Scientists on Book Tours May Mislead Us

 When writing up some scientific paper that may involve either experimental research or theorizing, a scientist often may think to himself questions such as "Is there some way to frame this work so that it sounds like important work worthy of publication?" or "Is there some way to spin this work so that it sounds like important work worthy of being cited, so that my citation count will increase?" But a scientist willing to "think big" may be more ambitious, and ask himself: "Is there some way to spin this work so that it sounds like something I could parlay into a book deal?" 

There are two main types of scientists who try to parlay their work into book deals: the "grand theory" scientist and the "lab legend" experimental research scientist.  The "grand theory" scientist is often someone thinking: how can I make my theory into a best-selling book? 

The "grand theory" scientist trying to become a best-selling author is someone we cannot trust to accurately summarize facts and accurately report on reality, because he is so very badly biased. Such a scientist tends to report everything in a way that tries to make his grand theory seem credible. 

An example of such a scientist was Charles Darwin, who did a bad job on reporting on biological reality in his books, because he was trying to make his theory of accidental biological origins seem more credible. In the title of his main work, Darwin used the misleading phrase "natural selection," which does not correspond to anything Darwin described to try to explain the origin of species.  Selection means an act of choice, and blind unconscious nature does not select things.  Describing a biological world in which we never observe random variations in an organism that are even a tenth of a new complex biological innovation, Darwin tried to make it sound like such events were happening all the time.  When it came to describing the difference between humans and apes, Darwin resorted to the most appalling deceit, making on page 99 of The Decent of Man the obviously untrue claim that "there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties." 

Another example of a "grand theory" scientist making very misleading statements was that of a certain professor trying to drum up sales of his book claiming that our solar system has been visited by an extraterrestrial spaceship. The professor did research trying to dredge up evidence for his claim that a spaceship from another solar system had burnt up in the atmosphere.  The research found nothing but the most ordinary specks of metal, but the professor tried to portray these as evidence of something of epic significance: remnants of a spaceship from another solar system. 

Another type of scientist trying to sell a book of his is what we may call the "lab legend" scientist. This type of scientist tries to capitalize on lab research he has done, by playing up some legend that his lab work was some epic breakthrough very worthy of attention. Typically the research very much fails to live up to the legend. 

To promote books they write, scientists go on book tours, in which they  engage in a series of interviews designed to promote the book. The statements scientists make during such book tours are some of the most unreliable utterances of scientists. Lining up the series of interviews for a book tour is typically the job of the publicity department of a publisher.  Typically a scientist going on a book tour will be prepped by someone working for the publisher, who will emphasize the importance of the scientist producing exciting-sounding quotes. So if the scientist has produced some boring work that does not prove anything interesting, he may be told that he should "spice things up" by making it sound like his research is some "epic breakthrough." 

When scientists write books promoting self-glorifying "lab legends,"  key factors are the dust jacket and the back cover. The left part of the paper dusk jacket customarily has text written not by the author himself, but by some employee of the publishing company. Here the PR hacks of a publishing company often engage in very bad deceit, making all kinds of claims about authors not warranted by any facts.  In either paperback or hardcover, the back cover of a book by a scientist may also have boasting claims written by the publicity department of a publisher; and such claims are often "try to make a mountain of a mole-hill" types of claims. Favorable quotations by early readers of the book (called "blurbs" in the industry) are often written by associates or friends of a scientist, with there occurring lots of "quid pro quo" expectations, along the lines of "you rub my back and I'll rub yours." So if Professor X gives a favorable quotation about a book by Professor Y, it may be expected that Professor Y will give an equally favorable "blurb" when Professor X sends Professor Y an early copy of his book. 

Not very long ago we had an example of one of the "lab legend" scientists making very misleading statements while on a book tour. In interviews of his book tour, we heard the unfounded triumphal legend that the scientist did something to physically manipulate memories. In one of these interview articles making such a claim, we have a link back to one of the papers of the scientist. It is a very bad piece of junk science guilty of very bad examples of Questionable Research Practices, such as the use of way-too-small study group sizes and the use of an utterly unreliable method of trying to judge fear or recall in rodents (the "freezing behavior" method discussed here). The scientist hawking his book never did anything to show that memories are stored in the brains of rodents, and never did anything to mechanistically modify a memory, contrary to his groundless boasts; and no scientists ever did any such thing. We have the peddling of explanatory snake-oil to gin up book sales. 

We should shake our heads in dismay while pondering the willingness of mainstream sites to fall "hook, line and sinker" when such lab legends are pushed by trying-to-glorify-themselves scientists on book tours. In this case the scientist is confessing to a decade-long problem with substance abuse, which went on concurrent with his research he uses to try to justify these groundless boasts he is making about discovering something about memory. You would think that would be sufficient for such sites to treat the scientist's boasts with skepticism.