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2 Suppression: it's everywhere
5 Peer review as scholarly conformity
6 'Proper channels' just don't work
7 The media against suppression
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Throughout history, dissidents have often come under attack. They have encountered censorship, harassment, slander, dismissal, banishment, even prison, torture and execution. In liberal democracies today, intellectual freedom is celebrated. Yet it remains dangerous to disagree with conventional wisdom. Inside corporations and government departments, most employees know it is not wise to criticise official policies or the boss - at least not openly. Those who speak out are often victimised. Suppression of dissent is commonplace. Yet this suppression receives little attention.
My aim in this book is not to document the methods or extent of suppression. There is plenty of information already available about that. Rather, my aim is to describe some of the experiences and insights that I've had in more than 15 years of research and action against suppression. In many of the following chapters I draw on my own studies and experiences even though there are others who have a deeper understanding and more extensive experience. I do this because, when I know the case personally, I'm more confident about the insights. It's easy to be seduced by someone else's account of a case in some other country.
The first five chapters deal with the problem of suppression: a detailed case study in chapter 1, a range of illustrative cases in chapter 2, patterns of suppression in chapter 3 and the roles of the law and peer review in chapters 4 and 5. The final five chapters deal with responses to suppression. Chapter 6 argues that official procedures for dealing with suppression seldom work. Chapter 7 treats the complex role of the media. Chapter 8 gives examples of the challenges facing someone trying to publish accounts of suppression. Chapter 9 describes some of the sorts of people who take action against suppression. Finally, chapter 10 summarises what a person under attack can do to respond.
Out of the many cases I've come across over the years, only some are mentioned here, and not much detail is given for any particular one. To give a detailed account of a single suppression case can easily require a book, and there are quite a few books that do this. I've used cases to provide insights about opposing suppression. I hope those who are not mentioned here will realise that this is not due to lack of interest.
Memories can be deceptive. I've relied throughout on my detailed written records and previously published accounts.
In studying suppression, I have accumulated more than the usual number of intellectual debts. I thank all those who have contributed information, insights and inspiration over the years. Mark Diesendorf, Peter Drahos, Don Eldridge, Isla MacGregor, Wes Shrum and Wendy Varney gave helpful comments on the entire manuscript. For comments on individual chapters or points I thank Tim Anderson, Eric Bachelard, Ann Baker, Penelope Canan, Tom Curtis, Bill De Maria, Tim Doyle, Jeremy Evans, Ned Groth, Carolyn Hayes, Ed Herman, David Hess, Bernadette Hince, John Hookey, Ian Hughes, Jo Kamminga, Jean Lennane, Clyde Manwell, Brian O'Brien, Louis Pascal, Mel Reuber, Alan Roberts, Dhirenda Sharma, Mike Spautz and Richard Sylvan. Sharon Beder provided valuable technical advice.
In 1976 I moved to Canberra to take up a job at the Australian National University. One of the people I met there was Jeremy Evans. Little did I imagine that I would be helping to campaign for his tenure only a few years later. This campaign was my first real introduction to suppression issues.
After completing my PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Sydney and spending a year mostly unemployed, I was lucky to obtain a job as a research assistant in the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. I had developed a strong interest in environmental issues and also in social alternatives, so on arriving in Canberra I immediately began asking around to find interesting people to meet.
The ANU, though a relatively new university at the time, was dominated by orthodox perspectives. There were only a few pockets of exciting innovation. One of them was the Human Sciences Program. It was not long before I became a regular visitor to the members of the Program.
The Human Sciences Program was an undergraduate teaching programme. It might simplistically be called environmental studies, but there was a strong emphasis on the human side of the picture, both the dynamics of society and the dynamics of the psyche. Students in the Program took one or both of a sequence of two full-year courses, both taught by the small staff: a second-year course called Human Ecology and a third-year course called Human Adaptability. Students took Human Sciences as a small component of an otherwise orthodox science or arts degree with a major in a conventional discipline.
The Human Sciences staff was indeed small. There was Jeremy Evans, senior lecturer and head of the Program; Ian Hughes, lecturer; Val Brown, tutor; and Rosemary Brissenden, tutor. This tiny unit was able, though, to upset a lot of powerful people on campus.
The Program dealt with current social issues, such as environmental degradation and ways to respond to it, including social and personal change. This may not sound like anything special from the perspective of the 1990s, when environmental issues are everyday stories and even conservative politicians voice their concerns. But in the 1970s, the environment was still a relatively new and radical issue.
However, what made the Human Sciences Program really stand out from the crowd was its commitment to interdisciplinary study. It attempted to bring together approaches from a range of fields, including sciences such as zoology and geography and social sciences such as sociology, anthropology and psychology. Whether you call this interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity or something else doesn't really matter. The Human Sciences Program was a threat to some traditional academics not so much for what it taught but because of what it was in organisational terms.
To understand why the Program came under attack, I need to discuss how universities are organised. The ANU was set up like most universities, as a series of departments such as philosophy, physics and psychology. The model department could call itself a discipline or at least part of a discipline. Members of a discipline make the intellectual claim of being the only ones with the specialised knowledge to make judgements about scholarship in the field. If disciplinary barriers are high, universities become fragmented, with each department/discipline zealously guarding its boundaries, keeping out interlopers and maintaining the purity of the canon.
There are actually numerous exceptions to the discipline model of universities, such as law and medicine. These are areas of application and necessarily draw on a number of disciplines. But because they are allied to powerful professions, their organisational and intellectual status is seldom questioned.
However, when there is no powerful outside group to support a field, it has a more difficult time. Women's studies and peace studies are two good examples. Human Sciences had the same problem. The main outside group to which it might appeal was the environmental movement. Given the reputation of environmentalism in the 1970s as a radical fringe, this was hardly the basis for gaining intellectual respect in a hide-bound university.
My discussions with staff in Human Sciences helped me gain an understanding of why they encountered hostility from some powerful members of the ANU. Val Brown and I had many stimulating conversations. I had my own radical and largely untested ideas about education. For her PhD, Val was doing something more practical, namely studying the Human Sciences Program itself as a form of interdisciplinary education.
In retrospect, it is amazing that the Program was set up at all. The key driving force behind it was Stephen Boyden, a researcher working in the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU. I knew Stephen because he had moved to the new Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies to head up the Human Ecology group. His efforts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with support from many others, led to establishment of the Human Sciences Program. But there was serious opposition from some figures in traditional departments, or so I was told. There wasn't much written evidence, since the hostility came out in committees and discussions in the years it took to establish the Program. Finances were tight in the university. The Program was a juicy morsel. It attracted many students who might otherwise study in some traditional department.
In 1979 Jeremy Evans, senior lecturer in the Human Sciences Program, came up for tenure. At that stage all of the academic staff in the Program were untenured. The reappointments committee recommended against Jeremy's tenure. As word of the decision spread, students and friends of the Program were shocked and outraged. It was not just a personal setback for Jeremy; it was an attack on the Program.
In Australian universities at that time, just about everyone who held a potentially tenurable post and applied for tenure was successful. The more difficult part was getting a tenurable post. Jeremy had been appointed to a tenurable senior lectureship. After the usual three years of probation, he put in an application for tenure.
If he had published nothing at all and been a terrible teacher and been an unpleasant colleague, then it was just possible that tenure would have been denied. But Jeremy had a modest though not meagre publication record, got on reasonably well with his colleagues, and was highly acclaimed as a teacher. The teaching was the key in this case, since Human Sciences was a new teaching operation and involved a very heavy load of both educational innovation and face-to-face teaching.
Jeremy and others believe that an important factor in the decision to deny him tenure was his introduction of "experiential" sessions in his course Human Adaptability in 1976, including the occasional guest lecturer who advocated revelation as a means for seeking the truth. Several members of the Program's supervisory committee, including Frank Fenner and Stephen Boyden, advised against this, but Jeremy went ahead in the face of their disapproval. His "disobedience" in this regard was never mentioned in any official context but in Jeremy's view it aroused considerable fury among committee members and almost certainly triggered the decision to deny tenure.
In official terms, denying Jeremy's tenure was not a threat to the Program. He would lose his job, to be sure, but it could then be advertised and offered to someone else. In practical terms, though, students and supporters of the Program came to see the tenure denial as a direct attack. Jeremy was one of the founders of the Program: to deny him tenure was to deny his contribution. In addition, denying Jeremy tenure was in effect to say that his research and teaching in an interdisciplinary area were not sufficiently "scholarly" to merit inclusion in the ANU. This was in effect a comment on everything the Program was attempting to do.
Jeremy Evans was born in 1937 in Hobart. He attended the University of Sydney - one of Australia's most prestigious universities - where he obtained first class honours in zoology. He went on to get a PhD in biology from Harvard University. He joined the Zoology Department at the University of Melbourne as a lecturer. Then, in 1969, he voluntarily took a step down in rank and pay to work as a research assistant with Stephen Boyden in the Urban Biology Group in the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU. When the Human Sciences Program got under way in 1973, he became a lecturing fellow, and then in 1976 a senior lecturer and head of the Program.
Jeremy thus broke out of his traditional disciplinary background and championed interdisciplinary studies - environmental studies, very broadly interpreted - when universities were only just coming to terms with these issues. Jeremy was primarily oriented to the intellectual endeavour of interdisciplinary exploration. Although he actively supported a number of community initiatives such as foundation of a local Society for Social Responsibility in Science, Jeremy was not prominent as a social activist or public commentator. Thus, he was not denied tenure because of his radical politics or activism.
It's taken me quite a bit of explanation here to tell why people were upset about the denial of Jeremy's tenure. The tenure decision was justified by the committee on traditional grounds of lack of sufficient academic merit. To oppose this assessment meant having a critical understanding of the dynamics of the university. As in most cases, the issues were complex. Indeed, what I've described here gives only a hint of the complexities of the case. I haven't gone into personalities, power plays or the wider dynamics of environmental politics.
Following the reappointment committee's rejection of tenure for Jeremy, there was a big campaign to push for his tenure and to defend the Human Sciences Program. The campaign was very effective. Here I tell about some aspects of the campaign without pretending to give a full history.
The first and essential requirement for this campaign was that Jeremy be willing to fight the decision. He was. It sounds easy to say, "I'll fight it," but actually it's not all that common. The first response most people have when they come under attack in this way is to blame themselves and to hide their shame.
Tenure committees meet at universities regularly and deal with case after case. Usually there is no controversy. In the Australian system, if someone is likely to be denied tenure, often they will be told quietly before they apply, so that they can seek another job and not be embarrassed by rejection. When there is a formal rejection of tenure, it is presented as entirely a question of academic merit. Challenging these decisions is not easy. When a panel of experienced academics pronounces that someone is not worthy of tenure, it is difficult indeed for the rejected applicant to turn around and contest the decision.
