Where the Truth Lies When books are reviewed, all of us would agree that care should be taken not to misrepresent the author's intentions, not to take statements out of context, and not to reduce complex arguments to simplistic assertions. Yet it happens. In my book Where the Truth Lies, I argued that fraud in science cannot be understood against a background of objective truth. I argued that what many science critics have taken to be 'fraud' is not fraud at all, but results from biases due to the theory ladenness of observations, unconscious biases in selecting and sorting data, and biases due to technical procedures used. I also pointed out various creative lib- erties scientists often take in their writings, for example, how they manipulate and transform state- ments, interpretations and motives of others in order to make con- vincing arguments for their own version of truth. Professor Fincham's review of Where the Truth Lies (T/G 7, 137-138) is illustrative.

The object of my book was to follow a major controversy surrounding the work of Franz Moewus in the origins of biochemi- cal genetics, to examine the diffi- culties scientists have in assessing the validity of knowledge claims, and to watch how the controversy stayed open and finally came to a close and how the label of fraud was stamped on Moewus. The Moewus case is a good one because the controversy lasted for some 20 years. Throughout this time, some leading geneticists defended and celebrated Moewus's work, others criticized it, still others chose to ignore it. In this exercise, no attempt was ever made by the author to defend Moewus or attribute recognition to him, despite Professor Fincham's assertions to the contrary. Instead, I simply followed the scientists' own discussions and examined points of view, and the use of rhetoric on both sides of the controversy to the point when all participants involved reached the conclusion based on a diverse body of circum- stantial evidence that much of the disputed important aspects of

N E T T E R S

Moewus's reported results were wholly fabricated.

Professor Fincham imposes other motives on me that are equally erroneous. He states that I say the reason Moewus was not awarded a Nobel Prize was in part because Moewus was German and many of his critics were Jewish. Nowhere did I suggest this. In fact, I made arguments to the contrary. I did, however, quote statements from interviews with some Jewish biologists themselves about their perception of Moewus as a Nazi and that this made them more critical of his claims. On the other hand, I also pointed out that one of Moewus's chief supporters during the controversy was the Jewish geneticist Tracy Sonneborn who (among others) strongly believed for many years that Moewus was being treated unfairly by English- speaking geneticists. Sonneborn did his best to ensure that Moewus's work was properly eval- uated. Finally, I concluded that one cannot understand this controversy in terms of an ambitious psycho- path who tried to fool an unsus- pecting scientific community, and in direct conflict with the claim Fincham attributes to me, I wrote:

Such an interpretation of the Moewus controversy would be as misconceived as any attempt to claim that Moewus was the victim of anti-Nazi sentiment or of a mobbing by the scientific community. It is not a story of good guys and bad guys, of heroes and villains. (p. 296)

Fincham takes other statements out of context and truncates them to make me say, for example, that 'falsifying results in laboratory prac- tice is not the exception in science but the rule'; 'fraud is fully institu- tionalized in science'. Fincham's misrepresentation of my views in these amputated sentences is easily revealed when compared with what I actually wrote. After emphasizing the point that what counts as fraud in science is context dependent, I referred to students in laboratory practices:

As most young science students and their instructors well know, falsifying results in "laboratory practices" to obtain

the correct answer is not the exception, but the rule. More often than not, "disciplined" young scientists are rewarded for obtaining the "correct" answer. Their version of "truth" is closely associated with getting an "A", For the young science student, fiction often holds more truth than fact. If this is fraud, then fraud is fully institutionalized in science. (p. 306)"

Fincham says that I 'place more reliance on the idea that it was all a dispute about priorities', that I treat the superb geneticist G.W. Beadle 'meanly', and further claims that I suggested that Beadle and other pioneers 'were afraid that their own achievements would be overshad- owed had Moewus been given his due'. However, it was not I who had the idea that a priority dispute was involved, but a renowned geneticist. I also never called Moewus a 'path-breaker' despite what Professor Fincham says, but this attribution was made by several prominent biologists, most notably Sonneborn. Actually, I celebrated the achievements of Beadle. It is also pointed out that Beadle was considered to be a very fair person during the controversy (p. 186).

Fincham makes more serious accusations, stating that my com- mentary is 'consistently slanted and perverse' and associates me with a fraud, and then with antiscience: 'Jan Sapp does not fake exper- iments but he propagates the view that science is inherently and unavoidably crooked; that it is not concerned with discoveries about how nature actually works but rather with social negotiations and power struggles.' Finally, he sug- gests that I should be expunged from science. In view of the distor- tions and misrepresentations, if not outright hostility in Fincham's review of this book, and indeed his review of my previous book, readers might get the wrong impression: I do not believe that all scientists are 'crooked'. Most scien- tists are as interested in the truth as Professor Fincham, but they also persuade readers of it in much the same way as he does in his review of Where the Truth Lies.

JAN SAPP

Department of Histo~ and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, Parkville,

Victoria 3052, Australia.

TIG OCTOBER 1991 VOt. 7 NO. 10