What Scientists Do

•	How a scientist gets things wrong:

“1. The devil leads him by the nose with a false hypothesis (For this he deserves our pity).
2. His arguments are erroneous and sloppy (For this he deserves a beating).

					Albert Einstein

•	What is science?
•	“The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.”  American Heritage Dictionary

•	Science consists of forming hypotheses, proposals about how the world works
•	Hypotheses generate predictions, which can be tested by observation or experiment
•	Analysis of data leads to supporting or rejecting the hypothesis

•	Science provides a systematic way to compare many possible explanations, to demonstrate which one is true
•	Make observations, collect preliminary data
•	Observations, data may suggest a hypothesis, an explanation that would account for what was observed

•	The hypothesis must then be tested by further experiments or observation
•	Usually framed as a “null hypothesis” - there is no relation, no correlation, no effect from a given treatment

•	Design experiment to test your hypothesis
•	Data you collect will either support the null hypothesis (there is no relationship) or reject it (there is a relationship)

•	Usually interested in one particular variable (something that changes, change could result from our test)
•	Must fix or “control” other variables to isolate the one variable we are interested in

•	So most experiments include a “control group” and an experimental group
•	Any differences we see between them must result from the influence of the process we are testing, the effects of our experiment

•	Hypotheses can never be completely proven
•	There is always the chance that we “got lucky”, that if we did it again we might not get the same results
•	We always have to settle for probably true…

•	We usually express this as a statement of probabilities, using complex statistical tables
•	Allows us to say how likely it is that our results are correct

•	Usual standard is probability of 0.05 or better (p < 0.05)
•	Means that there is a 95% probability that our results are not due to chance alone

•	What have we now proven?
•	Absolutely nothing...as far as ultimate truths are concerned
•	There is always a small, but finite chance that we are wrong – the relationship we observed was purely random

•	Uncertainty is a way of life for scientists
•	Hard life, especially for the pioneers
•	What is the sound of one scientist clapping?

•	Experimental results must be replicated by other scientists to become widely accepted
•	If enough people come to the same conclusion, the hypothesis will be widely accepted

•	If an idea withstands such testing, it may become a theory
•	Theories are broad statements about reality, often weaving together several hypotheses

•	The word “theory” has a different meaning to a scientist
•	We think of “theory” as something not yet proven
•	Scientists use the word to describe hypotheses that are most likely to be true

•	To a scientist, gravity is not a fact, but a theory – albeit a damned good one!
•	“A fact is a hypothesis that is so firmly supported by evidence that we assume it is true, and act as if it were true.” D. Futuyma

•	Experimentation is not always an option, like a hypothesis about the composition of the earth’s core
•	We can’t experiment with the interior of the Earth

•	Here we must rely on indirect evidence, on observation, on inductive reasoning 
•	Induction - generalization from specific examples, looking for the underlying patterns to series of observations

•	Without interpretation, experimental results or observations are meaningless 
•	This is where objectivity merges imperceptibly into the personality of the scientist

•	Science is supposed to be the objective search for truth, through observation and experimentation
•	The truth of the matter is much more complex
•	A more accurate definition might be that science is something done by scientists

•	We tend to think of scientists as being above the fray
•	Scientists are engaged in the search for the ultimate truth (and beauty)
•	Science is removed from the problems of the every day world

•	Nothing could be farther from the truth…

•	Scientists, first and foremost, are human beings
•	At their best, they are curious, dedicated, intelligent, rational
•	At their worst, they are subject to the usual human virtues and vices

•	They want a good job, at a respectable institution, the admiration of their colleagues – maybe even a dash of fame and fortune
•	No harm in daydreaming about that Nobel prize you so richly deserve…

•	Like each of us, scientists are ultimately a product of their times
•	They believe what the have been brought up to believe
•	Their personalities, their experience, their background, all affect the way they see the world

•	Science is not done in a vacuum
•	Science is often subject to the same external influences that affect us all
>	Religious beliefs
>	Cultural world view
>	Press and media

•	Science is not a unified enterprise
•	Science encourages “constructive criticism”, peer review of papers etc.
•	Often degenerates into personality conflicts, open hostility, once (Cope-Marsh feud) into an all out range war!