One reason Jeremy was willing to fight was because there had been continual discussions in the Program about the forces for and against it. Jeremy and his supporters had a framework for explaining the rejection in terms of the politics of the university. In this framework, academic "merit" was not an objective criterion. Rather, it was influenced, indeed constructed by the reappointments committee and, in this case, used to devalue the sort of teaching and research being undertaken in Human Sciences.
University regulations allowed Jeremy to request his tenure rejection to be reassessed by a review committee. So he prepared a comprehensive application to the committee. The review committee reaffirmed the rejection of tenure. Jeremy persisted by going to an appeal committee, which could look only at procedural anomalies in the review committee's deliberations. Jeremy prepared an even more impressive submission. It included a critique of the review committee's procedures, an account of the special difficulties of programmes such as Human Sciences, an account of the performance of his administrative duties, his teaching and research, and a series of appendices, including letters of support from students and academics.
One of the grounds Jeremy used for appeal was that the chair of the review committee, Ted Chapman from the Geography Department, added his signature to a letter to the Vice-Chancellor from members of the Geography Department suggesting that the Human Sciences Program be amalgamated with Geography. Chapman was also alleged to have said in conversation with undergraduate students that this amalgamation would lead to termination of all but one of the positions in Human Sciences and termination of the course Human Adaptability, taught by Jeremy. If evidence was needed of a link between Jeremy's tenure and the survival of Human Sciences, this was it.
Pursuing justice through formal university channels is a risky business at the best of times. Why would a panel of academics overturn a decision made by their esteemed colleagues? This is where the campaign came in. It was an attempt to demonstrate the value of Human Sciences and to challenge attacks on it through denial of tenure. Public campaigns are uncommon in cases like this.
Some time after the campaign got under way, Jeremy was contacted by John Hookey, who had previously worked at the ANU, in the Law Faculty. In the early 1970s, Hookey had quickly made his mark. He introduced the first course in environmental and resource law at any Australian university. He developed a high profile in supporting land rights for native peoples, including writing a critique of a prominent judge's decision in relation to Aboriginal land rights and appearing in the High Court as junior counsel in a Papuan land rights case. He thought that everything was going fine.
Then one day Hookey found a note on his desk from the dean of the Law Faculty, telling him that he was unlikely to be recommended for tenure. He was stunned. He quickly took steps to challenge this decision, using internal university procedures. The bitter struggle over his case divided the Law Faculty. Before the issue was formally resolved, he was offered and accepted a high-paying and prestigious job as an environmental hearings commissioner in the Australian public service.
There were a number of similarities between Hookey and Evans. Each of them had undertaken innovative teaching in the environmental area. Each of them had a respectable research and teaching record. And each of them was threatened with denial of tenure. Their cases differed in the public visibility and duration of their struggles against denial of tenure. Hookey and his supporters did not seek media coverage or support from students. Also, the matter was defused when he took another job. By contrast, the campaign for Jeremy's tenure became a public issue.
I use the word "campaign" but don't get the wrong impression. There was no secretariat running a well-funded and well-organised operation. There were meetings of concerned individuals and some degree of organisation among three separate groups: the members of Human Sciences, academic supporters, and student supporters (including former students).
The first and most vital part of the operation was getting accurate information out to key people. Packets of documents were given to quite a number of people. I did my bit by sending information about Jeremy's case to various people. Some supporters took action by quiet lobbying, either talking to others or writing letters to university officials. Others made the issue public, especially by writing letters to the Canberra Times, the only daily newspaper in the city and fortunately one recognised at the time for its high quality. The first publication occurred on 5 August 1979. A letter to the editor from R. M. Aitken was published, expressing concern about the possible termination of the Human Sciences Program due to budget cuts. Also in the same issue was a prominent article entitled "'ANU irrelevant' if innovative courses cut." In the opening paragraph, it quoted Fred Emery, a high-profile ANU academic from the Centre for Continuing Education, saying that "The ANU would become irrelevant to the requirements of society if it continued its 'gut reaction' to expenditure by axing innovative courses." Two ANU administrators replied in the Canberra Times a few days later, and this led to further letters and comment in the newspaper.
A few letters to the newspaper may not sound like much, but it is a major operation. Most academics are reluctant to become involved in public controversy. Even more than this, they are reluctant to openly question their own university administration, out of both loyalty and self-protection. Students and outsiders have less to lose by joining the debate, but they are also likely to feel insecure when it comes to challenging academic "experts." For anyone at all to speak out or write a letter to the Canberra Times was quite something. Jeremy's organised supporters cultivated every possible letter writer.
Even a few letters to the newspaper can have a considerable impact on a university administration. Like most bureaucracies, university administrations loathe bad publicity. They were caught in a dilemma. Should they ignore the complaints and leave them unanswered, or respond and prolong the debate?
I became heavily involved in another initiative, a petition. A group of us got together and drafted a mild statement, something that would not be all that difficult for academics to sign. Here is the statement:
We the undersigned urge the Australian National University to reconsider the issue of Dr Jeremy Evans' tenured appointment, taking into account the special requirements of problem oriented teaching and research and the uncertainties surrounding the future of the Human Sciences Program.
We had spaces for people to print their names, list their positions and institutions, and sign. Richard Barz of South Asian and Buddhist Studies agreed to be the return point for petitions.
Most people on campus didn't know much about the issues behind Jeremy's tenure. Therefore, we produced a background statement with the "facts" about the case. Drafting this document was a challenge. We had to be absolutely accurate, since even the slightest mistake could be used to discredit the case being made. The document had to be clear and persuasive for academics who knew nothing about Human Sciences or Jeremy.
In order to give the document added credibility, we sought a list of signatories who would show the breadth of support for Jeremy's case. Various names were canvassed and various people were approached. Each person listed had to agree to the final text. I spent a lot of time making minor revisions and then checking these with all the signatories. We decided that it would be better for me not to be one of the signatories, since I had a relatively junior position (and therefore less credibility among academics) and also was known for my radical views, especially through my letters against uranium mining in the Canberra Times.
The background document is reproduced below. It is worth studying because I believe it is a good model for others to follow.
Dr Jeremy Evans, Senior Lecturer in the Human Sciences Program at the Australian National University, is the first person to be denied tenure under the full review procedures approved by University Council in 1974.
The Human Sciences Program comprises a group of four academics who are responsible for two innovative, problem oriented courses in the School of General Studies, based on the multidisciplinary study of human interactions with the environment. It has also graduated four Honours and two Ph.D. students. The Program has attracted both praise and controversy within the University since its inception in 1973. Its place in the University curriculum has been vindicated in terms of both content and standards by several evaluations1, 2, 3, 4 and it enjoys strong student support.3
The ostensible primary reason for denying Dr Evans' tenure is inadequate research output. As a Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Melbourne in 1966-68 Dr Evans published seven research papers. During 1969-72 he worked as a Research Assistant in the Urban Biology Group, John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU, took courses in sociology and psychology and co-edited a book. Since joining the Human Sciences Program in 1973 he has devoted the major part of his time to administration, teaching and course design, as would be expected in establishing and developing new multidisciplinary courses. He has nevertheless since then produced nine publications and written a substantial portion of a book. The result of Dr Evans' unusual devotion to teaching is increasing enrolments of enthusiastic students who, along with many of Dr Evans' colleagues, recognise him as a gifted scholar and teacher.
Even if Dr Evans' research performance falls below the norm for the Faculty of Arts in which the Program is located, which seems most unlikely, the decision to deny him tenure appears questionable in view of the special circumstances surrounding it. Indeed, a U.S. Report5 concludes that problem oriented environmental programmes in universities cannot be expected to succeed if they are subjected to the prevailing form of tenure review. In the light of Dr Evans' experience in Human Sciences and of this Report's conclusions, it seems that the traditional criteria for tenure may be inappropriate to his case.
In addition, the blocking of Dr Evans' tenure has been closely followed by a move by another department to incorporate the Human Sciences Program. This raises questions about the relation of the issue of Dr Evans' tenure to the survival of the Human Sciences Program as a viable operation, since Dr Evans' post is the only tenurable position in the Program.
On the basis of this and other information, we recommend that university staff and others involved in tertiary level teaching and research add their signatures to the attached statement.
1. Ward, R. Gerard, Report on the HSP (2977/1974 3.9.74).
2. Brown, V. A., 1978, Holism and the University Curriculum: Promise or Performance, Vols. 1 & 2, Ph.D. Thesis, ANU.
3. Questionnaire responses in Human Ecology and Human Adaptability, 1976-78.
4. Miller, Allen H. and Ann Porteus, Student Involvement in Learning, in preparation.
5. Steinhart, John S. and Stacie Cherniak, 1969, The universities and environmental quality, A Report to the President's Environmental Quality Council. Washington DC, Office of Science and Technology, Executive Office of the President.
* Dr Richard Barz, Senior Lecturer, South Asian and Buddhist Studies, SGS, ANU
Mrs Rosemary Brissenden, Senior Tutor, Human Sciences Program, SGS, ANU
Dr R.K. Darroch, Lecturer, Psychology, SGS, ANU
Dr Ken Gardiner, Senior Lecturer, Asian Civilizations, SGS, ANU
Dr Ian M. Hughes, Lecturing Fellow, Human Sciences Program, SGS, ANU
* Dr Hugh Saddler, Research Fellow, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU
Mr F.W. Shawcross, Senior Lecturer, Prehistory and Anthropology, SGS, ANU
Dr M.J. Weidemann, Senior Lecturer, Biochemistry, SGS, ANU
* Contact for further information.
Drafting and printing the petition and the background statement was only the first step. Next it was necessary to get people to sign! I knew a few people who were sympathetic to Jeremy. It was easy to get their signatures. I then got up my courage and took the petition around to my colleagues in the Departments of Pure and Applied Mathematics, where I had been working since 1977.
I think there are two main reasons why doing this was hard. First, having been in the Department of Applied Mathematics for a few years, my relationships with other staff had settled into a standard pattern. To ask someone to sign a petition was to go outside the usual expectations. Would I offend them by asking them to consider the petition? This worry sounds almost silly, but it can be a strong inhibiting force against any behaviour out of the ordinary.
Second, most of the academics in mathematics were not very outgoing or friendly. Perhaps that's why they were attracted to mathematics.
In any case, I shouldn't have worried. Nearly every mathematician I approached signed the statement. Only two declined. One of the two was known as an eccentric, so his choice on this could not be predicted. The other said he had no respect for Jeremy.
