowledge and technology available to bad people to do bad things
• Publishing new stories which contradict the old stories, the strongly held beliefs, of large groups of people. New stories which are offensive to many people
• Publishing stories which can be adapted for bad purposes, which can be used to build  bad stories, to give bad stories a bit of respectability. Again, bad stories which are offensive to many people.

No doubt there are others.

Under the first head, one might argue that an academic should have nothing to do with atomic or biological weapons. Or with the perfection of military grade rifles for sale to the general public. Or with the manufacture of explosives from things which might be found in the average kitchen. Which brings us to the distinction between morally wrong and legally wrong: making research into atomic weapons or military grade rifles illegal probably does not answer, but we need not do it ourselves and we might shun people who do. And such disapprobation can be effective, can be career limiting: the academy is awash with fads and fashions, if not morality, and attempting to pursue unfashionable research can make it difficult to get posts, promotions or grants. I recall reading of a psychiatrist who got a lot of funny looks because he was trying to do research into paedophilia. And fads and fashions can be a problem more generally, in the way that they suck all the money in, at the expense of the unfashionable.

All of which is complicated by the difficulty of separating out the good from the bad. Research into biological warfare, into bad biological agents, for example, might well have considerable overlap with research into good biological agents. Does one forego the latter for fear of the former? Who should try to decide about such matters?

Also by context: all kinds of weapons research is OK in the prosecution of a righteous war.

Under the second, we have research which bears on matters of belief. Neither geology nor evolution sit very comfortably with the notion that God created the world in seven days, or that God started work on the world 5,789 years ago, planting the first men and women on the top of Mount Carmel, in what is now Israel, a year or so later. Do we expect geologists and people working on evolution to show respect to the many people having such beliefs? Or to give such beliefs airtime in the text books they might write for use in our schools and universities?

And under the third, we have the works noticed here. The work on the genome by the likes of Reich and his colleagues, has attracted the controversial attentions of one Wade (another old Etonian, now resident in the US), which can be read about at references 3 and 4 – although, for myself, I am content to pass on Wade on the account of Orr. While the work on IQ by Herrnstein & Murray attracted lots of comment, for, against, considered and unconsidered. One might write with great care about race and intelligence, but that is not going to stop bad people making bad use of those writings, probably by quoting bits and pieces out of context or by falsely claiming their authority.

Publication

These issues are made more pressing by the ease with which information can now be moved about and shared. In the olden days, if I had some heretical conversation in the cloisters of my monastery, my abbot would probably turn a blind eye. But now such conversation surfs the Internet, freely available to anyone who cares to look or who has an interest in making trouble or generating clicks. The abbot should probably not turn a blind eye any more.

At the risk of sounding elitist or even authoritarian, we need to filter the raw work of academics to make it fit for public consumption. And the public needs to be able to trust what it is given. None of us can go into everything and we have to delegate most of that going into to things to others, to others in whom we trust, trust which, as a former bureaucrat, I believe needs to be built in layers. We trust our Parliament (Brexit aside) to pass the right laws, to set up the right oversight, which result in the right universities, which result in respectable academics publishing good work in respectable journals - work which can then, if appropriate, be precised by well educated journalists in respectable newspapers for general consumption.

Then, while looking again at Herrnstein & Murray yesterday, I was struck by their argument that while you might ban discussion of tricky matters – in their case the IQ of black people – from the public realm, you are not going to be able to ban it from the private realm – where much harm might be done by ignorance. It was better that bar room discussions and arguments were based on some facts, rather than relying completely on trash from social media.

Which brings us to the opening diagram, about how we might accord trust to the papers and articles which are turned up by our search engines, by our browsing in various online forums or by casual surfing of the Internet. How we distinguish useful, usable information from the trash. How does one tell the difference?

Gloss on opening diagram

A diagram which is intended to illustrate the business of bringing academic work to the public. A simplified version of a complicated world; not to be taken too literally.

The work and words of academics are given backing in three ways: their own reputations, the reputations of the institution to which they are affiliated and the reputations of the journals in which they publish their work. With part of this last resting on the refereeing of papers before they are published. And with refereeing being absent in the case of self publication and newspaper articles. Private publication among colleagues is not at issue here.

