Imagine that you are an archeologist who has stumbled upon a strangely shaped artifact on the ground while surveying an area for potential excavation. You pick it up, and, with growing curiosity and perhaps even excitement, you take it to your lab. There, you use a magnifying glass or some other probing tool to methodically examine it. You also rely on your knowledge of the extant literature to understand its nature, albeit the available information does not help you much since different views exist of its likely properties. In the end, you generate your interpretation after having considered thoroughly all available information. In a nutshell, this is the approach that the author of The scientific attitude: Defending science from denial, fraud, and pseudoscience has adopted towards the object of his interest: science. In his book, Lee McIntyre takes the reader on a meticulous journey driven by a question that has plagued scholars for centuries: What is science? He argues, rather convincingly, that science cannot be merely defined by its unique methodologies, but rather by scientists’ skeptical and unbiased attitude towards newly discovered knowledge as well as their willingness to change existing views once evidence becomes available.

The problem with McIntyre’s explanation is that it is not always so simple to separate “the evidence” from expectations, biases, and any other filter (human or otherwise) through which evidence is perceived. Unintentional distortions, perhaps due to the limited scope of the observation or analysis, omissions, and exaggerations, are possible. Of course, there are glaring cases in which it is unmistakable what science is and what the facts are. Consider instances of pseudoscience, such as the claims expounded by climate change deniers, or by representatives of the anti-vaccination movement. Also, consider made-up stories and alternative facts that periodically surface through the internet or on questionable TV shows whose sole purpose is a political agenda. Those are easy to recognize and discount through critical analysis with or without witty sarcasm. To this end, think of the term “truthiness” coined by the comedian Stephen Colbert during his now-defunct political satire program The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Truthiness is the conviction that an idea is true without regard to either evidence or logic. It propagates through ignorance, gullibility, and/or deliberate duplicity. Whereas the chapters of McIntyre’s book rely on real-life events of science to contextualize the author’s formal and somber critical analysis, Colbert’s most clever episodes illustrate instances of truthiness with the boldness of a billboard. Namely, Colbert’s humorous exaggerations so cunningly highlight the fallacies of distortions of facts and questionable theories that can make misinformation intuitively recognized as such. Responses, such as laugh for satire or a nod to the reasoned arguments of McIntyre, however, can reduce, but not eliminate the danger that distortions and outright falsehoods represent. As misinformation spreads across reputable media, driven by the desire of logical and ethical minds to expose untruths, it can easily become facts in the minds of large audiences.

Interestingly, McIntyre’s proposal that a particular type of attitude is the defining feature of science is sensible but not entirely convincing. In fact, according to the author, a scientific attitude is an attitude towards empirical evidence that relies on such evidence irrespective of prior beliefs, ideologies, and wishes. His proposal is not without flaws as it does not take into account that the human mind is likely to fall prey, even without any intention, not only to pre-existing information, but also to information present in the context where one is currently operating. A cursory look at the literature on cognitive biases and priming can offer ample evidence of the difficulties faced by people’s attempts at ignoring or discounting such information. Moreover, attitudes, like habits, are not easy to change. Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter recognized this reality in When prophecy fails (1956):

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks” (p. 3).

Thus, although the goal of science is to report evidence without distortions, it is disingenuous to assume that distortions can be eliminated by a mind that is fundamentally rational. McIntyre notes that the methodological steps of science may not be so linearly organized into a predictable looped sequence that includes (a) observation, (b) hypothesis development, (c) prediction, (d) testing, (e) analysis of results, and (f) revision of earlier hypotheses. Furthermore, intuition and interpretation may play a greater role than expected, thereby not only muddying the expected sequence, but also making scientific practices less transparent. Even though the scientific process is not so predictable, it is driven by methodological principles that define the attitude that the author claims is the essence of science. Namely, a scientific attitude is indeed an approach to evidence in which methodological guardrails are used in an attempt to protect the processes of discovery, analysis, and interpretation from the distortions of prior beliefs, ideologies, wishes, and well as fraudulence. Thus, I am not entirely convinced that the scientific method, in all of its glory and varieties, is not the defining property of science. It is, in essence, the operational definition of the attitude that the author mentions as defining science.

Notwithstanding this doubt, the reader will immediately recognize that the book is exceptionally well-written, past and current arguments are keenly examined, and chapters are sensibly organized into a mosaic of pieces that the author tries to compare and contrast. It is a constructive attempt not only to identify the weakness of a host of science deniers, but also to take the initiative to explain in a straightforward narrative what it means to be a scientist. More work may need to be done though, particularly in understanding how the human mind fits the demands of science. An archeologist may have found a curiously difficult artifact to categorize. Yet, his/her quest to understand the nature of the object will rely on many tools, one of which is the human mind.

© 2019 Maura Pilotti

Maura Pilotti, Ph.D.