I started by approaching colleagues I knew well and who were more likely to sign. Then when I approached others, there were already several signatures on the petition. This created a sort of bandwagon effect. After getting a good response with mathematicians, I felt able to approach people I didn't know. I went to the nearby Philosophy Department and obtained quite a few signatures. Then I tackled the Geography Department. Since many geographers had signed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor suggesting that the Human Sciences Program be taken over by Geography, I didn't expect to get many signatures but thought it would be good to confront the people concerned. As it turned out, only the department's three cartographers signed.
With this sort of response, we could have obtained support from nearly every academic on campus. The difficulty was finding people to collect the signatures. A number of others, like me, had success by approaching colleagues. But we didn't have all that many supporters willing to do this. After all, I had been heavily involved in getting the petition going and still had to get up my courage to approach people.
Nevertheless, we obtained over 200 signatures, with about 160 of these from ANU. There were some 1000 academics at the ANU, not to mention other staff such as research assistants. Nevertheless, the number of signatures was impressive. It's generally very difficult to obtain support from academics on anything except their salaries and parking places.
The petition was presented to the Vice-Chancellor in November 1979, and there was some accompanying publicity in the media. But the value of the petition was far greater than its impact on university officials or the public. Over 200 people signed the statement and even more read the background document. The petition solidified the commitment of the key people involved, especially some of those whose names were at the bottom of the background document and those who had collected signatures. Finally, the petition project provided a valuable focus for organising support.
Meanwhile, students supporting Human Sciences organised their own petition. They had less trouble gaining support. The main problem was tracking down former students.
During all this activity, Jeremy took a wholly appropriate role. He realised that it would not be for the best if he were an active partisan in organising activities, since he might be perceived only as serving his own career interests. So he clearly stated at an early meeting that he would not be an active participant in initiatives such as the petition but would be available to offer suggestions. That is precisely what happened. Those of us who prepared the petition sought Jeremy's advice concerning details in the background document, but we organised everything independently of him.
Jeremy's role was possible because there was such a depth of support for both him and Human Sciences. Others do not have this luxury and must play a more direct role in any campaign.
The public side of the campaign for Jeremy's tenure and the defence of Human Sciences was straightforward: lobbying, letters, petitions. Behind this was lots and lots of discussion and networking. The real complexity of the case arose with the university's official procedures at the time, which were slow and tortuous. While the public campaign boiled during 1979, decisions by university committees about tenure and budgets proceeded at the usual snail's pace.
To cut a long story short, the four members of the appeal committee disagreed about Jeremy's case. After long negotiations, Jeremy accepted the administration's offer of a two-year extension of his appointment, after which he would go for tenure in the usual way. This compromise effectively dampened down public activity on the case. Jeremy buckled down to do more research and obtained tenure when the time came. No one in the administration ever admitted publicly that the campaign had made any difference, but of course it was the crucial factor.
The problems facing Human Sciences did not end with Jeremy's tenure. There were further threats to the survival of the Program - indeed, this was almost an annual event. Even more seriously, there were increasing tensions among the staff, a common occurrence in any academic unit and especially in interdisciplinary units that are critical of the status quo. Jeremy eventually moved to the Psychology Department and then to Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, where he continues to teach in the Human Sciences tradition. The rest of the Program was eventually incorporated into the Geography Department, where its survival as a source of critical, innovative approaches to problems of society and the environment remains precarious. Along the way there have been continued budgetary problems, student agitation, attacks on and defences of the Program.
The renamed Human Ecology Program in Geography as well as Jeremy's courses now attract more students than ever. Their greatest protection against cutbacks comes from high enrolments and the willingness of students to vocally support them.
In spite of all the difficulties and eventual division of the Human Sciences Program, there are some valuable lessons to be learned from the campaign, which was one of the most effective I've seen.
The foundation for the campaign was a sound social analysis of the situation, in this case of the dynamics of the university and especially the forces both supporting and opposing Human Sciences. This analysis was developed over the years spent in setting up and running Human Sciences. When Jeremy's tenure was denied, lots of people believed they knew what was behind the decision.
Human Sciences had a great number of supporters: students, former students, academics from different parts of the university, and outsiders. They were a crucial resource. The support had been built up over the years through good teaching and outreach.
The campaign was built on a core of people who were willing to take action. This included, most of all, the Human Sciences academics, and also groups of students and other academics.
The campaign was very careful in its claims. Every fact was checked, as in the case of the background document for the staff petition.
The campaign took the case to wider audiences rather than just going through official channels. Letters to the newspaper and the petitions brought the issue to a wider public.
Throughout all of this, there was a clear set of aims and demands: grant Jeremy tenure and ensure the funding and survival of the Human Sciences Program.
The campaign was not perfect, but it was pretty good. It certainly taught me a lot. It also primed me for the investigation of intellectual suppression.
The struggle over Human Sciences helped me to see a pattern. I had read about other cases in which environmental researchers or teachers had come under attack. The denial of Jeremy's tenure was part of a larger picture of "suppression of environmental scholarship." It all seems obvious to me now but at the time it struck me like a revelation.
In June 1978, Richard Dunford, then doing a PhD at ANU, gave me a 1976 article from the Australian journal Arena. It was by Peter Springell and called "For the freedom to comment by scientists." Springell had worked as a scientist for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the large Australian government research body commonly known as CSIRO. In the early 1970s, while working at the CSIRO Division of Animal Genetics in Rockhampton, Queensland, Springell began to be involved with environmental research. He encountered quite a few obstacles, some of them amazingly unfair.
CSIRO has an internal review system for publications: they are screened within the organisation before they can be sent to journals. Springell wrote some environmental research papers on topics such as beef production and lead in petrol. He was told that he could not submit them as an employee of CSIRO. However, he was allowed to submit them using his home address. From the point of view of editors and readers, a home address rather than an institutional address lowers one's credibility. Springell found out that the chief of his division, J. M. Rendel, who objected to Springell's papers going out under CSIRO auspices, had actually published a paper on "consciousness" - a topic having nothing to do with division's work - using his CSIRO affiliation. Springell did not endear himself to Rendel when he pointed out the hypocrisy involved.
Springell was not one to suffer quietly. He took the issue of the treatment of his environmental work to senior CSIRO officials and then to politicians. He complained publicly about the lack of environmental research in CSIRO. His dissent was met with hostility. Attempts were made to dismiss him for inefficiency, but since Springell published more research than most of his colleagues, these attempts failed. Then he was transferred from Queensland to Melbourne. Springell decided this move was political rather than scientific and refused to go. CSIRO officials then began dismissal proceedings. Springell resisted them. Various tricks were used against him. Eventually he decided to leave and take another job.
Springell's article in Arena told his story briefly and effectively. It contained a host of references backing up his claims. His story had received national publicity. It was essentially the story of a scientist who was harassed by his employer because he pursued environmental research and refused to shut up about it.
In February 1978 I received a letter from Clyde Manwell, Professor of Zoology at the University of Adelaide. He had read a recent article of mine in the Ecologist magazine and felt considerable affinity with my views. After some letters and phone conversations, he invited me to Adelaide to give a seminar. In October that year I made the trip and gave a talk on "Environmental studies and politics." As a result of this contact, I found out about Manwell's experiences. It is one of the most astounding stories I've encountered.
Manwell moved to Australia from England in 1970 to take up the second chair of Zoology at the University of Adelaide. He introduced environmental issues in his teaching and pursued some research with environmental themes. Then in 1971 Manwell and his wife Ann Baker wrote a letter to the local newspaper, the Adelaide Advertiser. They actually wrote it from their home address, but the newspaper, knowing Manwell's position, added his university affiliation. Their letter was a criticism of some aspects of the South Australian government's programme for spraying pesticides against fruit fly. Note that their letter was not a broadside: it only criticised some aspects of the fruit-fly spraying programme.
The response to this letter was immediate and dramatic. Several politicians denounced Manwell in the South Australian parliament. Back at the university, the senior professor of Zoology, H. G. Andrewartha - the only other full professor in the department - wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor making a number of complaints about Manwell's performance. Some of these were ludicrous, such as a charge that there were four errors in statistics in Manwell and Baker's book on evolution. (It is well documented that errors in statistics are rife in published research. As it turned out, only one of the four alleged errors was actually wrong, and it didn't affect the conclusion.)
The Vice-Chancellor took Andrewartha's letter seriously, and launched proceedings that could have led to Manwell's dismissal from his tenured post. This was the beginning of a four-year struggle for Manwell, in which he defended himself against the charges and against harassment within the Department of Zoology. There was also a lot of support for Manwell, from some colleagues and especially from students, who even on one occasion occupied the Council Chamber in his defence. Eventually in 1975 the charges were dropped.
What was behind all this? One factor was hostility to environmentalism which, in the early 1970s, was seen as a dangerous challenge to prevailing practices. It was also noted by a number of people that H. G. Andrewartha, who made the complaint against Manwell, had strong links with the South Australian Department of Agriculture and its fruit-fly spraying programme.
In the case of Peter Springell, my information was based on a brief but well-referenced article. On Clyde Manwell's case I had much more. There were quite a few documents, including a statement written by the Vice-Chancellor that was published as part of the settlement of the case, articles in the University of Adelaide student newspaper On Dit, and various unpublished internal documents. In addition, Clyde told me a lot of things that had never been written down.
At this stage I knew a lot about a few cases: Jeremy Evans, Peter Springell and Clyde Manwell. There was also the case of John Hookey, who had informed Jeremy about his expected denial of tenure in the ANU Law Faculty. In each of these cases, a person had undertaken environmental research or teaching, or spoken out about environmental issues, in a way that threatened powerful vested interests. In each case they had come under attack as a result.
The Evans, Springell and Manwell cases were prominent. There was a lot of media coverage and activity and lots of publicly available information. The Hookey case was low key and, except for the Evans case, might never have come to my attention. Obviously there weren't all that many high-profile cases, otherwise we would read about them every day. My suspicion was that the high-profile cases were the tip of an iceberg of suppression, and that cases like John Hookey's were more typical. Several things led me to think this way.
Cases where there is a direct attack on people - denying them tenure or threatening to dismiss them - are easy to document. There are procedures for tenure and dismissal. Therefore decisions can be contested, information can be generated and media stories produced. But in many situations there is no easy way to provide documentation. For example, what if there is a bias against environmental research by the editor of a journal? This could even be unconscious bias, as in an assessment that environmental arguments are less scientific than other sorts of arguments. In any event, environmental articles might be rejected where articles on other topics, of similar calibre, are more easily accepted. This could be called suppression of environmental scholarship. But it would be virtually impossible to document.