•	Why?
•	Months or years of research are usually required to investigate a problem
•	Means a huge personal investment in a particular theoretical perspective or result

•	Being proved right or wrong can literally make or break your career
•	Personal stake often leads to turf wars, inter- and intra-departmental conflicts
•	More politics than an Orleans Parish school board meeting…

•	Science is also an enterprise
•	Must compete with many others for limited but essential grants or other sources of funding, office and lab space, equipment, staff etc.
•	Not so different from the corporate world in that respect

•	Conflict and confrontation are not always a bad thing…
•	They help ensure that no major theory or hypothesis will go untested, or escape strong criticism and examination

•	But there is a dark side…
•	Who is “in” or “out”, what ideas are “hot topics”, often determines what work gets done, what problems are systematically researched…
•	Can even affect the “objective” search for truth

•	For example, when T.H. Huxley set out to defend Darwin’s theory of evolution, he was thwarted by the establishment
•	Little support among the “old guard”, who dominated among the senior faculty and comprised the editorial boards of the primary journals

•	Hard to get papers published that supported Darwin
•	Huxley responded by forming a secret society called --- the X-Club
•	Secret society of Darwin’s supporters, could meet to argue and discuss in private, present a united front in public

•	Huxley started the journal Nature, so Darwin’s followers would have a place to publish their papers 
•	Huxley also coined the word agnosticism, which originally meant that science and religion were separate but parallel paths, belief in one didn’t preclude belief in the other

•	Over the next several lectures, we’ll look at some of the ways in which science is affected by social forces, by personality conflicts, by the pressures of religion, society, and the media
•	All resulting from the simple fact that scientists are, above all else, human beings

•	We will start with the discovery of time
•	From the search for the age and history of the earth came the long-raging argument between the schools of catastrophism and uniformitarianism

•	We’ll look at how this debate affected 
>	The discovery of Earth’s past
>	The reconstruction of the dinosaur
>	Theories of mass extinctions
•	We’ll also discuss of how pseudo-science can replace “real” science - scientific creationism

•	But first, we’ll consider the Cope-Marsh fossil feud
•	A testament to the power of personality and ambition in being the best in your chosen field

•	Mid 19th Century great fossil beds of the American West were discovered
•	Treasure trove of Cretaceous dinosaurs who lived on the shore of a vast inland sea
•	Sea stretched from Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from Kansas to Utah

•	Two great men - Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh - squared off over this prize, sparking one of the most vicious feuds in the history of science
•	“Bone Wars” rival the wildest tales from the Wild West 

•	Formations were mostly located in the badlands, rough country with many fierce native tribes, harsh and unforgiving 
•	Late 1870’s, two poles in vertebrate paleontology – Yale lab of O.C. Marsh and 2102 Pine St. in Philadelphia, the museum annex of E.D. Cope

•	Strong contrast between the two…
•	Cope – fiery, eccentric, bit of a womanizer, an adventurous loner
•	Marsh – bright, but a plodder, slow and thorough, lonely and suspicious of others

•	Both became independently wealthy, spent most of their fortunes in a relentless race to collect and describe new fossils
•	Marsh born to a poor farmer with an avid interest in fossils
•	Rich uncle (Peabody fortune) put him through Yale

•	Fossil and rock collections as an undergrad were so vast his landlady had to prop up the floor beneath his apartment
•	Arrogant even as a grad student, wrote a paper disputing a claim by Agassiz, David vs. Goliath (both were wrong)

•	Uncle Peabody donated $100,000 to Yale, Yale who offered Marsh a professorship in return, no salary so he didn’t have to teach, just collect and research
•	Collection eventually reached a staggering size, bequeathed to Yale – 
•	Marsh’s collection was also huge – kept it in a three story house next to his home

•	Cope was a child prodigy, quickly caught up to Marsh
•	Father was a wealthy Quaker farmer, Cope grew tired of farming
•	Enrolled in a series of lectures by Joseph Leidy, famous paleontologist, became interested in natural history

•	Pacifist Quaker, went to Europe to avoid the draft in 1863, met Marsh and formed an uneasy friendship – Marsh says years later:
•	“Professor Cope called on me, and with great frankness confided to me some of the many troubles that even then beset him. My sympathy was aroused, and even though I had some doubts of his sanity, I gave him good advice and was willing to be his friend. During the next five years I saw him often, although at times his eccentricities of conduct, to use no stronger term, were hard to bear.” 

•	The friendship did not last
•	Cope took Marsh on a tour of one of his favorite fossil quarries in New Jersey
•	Marsh secretly arranged for all new fossils from the quarry to go directly to him

•	To make matters worse, Marsh was the first to notice Cope’s biggest blunder
•	Reconstructing Elasmosaurus, giant marine reptile, Cope’s put the head on the wrong end!