Institutions may be public, in the way of most universities, such as Harvard or Tübingen. Or they may be run by a private foundation, perhaps founded by a rich entrepreneur or funded by a large corporation, but with the foundation providing something of a firewall between the institution and the source of its funds. One such is the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Then we have other institutions which are essentially parts of large corporations or agencies of governments: institutions which exist to serve the ends of their parent, whatever they may be, such as Elsevier or the Atomic Weapons Establishment (formerly known as Aldermaston, now privatised). Government apart and other things being equal, our trust in these institutions falls from left to right. And then, to the far right, we have the independent learned societies, with one such being the Royal Society. With the picture being confused by many journals with fancy, academy sounding names actually living in places like the Elsevier stable: professional science might be said to need to be published by professional publicists and the two professions are different.

Some journals are more prestigious than others – and other things being equal we put more trust in papers in more prestigious journals than in less prestigious journals. I note in passing that open publishing is not the same as self publishing. Open publishing is about open access, about being free at the point of delivery, not about scrapping the refereeing process. See, for example, reference 5.

Like journals, some newspapers are more prestigious than others. But with the big difference that newspapers are much more circulation driven; they publish stories which they hope will sell newspapers, serving Queen and Country sometimes comes a poor second.

And like academics, some journalists have a reputation to lose. They work for reputable newspapers and would not want to lose their good name. We trust them to publish stories which are true, or at the very least, well intentioned.

So there are plenty of clues out there. Responsible communicators do have access to what is needed to sort the wheat from the chaff, the wheat from the tares. The trick is for their voices to be heard above the chatter and worse of the irresponsible communicators, more interested in selling copy or clicks – or perhaps in just having a laugh at someone else’s expense – than in communicating.

Conclusions

I do not admit thought crime, and academics should be free to poke around as they might see fit. But publication is a different matter, I do admit publication crime and I do not believe that academics should be free to publish whatever they feel like, there being plenty of academics out there with poor judgement in such matters, as there are in any other walk of life. And the judgement of most of us lapses some of the time; we do need some help and it is best not to be in solitary confinement in the ivory tower. Unfortunately, I do not see any simple rules to guide academics or academies, otherwise their institutions, in what they do and what they offer the public.

Perhaps the best that we can hope for is that academics in respectable institutions be both sensible and respectful – and that respectable institutions and referees of respectable journals will police this hope. Where by sensible, I mean not to poke around in sensitive areas without there being some reasonable prospect of value add, of doing some good. And where by respectful, I mean not to gratuitously upset decent people who happen to have backgrounds or beliefs which you do not share. If you want to publish something which is clearly going to upset such people, have a care. Try to mitigate the affront.

In which the referee assisted process of review should be a big help. The institutions just need to keep those processes and procedures up to scratch, up to the mark. And we the public need to take care where we take our information from and to be sensible in our use of it. Not, for example, in the interests of making an impression in the bar room, passing off offensive tripe as the real thing. We all need to be good citizens – to which end we all need good education – hopefully not the variety peddled by the faith schools of reference 6 that Prime Minister Blair was so keen on. (As noted above, it is not just academics who have poor judgement).

And with that off my chest, I can return to reading about ancient DNA and the testing of intelligence.

PS: since posting, I have been reading in last week’s Economist about some people in Croatia who are building road cars which can travel in excess of 250mph. So perhaps I was wrong in the foregoing to major on military grade sporting rifles. And perhaps the European Commission should earn its keep and arrange for these vehicles to be excluded from public roads. I dare say there are all kinds of interesting technological spin-offs, but on the basis of 60 seconds thought, I don’t think such things should be allowed on our roads. See reference 7.

References

Reference 1: Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past - David Reich – 2018.

Reference 2: The Bell Curve – Herrnstein & Murray – 1994.

Reference 3: A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History – Nicholas Wade – 2014.

Reference 4: Stretch Genes – H. Allen Orr – 2014. A review of reference 3 to be found in the issue of NYRB for 5th June, 2014.

Reference 5: https://www.plos.org/. The deal seems to be open access, free at the point of delivery, author (or his institution) pays. Around USD2,000 a pop.

Reference 6: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/sep/02/education.labour.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimac_Automobili. Rather easier going than the company website.