A similar process occurs in job applications. Often there are quite a few applicants who are good enough to be appointed. The selection is made by a few people and usually no public justification is required for the elimination of certain applicants. Bias - against women, ethnic minorities, political activists, etc. - is quite possible. It is also very difficult to document.
These sorts of abstract arguments make it plausible that prominent cases are the tip of the iceberg. But what really convinced me was something else: Clyde Manwell's experiences and my own.
Clyde Manwell's case received enormous attention in Adelaide over several years. As a result, Clyde received many letters from individuals who wanted to tell him about their own experiences in being attacked for their views. I have no way to assess this information directly, as I've seen only a few of the letters - Clyde took requests for confidentiality seriously. But I saw enough and heard enough to convince me that it was entirely plausible that for every case like Clyde's, there were tens or hundreds of other cases of suppression which never received any publicity.
So far I may have given the impression that I was a disinterested observer of other people's struggles. But I had my own experiences to draw on. These had primed me to conceptualise the phenomenon of suppression.
When I first arrived at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies - CRES for short - at the beginning of 1976, I realised that my views on both environmental and social issues were much more radical than those of my superiors. I was a research assistant - a fairly junior position - in the Applied Systems Analysis group, headed by Peter Young. My view was that environmental problems persisted largely because of the dominance of powerful groups in society, especially governments and large corporations. However, the research in Applied Systems Analysis was concerned with technical aspects of pollution. The most likely use for such research was minor tinkering with environmental standards, not a re-examination of the driving forces behind environmental problems.
I decided to keep a relatively low profile in CRES. By my own standards I did keep a low profile, but it wasn't low enough. Outside of work, I joined Friends of the Earth and became active in the campaign against uranium mining. At CRES I sometimes offered comments at seminars, pointing out the social dimensions of environmental issues. Stephen Boyden made the same sort of comments, as well he might, considering that he had been the driving force behind setting up the Human Sciences Program. Stephen's comments were politely received. He was an experienced researcher, a professorial fellow and head of the Human Ecology group at CRES and could not easily be dismissed. My similar comments caused more consternation. After all, I was just a young research assistant.
In addition, I did not respond well to Peter Young's rather authoritarian managerial style. For example, I was working on a book - published several years later as The Bias of Science - and sent sample chapters to some publishers. Peter demanded to know what was in my packages. He insisted that either he be allowed to read my writings prior to posting, or that I pay for the postage myself. I chose the second option. There were a number of other tensions between us, some of them relating to our different disciplinary backgrounds, his in control engineering and mine in theoretical physics.
My initial appointment at CRES was a one-year contract, but I was told at the beginning that I could expect at least another year in the job. But towards the end of 1976, I was told by the head of CRES, Professor Frank Fenner, that he and Peter Young had decided that it would be better not to renew my contract.
There was no way I could contest the decision. After all, my contract was only for one year. In addition, there was no easy way to demonstrate any bias. True, another research assistant in Applied Systems Analysis, Tony Jakeman, who was appointed at the same time as me on a similar basis, had his contract extended. But Tony had done more that Peter had wanted, tackling the control theory modelling most effectively. It could be argued that my performance wasn't up to scratch.
Nevertheless, it seemed to me that my environmental activism was involved in some way. Frank Fenner was not an enthusiast of radical environmentalism. According to a friend at the local environment centre, he had been a supporter of the "old guard" at the Australian Conservation Foundation that was ousted by the "radicals" in the 1973 elections. CRES itself reflected a fairly technocratic orientation to environmental issues. The two main groups were Applied Systems Analysis, headed by Peter Young, and Resource Economics, headed by Professor Stuart Harris, a traditional economist. Stephen Boyden's Human Ecology group had been put in CRES as an afterthought, when Stephen sought a new home for his research.
My case, I felt in retrospect, was one that might have involved suppression, but for which there was insufficient evidence to prove much one way or the other. My experience thus primed me to recognise cases of suppression and also to appreciate that most possible cases are clouded by ambiguity and uncertainty.
As soon as I found out about the nonrenewal of my contract at CRES, I began applying for other jobs. I was lucky to be offered a research assistant position in the Department of Applied Mathematics at ANU. It was also a one-year contract, but this time I was working in a situation where my radical views were less of a threat. CRES dealt with environmental problems but also set itself up as a centre for scholarly research. Radical views and environmental activism were seen as a threat by some of the senior members of CRES. By contrast, radical views and environmental activism were largely irrelevant in the Department of Applied Mathematics. In addition, my new boss, Professor Archie Brown, seemed to hold the old-fashioned view that as long as I did my work satisfactorily, it didn't matter what else I did. So when I had a letter on uranium mining published in the Canberra Times, no one commented one way or the other. It was not seen as having anything to do with applied mathematics!
My experiences at CRES undoubtedly made me more receptive to the plight of Human Sciences and willing to take up the case of Jeremy's tenure. There was also another link. In my final days at CRES, I began to write a critique of CRES itself, with sections on the shortcomings of each group within CRES when it came to analysing environmental problems. I obtained comments on drafts from about a dozen people within CRES. This paper was published in the Ecologist, a British magazine, in July 1977, and caused quite a stir in CRES and around Canberra at the time. Forthright published comments about an actual programme were not common. Although lots of people knew about my article, no one told the senior members of CRES, who were shocked when it appeared. I was told by one person at CRES that Peter Young - to his credit - wanted to invite me to give a seminar at CRES, so that my views could be challenged. Frank Fenner apparently ruled against this.
Publication of the article cemented my position as a critic of the establishment. I assumed that I could never again get a position at CRES. Undoubtedly this made me more willing to take up the causes of other challengers of orthodoxy. One of the people who read my Ecologist article was Clyde Manwell. As noted earlier, he wrote me as a result, beginning a long interaction.
During 1979, as the struggle over Human Sciences proceeded, I thought it might be useful to write an article about the difficulties faced by environmental teachers and researchers who threatened the status quo. I decided to base the article around a series of case studies. I had good material about Jeremy Evans, John Hookey, Peter Springell and Clyde Manwell. I began talking over my ideas with several people. My friend Mark Diesendorf told me about a New Zealand environmentalist, Bob Mann, who had come under attack by the administration of the University of Auckland. The Vice-Chancellor initiated dismissal proceedings. As it turned out, Mann's colleagues rallied to his defence and the attack eventually failed. Mark gave me a few documents about Bob Mann's case, which were enough for me to include a relevant entry in my article.
An article with a series of cases is one thing, but I wanted to do more - to develop a framework for understanding the attacks. I drew upon my ongoing studies of the exercise of power in science. I argued that science - both the practice of science and scientific knowledge - is strongly influenced by the dominant groups that fund research and use scientific findings. The other dominant influence is the internal hierarchy within science, in which some elite scientists, such as lab directors and editors of key journals, have enormous power over the direction of research. The outside influences plus the internal hierarchy make up what I called the "power structure of science."
I had been reading books and articles on the sociology of science for several years. From my point of view, most of this material was quite uncritical. But there were a few treatments of those scientific elites who exercise power, who I called the "political scientific elite." Much less interesting to me was the study of intellectual authorities in science, who I called the "cognitive scientific elite."
I also brought in the familiar idea of paradigms in science. A paradigm is essentially a standard way of doing things in a field, including an accepted framework of ideas and usual methods. Anyone who challenges the dominant paradigm - such as a supporter of an alternative paradigm - is likely to encounter difficulties. But "difficulties" means that someone else is able to exercise power against the challengers. In practice this means the political scientific elite and its patrons in government and industry.
Different case studies illustrated different aspects of my analysis. For example, the attack on Clyde Manwell came directly from a member of the "political scientific elite," namely H. G. Andrewartha, senior professor of zoology, who carried weight with the Vice-Chancellor. According to Ann Baker, Andrewartha and some of his supporters had links with the South Australian Department of Agriculture which in turn was committed to the use of pesticides produced by chemical companies, illustrating the ties between scientists, government and industry. On the other hand, the struggle over Human Sciences had more to do with its challenge to the standard model of intellectual endeavour in the university. Outside vested interests were not directly implicated.
To bolster my case, I drew upon a range of material. I had been reading quite a few books and articles about attacks on intellectual dissent. Most of this material concerned experiences in the United States, but it was still relevant. There were excellent books documenting the attacks on dissidents during the late 1940s and early 1950s, under so-called "McCarthyism," notably Cedric Belfrage's The American Inquisition 1945-1960 and David Caute's The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge under Truman and Eisenhower. There were also articles about attacks on radical scholars in the late 1960s and 1970s, a phenomenon not nearly so widely recognised as McCarthyism. The more I looked, the more I found evidence that attacks on dissidents are the rule rather than the exception.
More specific to the issue of academic freedom was the work of Lionel S. Lewis, who had studied cases officially brought to the attention of the American Association of University Professors. He found that attacks from outside the university were more common in the first half of the century, but since then attacks from within - namely from university administrations - became more common. This fitted in with my picture of the key role of the political scientific elite in suppression. Most suppression operated within the organisation; the local elites acted to protect their own power and status, which in many cases was linked to powerful outside interests.
There were lots of relevant ideas and references that I tried to pack into the article. For example, Joseph Haberer in his book Politics and the Community of Science documented how most of the German scientific community - especially the scientific elite - had readily cooperated with the Nazis. Haberer introduced the expression "prudential acquiescence" to describe this phenomenon. The current cooperation between the scientific community and dominant political and economic groups was not so very different.
I couldn't resist using a great quote from C. Wright Mills, the famous radical sociologist. Mills wrote "the deepest problem of freedom for teachers is not the occasional ousting of a professor, but a vague general fear - sometimes politely known as 'discretion,' 'good taste,' or 'balanced judgment.' It is a fear which leads to self-intimidation and finally becomes so habitual that the scholar is unaware of it. The real restraints are not so much external prohibitions as control of the insurgents by the agreements of academic gentlemen." This sort of social control is the usual mechanism; suppression is only used occasionally, to warn people against stepping out of line.
I worked away at my article, checking details with every individual mentioned. By early January 1980 I had completed a draft, which I promptly sent out to a considerable number of people for comment. At that stage it had the poor title "Functions of the scientific elite structure." Naturally I sent copies to Jeremy Evans, John Hookey, Peter Springell, Clyde Manwell and Bob Mann. I also sent copies to a number of others who I thought would be likely to give me useful comments.
For several years I had been corresponding with Richard and Val Routley, two radical philosophers who were involved with environmental issues, anarchism and social critique generally. We exchanged copies of draft articles and sent each other detailed comments. They lived near Braidwood, not so very far from Canberra, and Richard actually worked at ANU doing full-time philosophy research, but at that time seldom visited the campus. So we mainly communicated by post.