•	Marsh blew the whistle, but it was too late to stop publication of the paper
•	 Says Marsh: “When I informed Professor Cope of it, his wounded vanity received a shock from which it has never recovered, and he has since been my bitter enemy.” 

•	Marsh was the first to go West, Yale expedition to the badlands in 1870 – 11 students, 43 cavalry soldiers
•	Indians were afraid of fossil bones, thought they came from giants - called Marsh “Bone Medicine Man” and “Big Bone Chief”

•	Marsh’s guide was none other than Buffalo Bill!

•	Cope heard of Marsh’s success, set out himself in 1871 and 1872
•	Hired away one of Marsh’s scouts to take him to the same locations
•	Marsh was very annoyed, saw it as claim jumping (though he had previously done much the same thing to Cope)

•	By l872, Cope’s publications were piling up, things grew tense with Marsh
•	Cope was describing and naming the same basic critters as Marsh, collected from the same area, lots of overlap
•	Big fight grew over priority – who was the first to publish or name the specimens

•	In one case both named the same animal in papers published  the same day, but Cope argued he should get credit, if only because his paper had more words in it!
•	Petty bickering gradually festered until it became an all out feud

•	When Marsh was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1874, Cope cast the sole negative vote
•	They both started mailing out preprints (pre-publication drafts) and claimed precedence on the basis of mailing dates – dubious at best

•	Both attacked one another in journals and the popular press
•	“To sum up the matter, it is plain that most of Professor Marsh’s criticisms are misrepresentation, his systematic innovations are untenable, and his statements as to the dates of my papers are either criminally ambiguous or untrue. I might now proceed to characterize the effrontery of such proceedings, but forebear, believing that the author of them will be as glad to bury them in oblivion as the writer of this notice.”

•	Between them, they described over 1,600 new species (Marsh - 496, Cope - 1,115)
•	Cope’s higher total reflects his naming animals from fragments, whereas Marsh focused on intact specimens

•	Made for lots of confusion, multiple names for the same animal, frequent renaming (Cope’s Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus mess ex.) – Marsh says of one such dispute:
•	“This mythical Eobasileus, under the professor’s domestication, has changed its character more rapidly than Darwin himself ever imagined for the most protean of species…Such an animal belongs in the Arabian Nights and not in the records of modern science.”

•	Things rapidly went from vindictive to downright nasty
•	Cope began to cultivate Marsh’s lab assistants, hoping to turn them against Marsh
•	War of words continued unabated

•	Cope says: “When a wrong is to be righted, the press is the best and most Christian medium of doing it. It replaces the old-time shotgun and bludgeon, and is a great improvement.”
•	Marsh struck back, persuading the Secretary of the Interior to insist that Cope hand over his entire collection to the government, since most of Cope’s expeditions were funded by the USGS

•	Cope resisted, knowing that Marsh merely wanted to acquire Cope’s collection for himself (Cope eventually prevailed)
•	Cope launched his own smear campaign, circulating scandal about Marsh throughout Congress, and accusing Marsh in the New York Herald of stealing articles from other authors or his own lab assistants

•	Marsh tried to blackmail the Provost at he Univ. of Pennsylvania to scuttle Cope’s professorship
•	Cope accused Marsh of stealing a famous series of skeletons showing the evolution of the horse from himself and the Russian paleontologist Kovalevsky

•	Marsh replied that Kovalevsky was as big a thief as Cope – “Kovalevsky was at last stricken with remorse and ended his unfortunate career by blowing out his own brains. Cope still lives, unrepentant!”
•	Cope played his ace by getting Congress to eliminate Marsh’s lucrative post with the USGS

•	Marsh lost his job, his staff, and a generous research budget
•	By now, both men were broke and exhausted - Marsh died of pneumonia in 1899, left his collection to Yale
•	Cope died in 1896, leaving his collection to the American Museum of Natural History

•	For 30 years they dominated their chosen field
•	Would either have achieved what he did without the hatred of the other to spur him on?

•	Lanham says in The Bone Hunters:
•	“At a level above the ordinary garden variety of malicious gossip is genuine rage, which probably is one of the most valuable forces in existence for producing quick, accurate, incisive, and original thinking. Both Cope and Marsh enjoyed the benefits of this emotion to an unusually high degree. Finally there is durable, intelligent, well-focused hatred, a long range force as powerful as love. Here Cope and Marsh excelled. Even though dragging fantastic loads of what are generally called ‘human frailties they manafed to create on the way a new understanding of the earth and its life. No higher human achievement is possible”