InkSpot. Science. On Demand

Nutters on the Bus

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• Author: David Leahy
• October 26, 2009
• Category: Uncategorized, science shared

Having argued in the previous post that open science lets the general public engage in science and that this is a Good Thing, I’d like to backtrack slightly and qualify my remarks. I think open science will be a bit like public transport. For some things it can get you places quicker and it has a community value, but is not for everyone or for all journeys. It means that you have to mix with the public, and you can meet some interesting people that way, but you do have to be a little circumspect. Most importantly, you don’t want to sit near the Nutter on the Bus and if you do, whatever else happens, don’t make eye contact.

They can be hard to spot at first, the nutters, perhaps not until the bus gets underway and you realise you’re stuck with them, and you know that they know that you’re stuck with them. You can recognise the nutter by a sort of starey-eyed intensity which expresses an absolute conviction that they, and they alone, have the Knowledge-that-Will-Save-the-World. In their eyes, you have come within range and now you must listen. They have always talked aloud to themselves, and now they blog. Some even make a living out of it. Selling their outrage to create traffic for their clients. Their convictions are dogmatic, religious and they are fundamentally anti-science, reason and evidence. Indeed, in previous ages, they would have been the witch-finders, the hell-fire priests, the druids. They think they are engaging in scientific discussion, but it is a bastardised sort of science with smearing the unbelievers at its core. So as an example, anyone who works in the private sector, has ever worked in the private sector, or has ever collaborated with anyone in the private sector or spoken at a conference that was, even in part funded by the private sector is fundamentally corrupt and their ideas, work and opinions are therefore discredited and can be ignored. Any other counter-arguments are dismissed by a vague waiving in the direction of partially relevant facts and frequent use of the term “debunked”. As in “the work of insert name of eminent scientist here has been debunked by insert reference to Wikipedia pages controlled by your fellow starey-eyed ones here“. There is a kind of suppressed outrage in much of what they say which prevents them from listening and hearing any part of the answers given to their questions they pose. They don’t listen, because they don’t have to. They already know The Truth.

I came across one such group a few months ago while walking past the shiny new Oxford Chemistry building on my way to a workshop. They were a large group of animal rights protestors with banners calling scientists murderers. They have been there for a few years now attacking the University and its scientists for the new primate centre being constructed along the same road. Thankfully, the authorities finally got round to stopping their all day chanting and verbal abuse of the scientists working in the buildings nearby, so they were quiet and on the surface, harmless. I crossed the road anyway. You don’t want to make eye contact with a nutter.

I am personally very interested in animal reduction in science, and mainly work in areas (in vitro testing, PBPK simulation and QSAR modelling) that are important tools in drug and pesticide research, and also have great potential for reducing the use of animals. I served on expert committees of ECVAM, the EU funded centre for developing alternatives to animal testing, particularly as a result of the EU regulations to control the use of chemicals, REACH (what the EU gives …). Those of us that attended the expert review groups were pretty much of the same view that a combination of in vitro testing in human tissues combined with computational methods were actually more predictive of human and environmental exposure and risk than some of the very crude animal tests in use. However, I became pessimistic when I realised that the issue didn’t have much to do with the best scientific methods, and that the regulators and therefore industry just wouldn’t expose themselves to criticism and potential product withdrawal. The new animal testing required by REACH may be expensive and time consuming, but it is not as expensive as withdrawing a product. It wasn’t that the alternatives weren’t good enough, it was that they will never be good enough to satisfy the demands of the new commandment, “the precautionary principle”. So they won’t take the best scientific position, they will do what they have to, to avoid making eye contact with the nutters on the Green bus. In fact, now that REACH defines the requirements, it may significantly increase testing, regardless of its scientific value, simply because companies will see that, as expensive as the testing is, and however destructive or scientifically pointless, it will put them and their products in a solid defensive position against any possible criticism or new findings. Because they know as do we when we stop to think about it, that it doesn’t matter what tests are done, to the starey-eyed ones, all chemicals are toxic, by definition. QED, the debate is over. The only defence is to say — “we did exactly the testing that we were told to do. We obeyed every rule you threw at us”. The scientific basis for those tests is irrelevant.

Thomas Hartung was Director of ECVAM when I served on those advisory committees. He is an experienced academic toxicologist who supports the REACH legislation but was active in the EU to try and ensure that science and evidence would be at the heart of the new testing regime and the impact (and REACH has a staggeringly large impact on animal use) should be minimised. From the sound of a recent letter to Nature, he and others are growing increasingly concerned that all that work is coming to nothing. Thus, yet again, the “Law of Unintended Consequences” trumps the “Precautionary Principle”.

“Our results suggest that generating data to comply with REACH will require 54 million vertebrate animals and cost 9.5 billion Euros over the next 10 years. This is 20 times more animals and 6 times the costs of the official estimates.

However, Thomas’ well reasoned arguments mean very little to the green Nutter on the Bus who deploys the usual smear and innuendo, loosely referenced arguments and outrage against him and his co-author. Scientists can’t win here. They are caught between two groups of the starey-eyed competing for their own peculiarly narrow view of the world. We now have two nutters on the same bus. Maybe we could slide off at the next stop and let them have a go at each other?

So a polite request to the Oxford animal rights people. Please move your campaign of intimidation to outside the office of the Green Party. Carry on your dialogue of the deaf with each other. Neither of you have any interest in science or scientists. Leave us out of it.

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