Val sent me a long letter with lots of insightful comments from their reading of the paper. She also mentioned that some of their own experiences might be relevant. I arranged to meet them within a couple of weeks to obtain more information. As it turned out, their story was another important case.
In the early 1970s, Richard and Val wrote a book entitled Fight for the Forests. It was a frontal attack on standard forestry practice and the assumptions underlying it. Richard arranged for it to be published by the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU. However, members of the Forestry Department at ANU obtained word of the impending publication. Apparently as a result, the Vice-Chancellor wrote requesting that the book be shown to the head of the Forestry Department and revised in accordance with any comments he might make. This attempt at censorship failed. Fight for the Forests was published in 1973 and two later editions appeared in 1974 and 1975. It was and still remains the best critique of Australian forestry available. Environmentalists and others sought it eagerly. All three editions sold out, but no money was made available for future printings or editions.
Perhaps the most bizarre part of this story was that Richard Routley was barred from using the Forestry Department library on campus for six months in 1974. David Dumaresq, who worked as a research assistant for Richard, used to use the library on Richard's behalf, almost surreptitiously. David later worked in the Human Sciences Program and obtained an additional taste of the treatment of environmental radicals. When the bar on Richard's use of the library was brought to the attention of a new head of the Forestry Department, it was rescinded.
In her letter to me with comments on my draft paper, Val not only mentioned their own experiences with Fight for the Forests but also suggested that I contact Peter Rawlinson, a forests activist who worked in the Zoology Department at La Trobe University in Melbourne. I talked to Peter on the phone and in April received from him a long letter and pile of documents. This case actually involved not only Peter but also Philip Keane, a lecturer in the Botany Department at La Trobe.
In January and February 1977, Peter had given radio and television interviews in which he criticised the Forests Commission of Victoria, especially regarding the spread of a tree disease caused by cinnamon fungus. At the time he was the official spokesperson for the Conservation Council of Victoria. The chairman of the Forests Commission, Dr F. R. Moulds, made complaints to senior officials of La Trobe University. A courier was sent to the university to hand-deliver letters of complaint. Eventually 10 letters were delivered. Moulds also complained about Philip Keane, who had written an article about cinnamon fungus in a weekly newspaper, the National Times. Moulds suggested that the administration should take action against Rawlinson and Keane.
This story had a happy ending. The Vice-Chancellor defended the academic freedom of Rawlinson and Keane. The staff association also took a strong line against the attack. The Rawlinson and Keane cases were a nice addition to my list of cases. They showed that attacks can be resisted. They also fitted my provisional conclusion that direct attacks from the outside are less likely to succeed than attacks from the inside even allowing that they sometimes serve outside interests.
My contact with Richard and Val Routley led me to look more deeply into the forestry issue. The Forestry Department at ANU was one of the few places in Australia where professional foresters were trained. It had strong links with the government forestry commissions and with the forest industries. These links included shared perspectives, conferences, consultations and even a humorously named international organisation, the Concatenated Order of the Hoo-Hoo. I was referred from one critic of the forestry establishment to another, collecting information and getting comments on a short section in my paper about forestry. Ray Hammond, who had worked for the NSW Forestry Commission, gave me many valuable comments. Ian Penna, who worked in Melbourne for the Australian Conservation Foundation, gave me information on links between the forest industries and government forestry commissions. Ian Penna referred me to John Dargavel, who had worked in the industry for 20 years and who at that time was undertaking a PhD in the Forestry Department, applying a left-wing perspective. And so on.
I diligently collected information and also noted down the names of everyone who had helped me. But there were also a few people who were quite willing to help but didn't want to be mentioned in my paper, not even in the acknowledgments. They were afraid to be associated with any criticism of the establishment, since it might jeopardise their careers.
Throughout the first half of 1980 I kept revising and expanding my paper, showing updated versions of appropriate sections to relevant people. This was before the days of word processors, and I was doing all the typing myself, so an entire new version wasn't such a simple matter. In May, I circulated a new full version to all the key people. By this stage I had collected 10 cases, including the dismissal of John Coulter which I'll describe in chapter 7. I submitted the paper to Science, which quickly rejected it, and then to Social Studies of Science, which did the same. (My experiences with publishing work on suppression are covered in chapter 8.) Then I tried the Ecologist, which had published my critique of CRES. To my delight, the paper appeared in the January-February 1981 issue. I had changed the title to "The power structure of science and the suppression of environmental scholarship," as suggested by Jeremy Evans. The Ecologist demoted this to a subtitle under a new title, "The scientific straightjacket."
One of the continual challenges in studying suppression cases is to decide whether suppression is actually involved. For example, I've never yet come across an academic administrator who openly admitted to an academic "We dismissed you because you were exercising your academic freedom in a way we didn't like." No, in every case some acceptable-sounding justification is offered: your performance is not good enough; you are derelict in your duties; your publications are not of the right type; your behaviour is improper; and so forth. These sorts of reasons are given because, almost always, those who initiate the action sincerely believe in the reasons. We're not dealing with goodies and baddies with labels attached, where the baddies have broken the law and know it. In suppression cases, everyone is sincere - at least that has always been my working hypothesis.
So how do I determine whether someone is being denied tenure because they don't deserve it in terms of academic merit or whether they are being discriminated against because of their gender, opinions or whatever? One very convenient method is what I call the "double standard test." If the justification for blocking a publication from CSIRO endorsement is that it falls outside the bounds of the organisation's research agenda - as was alleged in Peter Springell's case - then is the same criterion applied to all other staff and all other publications? When Springell pointed out that the chief of his division had published under CSIRO auspices a paper falling outside CSIRO's research agenda, he exposed the double standard involved. The obvious implication was that he was being victimised.
Similarly, in our statement about Jeremy's tenure case, we pointed out his satisfactory research performance and outstanding teaching performance, thereby showing the double standard: other academics with similar or inferior records were routinely granted tenure. One of the justifications for the threat to Clyde Manwell's position was the claim that there were four errors in statistics in his book co-authored with Ann Baker. To use such errors as a reason for threatening dismissal from a tenured position is unheard of - except in Clyde's case. Andrewartha later admitted that two of his allegations of errors were themselves wrong and a third confused and irrelevant. But, needless to say, Andrewartha's mistakes did not put his position in jeopardy.
The double standard test is part of the method. It can be used to show that there seems to be some unfairness. But unfairness occurs all the time, and only in some cases should it be called suppression. In suppression cases, the person involved does something that is threatening to a powerful group, such as carry out radical environmental teaching or research or make public statements on social issues.
In the most obvious cases of suppression, there is a close connection between an action by the dissident and the attack. Immediately after Clyde Manwell and Ann Baker's letter to the Adelaide Advertiser, Manwell was vehemently denounced in state parliament and soon afterwards the attempt at his dismissal began. Soon after Philip Keane and Peter Rawlinson publicly expressed their concerns about cinnamon fungus in Victorian forests, Moulds made his complaints to senior figures at La Trobe University.
When there is no close connection like this, things are a little fuzzier. Jeremy Evans was teaching for years and the Human Sciences Program was under constant threat before his tenure was denied. But of course there were no opportunities to deny tenure before the time arrived to take a decision. Nevertheless, a case like this needs a deeper analysis than a case where an attack comes immediately after a particular act.
Actually, I don't often encounter cases where there isn't at least a strong indication of suppression. The reason for this is simple. When there is a legitimate official reason, it is so hard to argue against it that few people do. To take an example, there are undoubtedly cases in which threatening articles are rejected by an editor on the legitimate grounds that they aren't well argued. The decision is "over determined," to use social science jargon. In these cases, articles might have been rejected on either grounds of quality or grounds of viewpoint. It's difficult to argue that suppression occurred in these cases, since it's hard to find people who are willing to say the articles should have been published.
My investigation of suppression of environmental scholarship was triggered by several factors. First was my involvement in the campaign to defend Human Sciences. Second was having recently read or heard about other attacks on environmental scholars, especially the cases of Peter Springell and Clyde Manwell. Third, my own experiences in CRES had prepared me to recognise the processes of suppression.
In collecting information and writing a paper, I learned as I went along. My studies of the role of power in science turned out to be highly relevant, as was my reading of books and articles about attacks on intellectual freedom.
To obtain more case material, it was helpful to talk to people. But probably most useful was sending people copies of my own writing on the topic, in this case a draft of my article. It showed them what I was trying to do and how I was presenting the information. It made them see how their own experiences might be relevant. And it gave them confidence in my own abilities and commitment to the cause of dissent. Until you see how someone is likely to use information you give them, you may have some reservations.
Probably the most important lesson was to check, double check, triple check and then do another check. To document a case of suppression is a sensitive issue. To document ten cases is even more risky. If a few facts can be easily challenged, they will be, and this will be used to discredit the entire argument. Accuracy was vital.
Of course, the "facts" are seldom simple issues of being right or wrong. There are always interpretations involved. Sometimes different people gave me different stories. Also, it was my article: I put my own stamp on the selection, organisation and interpretation of material. Nevertheless, I found it immensely helpful to circulate drafts for comment. It led me to new material and helped me hone my argument. It gave me confidence about the whole undertaking. Most of all, it made me realise that suppression was everywhere.
As a result of my paper "The scientific straightjacket," I acquired a certain reputation as a person who would take up cases of suppression. I had circulated the draft paper to many dozens of people. After the paper appeared in the Ecologist, I had 250 copies printed and sent them out to people who I thought might be interested. Also, there was quite a lot of publicity about the issue during 1980, as I'll describe in chapter 7. As the years went by, I was contacted now and then by people wanting to tell me about their own experiences. Suppression was everywhere, but it wasn't random. There were patterns, and certain patterns interested me greatly.
In 1985 I read a short item in the journal Radical Science about a researcher in India, Dhirendra Sharma, who had been penalised because of his opposition to nuclear power. Suppression of nuclear dissidents interested me because I was one of them myself. I had taken a prominent role in the campaign against uranium mining and nuclear power, for example by helping organise rallies, writing letters to the newspaper and giving talks. I had read about various scientists and engineers victimised for their opposition to nuclear power. John Gofman, one of the very early critics in the US, had his funding cut and his staff taken away. Anyway, I decided to follow up Sharma's case, especially since Radical Science asked people to help out.
In July 1985 I wrote to Sharma, enclosing copies of my articles on suppression. In reply he sent me an enthusiastic letter and a substantial amount of information about his case. The story was familiar. He worked as a science policy analyst at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He was a prominent critic of the Indian government's nuclear policies, both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. He wrote letters and articles, organised conferences and petitions and in 1983 published a book, India's Nuclear Estate, which exposed the role of vested interests - especially the Nehru family - in nuclear policy-making. This was at a time when there was little public criticism of or organised opposition to nuclear developments in India
Sharma had tenure and was a senior academic in the Centre for Studies of Science Policy, where he had worked since 1973. Suddenly, in December 1983, he was transferred to the School of Languages. This was convenient for those who wanted to shut him up - it prevented him from becoming head of the Centre and in formal terms limited his work on science policy. The grounds for the transfer were not just flimsy: the transfer itself was in violation of the university's own regulations. Sharma was an outstandingly productive academic, so there were no academic grounds for the transfer. The obvious conclusion was that he was being harassed because of his outspokenness on nuclear issues. His letter to me told of his latest problem. The university authorities were withholding his salary. In other words, he was not being paid.
I offered to write an article about his case, in order to publicise the injustice. After thinking it over, I decided that the best way to make the case would be to write an article that gave some detail about Sharma's case but also documented other cases of suppression of nuclear dissidents. After all, people could always dismiss a single case by assuming, rightly or wrongly, that there must be some "real" - but unsaid - reason for the transfer. By including other cases, I provided a context. If there was a pattern of attacks on nuclear dissidents, then Sharma's experiences would be easier to understand as simply one more case, rather than as an exception.
It's easy enough to talk about documenting cases of suppression, but doing it is another thing. If you go to any index, such as for titles of articles in journals, you will seldom find an entry entitled "suppression of dissent." That's partly because there is no standard terminology. The term "whistleblowing" captures some cases, but far from all. It's also because many cases are not documented. Finally, calling something suppression depends on an analysis, namely me or someone else saying it fits the category. Not everyone operates with the same framework for analysing the phenomenon.
Luckily, I had a big head start. Since about 1979, when I first began studying suppression, I had been collecting copies of any article I saw suggesting suppression. I read lots of magazines and books, and once I became sensitised to the idea of suppression, relevant items would spring out of the page to my attention. So I went through my file, picking out items about nuclear power. I also went through my many files on nuclear power. In addition, I had articles and newspaper cuttings on suppression sent to me by various people, especially copies from Clyde Manwell's vast collection. Wendy Varney, who corresponded with me about fluoridation and other issues, had sent me an article about the harassment of five different scientists and engineers working in the British nuclear industry. I also combed through issues of various journals, especially anti-nuclear magazines, but this didn't generate much additional material. After assembling this material, I had a considerable number of cases.
In December 1985 I produced a first draft of an article titled "Nuclear suppression." The draft was a useful stimulus to obtain more information. I sent it to various people. Sharma sent me corrections on the part about his own case and also information about problems faced by other anti-nuclear scientists in India. Kiiti Siratori sent me information about the harassment of Atsushi Tsuchida in Japan.
In 1980 when I visited the US, Mark Diesendorf recommended that I meet Hugh DeWitt, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. DeWitt was a courageous public critic of nuclear weapons testing. Recently, he had nearly lost his job after testifying for the Progressive magazine over its story on the "secret of the H-bomb." He gave me lots of information about his case.
Actually, getting information about nuclear dissent in the US was the easiest task. The system is more open and the country and nuclear industry are sufficiently large that there are plenty of cases. There is even an excellent book on nuclear dissenters by Leslie J. Freeman, called Nuclear Witnesses.
Because I had been involved in the campaign against nuclear power for many years, I had a ready-made analysis of the power structures in which suppression of nuclear dissidents takes place. In my analysis, the key driving force behind nuclear power is the state, namely governments and government bureaucracies. In most countries, nuclear power plants, enrichment plants, reprocessing plants - namely all the key elements in the nuclear fuel cycle - are owned and run by the state. Why the state? Because nuclear power requires large investments, is potentially dangerous, depends on experts and demands protection against misuse. For all these reasons, centralised control is called for. This both requires state involvement and justifies it. By contrast, measures for energy efficiency and small-scale renewable energy can readily be taken up by individuals and local communities. If households and neighbourhoods are self-reliant in their energy systems, they do not depend on the state. Back in 1952, the US Paley Commission recommended a solar-based energy strategy, but instead the US government poured money into nuclear power.
Another key link in the promotion of nuclear power is nuclear weapons. Nuclear power was an outgrowth of nuclear weapons research, and there continue to be strong links. Any government that sets up a nuclear power programme provides itself with both plutonium and nuclear experts, thus setting the stage for a nuclear weapons programme if desired.
Corporations, namely the nuclear industry, also play a role. In most countries, with the possible exception of the US, the nuclear industry is subservient to the state. When the British government privatised its electricity industry, the nuclear sector had to be kept under state control, since private enterprise wouldn't touch it without government guarantees. Indeed, government subsidies and protection - such as insurance for major nuclear accidents - have always been necessary to keep the nuclear industry going.
But how does all this relate to suppression? The connection comes via another key factor in the nuclear equation: the nuclear experts. Nuclear scientists and engineers have been key proponents of nuclear power, not surprisingly since it provides them with status and jobs. In addition, some of the early proponents had helped to build the first nuclear weapons; nuclear power seemed to be a way to use their skills for peaceful purposes. As long as the experts all supported nuclear power, it was easy for governments to push the new technology. But then in the late 1960s and 1970s, as nuclear power programmes began to expand, citizen opposition emerged around the world. Citizens could be dismissed as uninformed. They were not experts. But if even a small minority of experts openly opposed nuclear power, this changed things enormously. The situation went from expert consensus to a debate. Nuclear dissidents thus were influential far beyond their numbers. They gave enormously greater credibility to the anti-nuclear movement. In this situation, many of the dissidents came under attack. Indeed, it was more important to attack an anti-nuclear scientist than an anti-nuclear citizen activist. There were fewer anti-nuclear scientists and their role in the credibility stakes was more crucial.
This then was the framework I developed. Suppression of expert critics of nuclear power was a feature of a power struggle between the supporters of nuclear power, found largely in sectors of the state, in the nuclear industry and in the scientific community, and opponents of nuclear power, found largely in citizen movements. Dhirendra Sharma's ordeal could be understood both as part of a pattern of suppression around the world and as part of a wider struggle over nuclear technology.
I put together my article "Nuclear suppression" by first dealing with Sharma's case, then outlining my framework of analysis, and then briefly recounting cases from many countries. I sent a draft to a number of friends and colleagues and obtained useful comments. The publisher of the journal Science and Public Policy was interested in the article, but he wanted to be absolutely sure about the evidence.
So I went back and searched for even more cases. This was useful. I found more and more evidence.
Searching out cases is challenging. More frustrating is actually writing up the cases. First I have to decide what counts as a case worth mentioning. Through all my experience in studying the issue, I've come to have a good idea about this. Then, when there are a lot of cases to describe, comes a series of minor challenges: to describe each case in a sentence or a paragraph. Sometimes the description I have, from some magazine or book, is short to begin with. Then the challenge is to say basically the same thing without copying or misrepresenting the description. Sometimes I have several accounts, from different sources, of the same case. Yet other times I have source documents, such as letters of reprimand. The challenge is to condense all this material into a short, accurate and revealing summary. Brevity is vital because there are so many cases to describe. Accuracy is vital because mistakes can be used to discredit the whole argument. Finally, each summary needs to show the process of suppression. To get this right means lots of checking against source documents, and also sending out drafts and queries to many people. Naturally I sent a draft of my article to Sharma for his comments, and he was most helpful. It was impossible to check out all the other cases directly, since there were too many and in any case getting in touch with dismissed workers can be difficult. But I was able to contact a few.
I thought the final product was impressive: I was able to cite cases from ten different countries, though there were far more documented cases from the US than anywhere else. The article was published in Science and Public Policy at the end of 1986.
Science and Public Policy does not have a large circulation. But publication of my article "Nuclear suppression" was useful nonetheless as it gave my account the credibility of being in a journal. It was also accessible through libraries. Even so, the biggest impact probably came through direct circulation of copies of the article. Whenever I wrote to someone who might be interested - someone interested in nuclear issues or in suppression generally - I enclosed a copy. Sharma wrote me that an article appeared in the British newspaper the Guardian about suppression of nuclear dissidents, drawing heavily on my article. Not least, the article was read and circulated by a number of nuclear dissidents themselves, such as Sharma and Hugh DeWitt. As a result of hearing about the article, a couple of the British nuclear dissidents wrote to me.
In 1985 my precarious short-term appointments in the Mathematics Department at ANU finally came to an end. I applied for many jobs - mostly in scientific research - and was lucky to obtain one in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Wollongong. In my new job, studying social issues such as suppression was entirely legitimate rather than something I did on the side. I decided to do a study of the fluoridation controversy.
I already knew a fair bit about fluoridation since my friend Mark Diesendorf was a leading critic of it. Fluoridation is the addition of about one part per million of the element fluoride to public water supplies in order to reduce the incidence of tooth decay in children. It was tested out in the US in the 1940s and then strongly promoted in the industrialised world since the 1950s. Fluoridation was backed by most dental authorities but from the very beginning it was opposed by citizen groups.
Fluoridation interested me mainly because the debates over it provide an insight into the links between scientific knowledge and power. Personally I have never thought it a vital issue, compared for example to nuclear power or genetic engineering, not to mention big problems like war and racism.
My study about fluoridation was not just about suppression, but covered a range of social issues. I looked up the numerous social studies of fluoridation that had already been done and interviewed key pro and antifluoridation experts in Australia. My analysis looked at a number of levels of the fluoridation debate, including the scientific arguments, the coherency of the viewpoints of the partisans, the role of the dental profession, the influence of corporate interests (such as the manufacturers of sugary foods) and the role of the social scientist (that is, me). But within this many-layered treatment of the fluoridation issue, I discussed suppression as a central issue.
In the early years after it was first proposed in 1939, the idea of adding fluoride to public water supplies was promoted by only a few enthusiasts in the United States. Most authorities were sceptical. Controlled studies comparing towns with and without added fluoride were begun in 1945. After much lobbying, the proponents won over the key body, the US Public Health Service, which endorsed fluoridation in 1950. Not long after, many other organisations endorsed fluoridation, such as the American Dental Association. Endorsements became a key method of promoting fluoridation. But many of the endorsements came from organisations that had never studied the evidence, such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. The proponents had decided that fluoridation was safe and effective. Endorsements were an important means to convince others. They were a key technique used in the "struggle over credibility."
The proponents had the official backing of all crucial organisations, especially public health, dental and medical bodies. But there were still some opponents, including some dentists, doctors and scientists. The proponents sought to deny them credibility. How? They had several methods.
In the US, most decisions about fluoridation were made in cities and towns. When the issue came to be decided, whether by the local government or in a referendum, pro and antifluoridationists each tried to win over the uncommitted. In many cases, profluoridationists refused to debate with antifluoridationists. The proponents claimed that there was no scientifically credible evidence against fluoridation. Therefore there was nothing to debate. By refusing to debate, they implied that there was only one credible side. To debate would be to admit there was something worth debating. But sometimes this tactic backfired, when proponents were seen as being arrogant.
Sometimes the critics of fluoridation were entirely ignored. For example, dental researcher Philip Sutton published a book in 1959 showing flaws in the methods used in the early controlled studies of the effectiveness of fluoridation. His critique was generally ignored by profluoridationists.
Another technique was to attack the critics in general terms. For example, a book published by the World Health Organization in 1986, edited by leading fluoridation proponent J. J. Murray, mentioned "the often misguided opposition to community fluoridation programmes" but didn't cite a single source. In such cases, the critics were not given names.
Another technique was to circulate unpublished critiques. John Colquhoun, a New Zealand dental researcher who became a leading critic of fluoridation, published an article in American Laboratory in 1985. In response, a dental research officer in New Zealand, Peter Hunter, wrote a letter which alleged that Colquhoun's article contained mistakes. On the basis of Hunter's letter, the Director-General of Health sent a statement to local water supply authorities in New Zealand criticising Colquhoun's work. The Centers for Disease Control in the US incorporated Hunter's letter as part of one of its publications. Neither Hunter nor anyone else from these organisations bothered to send Colquhoun a copy of Hunter's letter. The impact of the unpublished critique was to attack the credibility of the critic of fluoridation without engaging in an open debate in professional or public venues.
Yet another technique was to attack the critics personally. The most astounding example of this was the dossier on opponents of fluoridation compiled by a group within the American Dental Association. The dossier contained derogatory comments - mostly taken from letters or newspaper articles - about a range of critics. Many of the critics, such as the Ku Klux Klan and various purveyors of nostrums, had little credibility. Others were reputable scientists. By being included in the dossiers, the implication was that they also were cranks.
The dossier had a big impact. It was published twice in the prestigious Journal of the American Dental Association. It had an especially big impact on the most authoritative critics of fluoridation. Foremost among these was Dr George Waldbott, a doctor and scientist who had a number of important discoveries to his name. Waldbott became critical of fluoridation in the mid 1950s and undertook studies, finding allergic reactions to fluoride in a number of his patients. He was the leading opponent of fluoridation in the United States until his death in 1982.
The material about Waldbott in the dossier was damaging. From his point of view, much of it was also false and unfair. As Waldbott appeared throughout the country and overseas speaking and testifying against fluoridation, the dossier followed him like a "steady companion," to use his description. He had to repeatedly reply to the allegations. The American Dental Association was effective in circulating the dossier but not equally assiduous about circulating the corrections sent to them by Waldbott.
So far, the sorts of techniques that I've described are not what I would call suppression. They are simply rather unsavoury methods for promoting a cause. They are unsavoury because they sidestep an open and honest discussion of the issues by either avoiding debate or attacking the opponent. But there are plenty of documented cases of suppression too. There are cases of dentists who were suspended from their dental societies for opposing fluoridation. There are cases of researchers who were threatened with loss of research funds if they continued to study fluoride. There are cases of university students who were fiercely attacked by senior administrators because of their studies of fluoridation. There are cases of articles critical of fluoridation that have been criticised by journal referees because they might be helpful to antifluoridation groups.
One of my favourite cases is the response of the Journal of the American Dental Association to submissions from Albert Schatz, a scientist known as co-discoverer of streptomycin - in other words, not "just a crank." Schatz's letters, sent by certified mail, were refused and returned to him unopened. Apparently the editor knew Schatz was opposed to fluoridation.
Tracking down examples of all the sorts of responses I've described, from refusal to debate to formal complaints against dentists for stands against fluoridation, took a fair bit of time. But some of the work was done before me. Several leading antifluoridation scientists had both experienced suppression repeatedly and also, because of their prominence, been informed of many other cases. Waldbott's 1965 book A Struggle with Titans documents numerous cases. Philip Sutton in a 1980 monograph lists several cases. US scientist and leading antifluoridationist John Yiamouyiannis lists many cases in his book Fluoride: The Aging Factor. Hans Moolenburgh, a Dutch doctor and campaigner against fluoridation, tells of several cases. There was plenty of evidence. I only had to select the most appropriate material to illustrate my argument, write accurate summaries and verify details.
In collecting information about the fluoridation issue, direct contact with partisans was highly valuable. I wrote to lots of people for different sorts of information. After interviewing leading Australian pro and antifluoridationists, I wrote an article and sent a draft to each one of them for comment. I wrote to dozens of governments around the world asking about the extent of fluoridation in their countries and about their policies on the issue. I also wrote to leading figures internationally, and obtained valuable responses from Albert Burgstahler in the US, Hans Moolenburgh in the Netherlands and John Colquhoun in New Zealand, among others. George Waldbott's widow Edith sent me documentation on a number of suppression cases mentioned in his books.
One of the most difficult challenges in writing about suppression of antifluoridationists is to explain why. From the point of view of some profluoridationists, there is no dilemma. They believe that fluoridation is totally safe and highly beneficial and that there is no credible evidence to the contrary. Therefore, anyone who criticises fluoridation must be irrational, confused or driven by some vested interest. That antifluoridationists have been denied funding or blocked from publishing in dental journals is nothing to worry about, because their work is no good. Dozens of social scientists had studied the issue previously and assumed that fluoridation is scientifically beyond criticism and so had not recognised that suppression could be an issue.
My assessment was different. I assumed that simply appealing to science alone was not enough to explain the domination of profluoridation views among dentists and doctors. In accordance with the precepts of the "sociology of scientific knowledge" or SSK, I looked to social factors to explain why scientific claims that fluoridating water supplies was safe and beneficial were so widely accepted. According to SSK, the social scientist - me in this case - examines the arguments on all sides without making any judgements about their validity.
But I didn't have to be an SSK adherent to make my analysis. I had read enough of the antifluoridation studies by scientists such as George Waldbott, John Colquhoun and Mark Diesendorf to know that they couldn't be dismissed so very easily. They provided or referred to studies showing that fluoride caused allergic or intolerance reactions in some people, that it was linked to skeletal fluorosis in some parts of the world and that improvements in tooth decay rates might be caused by factors other than fluoridation - among many other criticisms of the case for fluoridation.
There was also another factor. The arguments about fluoridation weren't entirely scientific. There were value judgements built into the debate at all levels. Should fluoride be added to public water supplies, thereby making it hard to avoid even for people for whom there were few or no benefits - people with no teeth, for example? There are alternative means for people to get fluoride, such as taking fluoride tablets, having fluoride treatments by dentists and buying salt with added fluoride. But if one of these alternatives was adopted, then many people could not afford or would not take the trouble to obtain fluoride. Was it a valid public health measure to add fluoride to public water supplies, or was it a violation of civil liberties to give people a compulsory but uncontrolled dose of a chemical? Furthermore, how should decisions be made about fluoridation? By governments advised by dental experts, as advocated by many profluoridationists, or by referendum as advocated by many antifluoridationists?
The issue certainly has many dimensions. It is also persistent, having been going for half a century with no sign of resolution. The two sides seem entrenched in their positions.
Back to the issue of suppression. My assessment was that there were some solid scientific criticisms of fluoridation that at least deserved to be taken seriously. Yet the more usual response was to ignore the critics or attack them. Why? Why was there such hostility to critics?
My assessment, like that of a number of others who had investigated this issue, is that the prime driving force behind fluoridation was the dental profession. A more conspiratorial view of some antifluoridationists was that corporations that produced fluoride pollution, especially the aluminium industry, were behind fluoridation. I couldn't find much evidence that industry played more than a background role in the debate. There was some funding of fluoridation campaigns by the sugary-food industry, which served to draw attention away from the acknowledged role of sugar in tooth decay. Corporate influences may have helped shape the agenda.
Some elements in the state have promoted fluoridation. The best example is the US Public Health Service. As in the case of nuclear power, the promotion of fluoridation is complex process, involving the dental profession, corporations, government bureaucracies, media and community groups, among others. But within this complexity, the main player was the dental profession.
This was certainly obvious in the suppression cases. The American Dental Association's dossier was a dramatic manifestation of dental profession hostility to criticism by fluoridation opponents. But it all seemed counter-intuitive. If fluoridation reduced tooth decay, this would reduce work for dentists. It was against their interests. Surely they wouldn't support it unless they had the interests of the public at heart.
This sounds plausible and it certainly explains the individual psychology of many dentists. But there is an analysis of professions that gives a different assessment. Professions, such as law, medicine and the ministry, are really just occupational groups like plumbers or farmers. They are different from most other occupations in that the members of professions have a considerable degree of control over their own work and as a group have some control over training and entry into the profession itself. Doctors, lawyers and dentists have long sought to restrict the number of practitioners, in order to keep salaries high.
If salaries are kept high by restricted entry, that means there is plenty of work to do. There are many more dental problems than dentists have time to treat. Reducing the amount of tooth decay means there is more time for dealing with other dental problems such as gum disease.
Fluoridation was attractive to dental researchers because it made dentistry seem more scientific. It involved epidemiological studies of tooth decay as a function of fluoride levels and biochemical studies of the mechanism by which fluoride works in the mouth against tooth decay. Some dental researchers and public health official built their careers on promoting fluoridation. They managed to persuade most dentists, who had no time to study the evidence, that fluoridation was a good thing and that the status of the profession was under attack by know-nothing antifluoridationists.
This is the argument in outline. You can see that it's not easy to explain in casual conversation. Most people believe in the virtue of professions. This contrary view is not that professions are corrupt or anything but well-meaning, but that their assessment of scientific claims and their response to challengers is shaped, in a complex way, by their collective self-interest.
On the other hand, cases of suppression are relatively simple and dramatic. Even some profluoridationists are embarrassed by the "excesses" that are committed against the critics.
My analysis was "balanced" in the sense that I critically analysed the arguments and the vested interests on each side. Because dental and medical authorities have largely supported fluoridation, my analysis thus seemed to them to be opposed to fluoridation. Therefore, it was often difficult to obtain comments from profluoridationists. On the other hand, some of the ardent antifluoridationists, such as John Yiamouyiannis, thought I had given fluoridation too much credibility.
When I came to write a book about fluoridation, I wrote to several leading pro and antifluoridationists to ask if they would comment on a draft. Three leading opponents, Albert Burgstahler, John Colquhoun and Mark Diesendorf, each readily agreed. Getting a similar number of leading proponents to comment was more difficult. I had to approach about a dozen proponents in order to find four who would comment: Brian Burt, Michael Lennon, John Small and Donald Taves. But this effort was worthwhile, because it gave me critical perspectives from both sides of the debate.
The person who gave me the most valuable comments of all was not a partisan but a social analyst like me. His name was Edward Groth III, or Ned to his friends. I had come across his name a few times in my study of fluoridation literature. He did a PhD at Stanford University. His 1973 dissertation covered two issues: air pollution in San Francisco and the fluoridation controversy. When I finally was able to contact him, he was working at the Consumers Union in New York. We struck up a vigorous correspondence. Ned sent me a copy of his dissertation and some other papers he had written. If I had known about Ned's work earlier, I might never have written my book on fluoridation, because he covered much of the same material that I did - though my treatment was more international, more up-to-date and grounded in a particular analysis of science. More importantly, his dissertation was never published, mainly because he had obtained a job at the Consumers Union where there was little pressure to publish. In any case, Ned was enthusiastic about my efforts but also a keen critic. He sent page after page of comments on my drafts.
To all those who read and commented on the draft of my book, I made an offer: they could write a commentary that would be included in the book itself. Only one person took up the offer: Ned Groth! From my point of view, this was highly appropriate, given that his work had foreshadowed mine.
Working on the fluoridation controversy was a lot of fun. It was a good conversation topic. Australia has long been highly fluoridated, so most Australians drink fluoridated water but never think about it. The claim it could be causing allergies or even cancer would be greeted with concern, disbelief or even amusement. There are still plenty of people who accept the idea, promoted by profluoridationists, that the only criticisms of fluoridation come from unscientific cranks or right-wingers who believe it is a government plot to poison the public.
My main writings about fluoridation were several articles in scholarly social science journals and a book published by a university press. Still, my analysis was found useful by some people besides academics. The most satisfying response was from a scientist who wrote, in a letter in the magazine Chemical & Engineering News, that the dynamics of the fluoridation controversy, as he experienced them, were accurately described in my book. He commented that "Every argument, every claim, every uninformed public health official, and every personality involved in the Tucson controversy was a mirror image of the stereotypes described in Martin's book."
Pesticides are chemicals designed to kill things such as insects, plants and fungi. There are special names in some cases, such as insecticides, herbicides and fungicides. The general term is pesticides. The most famous one is DDT. Among hundreds of others are dieldrin, aldrin, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The last two were the main components of Agent Orange, the most well-known herbicide used by US forces to remove foliage from trees during the Vietnam war.
Pesticides can be very valuable in controlling harmful pests that would otherwise destroy crops or forests. But they also have undesirable side-effects, killing insects and animals that are not pests. They are also a potential danger to human health. The hazards of pesticides were brought to public awareness by Rachel Carson's famous book Silent Spring, published in 1962. This book was a key trigger in the rise of the modern environmental movement.
Most pesticides are produced by a small number of chemical companies. Not surprisingly, these companies are strong supporters of their products. They provide lots of money to promote pesticides, including funds for research. Many scientists, both in government and in universities, also support pesticides. Some of them receive research support from pesticide manufacturers, but some don't. Pesticide supporters all believe the benefits outweigh the risks.
Many of the most active critics of pesticides are community activists. They want pesticide use controlled and reduced and also favour development of alternative approaches to controlling pests, such as biological controls or planting certain crops next to each other.
In this situation, there are a few scientists who do research into or speak out about problems with pesticides. Because these scientists undermine the monopoly on scientific credibility otherwise held by pesticide proponents, they often come under attack. No surprise here!
I've already described the case of Clyde Manwell, the professor of zoology at the University of Adelaide who was denounced in parliament and threatened with dismissal after he and his wife Ann Baker simply wrote a letter to the newspaper. What's interesting here is that several people had criticised pesticides in letters to the Adelaide Advertiser before Manwell and Baker's letter was published. But they weren't denounced in parliament. The obvious difference is that Manwell was a professor of zoology and therefore had much more scientific credibility.
Beginning with the Manwell case, I came across many examples of attacks on scientists critical of pesticides. In 1980-1982 I was a member of a short-lived group called "Community Action on Science and Environment" or CASE. We did studies, produced leaflets and made public statements on a number of issues, such as the problems with sugar, caffeine and television. At one stage I wrote a short piece on herbicides, and included a list of some of the attacks on critics.
There are several good sources on the attacks. Frank Graham Jr.'s book Since Silent Spring, published in 1970, documents the furious denunciations and attacks on Rachel Carson and other early critics that came from the chemical industry and its allies. Even more revealing is the book The Pesticide Conspiracy by Robert van den Bosch, who worked at the University of California at Berkeley. He lists about a dozen cases of attacks on different individuals. Cutting off of research funds is a typical technique. He also tells of the personal abuse he received - being called a variety of names - from university colleagues because of his views.
I had mentioned these sources in my writings but hadn't made a special study of suppression of pesticide critics until I heard about the case of Melvin Reuber. Reuber was a highly productive scientist who worked for the Frederick Cancer Research Center, part of the National Cancer Institute in the US. Among other things, he did research on the possible cancer-causing properties of certain pesticides. In 1980, out of the blue, he received a dressing down and a written denunciation of his work from his boss, Michael G. Hanna, Jr. More seriously, the bulk of Hanna's report was soon published by a petrochemical trade newsletter, Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News. Reuber resigned under the stress but then decided to fight in the courts. The story in Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News was circulated around the world and used to discredit Reuber whenever his work was cited as part of a case against pesticides. The use of Hanna's letter reminded me of the use of the American Dental Association's dossier against George Waldbott.
I decided to write an article on suppression of pesticide critics, featuring Reuber. This was very much in the style of my paper on nuclear suppression. My approach was the same. I collected information from my files and through obvious sources, and checked out my draft with several knowledgeable people, including Reuber himself. After rejection by several journals - a process that took years - it was published by Philosophy and Social Action. But for now I'd like to turn to a different issue.
As already described, nuclear power, fluoridation, and pesticides are three fields where I've studied suppression of scientific dissent. Another field where I've observed a pattern of cases is forestry. On the other hand, some areas where you might expect to find many cases, such as automobile safety, seem to have few on record. What's the explanation?
A preliminary generalisation goes like this. For there to be a pattern of suppression in a field, there has to be a powerful set of interests involved, backing a particular stand. This sets the stage for suppression. But there is no need for suppression unless there is opposition. In each of the cases I've studied, there has been a social movement challenging vested interests: the anti-nuclear power movement, the antifluoridation movement, and the community groups opposed to pesticides and to certain forestry operations. In each of these cases, some scientists have done research or spoken out in a way that can be used by community activists. These dissident scientists give credibility to the activists, changing the situation from a monopoly of expert opinion to a debate. In this situation, attacks on the dissident scientists are likely, if they are vulnerable.
In some cases there are expert critics but no social movement. Automobile safety is one example. There are a few cases of suppression, of which the most famous is the attack on Ralph Nader, who came to his initial fame with the book Unsafe at any Speed, a critique of automobile safety. But there has been no mass movement against the car culture. Critics have no mass constituency that will take up their work and hence receive less encouragement to become open critics in the first place. In such a situation, there is still suppression but it is seldom publicised. Also, there is a lot of self-censorship.
What about the vested interests? My analysis is that the driving force behind nuclear power is the state, the driving force behind fluoridation is the dental profession, and the driving force behind pesticides is the chemical industry. These are three different types of vested interests: the state, a profession and an industry. But this difference doesn't affect the details of suppression cases as much as might be expected. Suppression isn't done directly by "the state" or by "the dental profession." It is always carried out by individuals. The ties to what I call the "driving force" can be complicated. There are links between the state, professions and corporations. Nuclear power might be promoted by state bureaucracies, but the nuclear industry and nuclear scientists and engineers are closely involved. The dental profession has ties with some industries and is both certified and regulated by the state. Professional associations and government bodies are tightly involved in promoting pesticides.
Amidst all this complexity, there are some important constants. For patterns of suppression to occur, there need to be vested interests and they need to have power that can be used against dissidents.
One area that I studied showed a revealing reversal and confirmation of this generalisation. The area is "nuclear winter," the name applied to the global climatic consequences that some scientists predict will occur after a major nuclear war. The idea is that dust and smoke from the explosions and fires will block sunlight, causing a precipitous drop in temperature that could kill much of the world's population as well as cause major environmental damage. Claims about nuclear winter were developed in the early 1980s by atmospheric and other scientists, the best known of whom was astronomer Carl Sagan. Some of the promoters of nuclear winter were vocal critics of preparations for nuclear war. They argued that because nuclear winter resulting from global nuclear war could lead to the destruction of civilisation or even human extinction, it was imperative that there be massive reductions in nuclear arsenals.
My analysis of nuclear winter was designed to show the linkage between science and politics. I argued that assumptions about politics - such as the assumed type of nuclear war - were embodied in nuclear winter models, and also that the scientific results of nuclear winter models were used for political purposes in the debate over nuclear weapons. I also argued that the same thing applied to the critics of nuclear winter models.
The supporters of nuclear winter conclusions included prominent critics of governmental policies on nuclear war. They were broadly aligned with the vigorous peace movement of the 1980s. They also had much more scientific credibility than the critics of nuclear winter, who were generally defenders of government nuclear policies. The top officials of the powerful US Department of Defense were critical of nuclear winter. However, I have not heard of any cases of suppression of nuclear winter scientists. That could be because most of the key scientists work for universities, not the military. It could also be because it would be counterproductive trying to suppress a dominant scientific view. It would be hard to discredit so many scientists.
On the other hand, there were a few expert critics of nuclear winter who, by their stand, punctured the appearance of scientific unanimity. One of them in particular, Russell Seitz, then an Associate of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, was an influential critic because his article in the National Interest was circulated widely including being published in the Wall Street Journal. Nuclear winter scientists wrote letters to these journals that attacked Seitz on scientific grounds and also made vicious criticisms of Seitz himself, for example referring to him as "a stock investment consultant" who was "dabbling in atmospheric physics."
I would call this a personal attack but not suppression. Seitz's position, financial support or ability to publish his views did not come under threat. Nevertheless, criticisms of people's qualifications are characteristic of cases of suppression. Seitz could have been a victim of suppression if nuclear winter scientists had had power over his job or his opportunities for publication.
But they didn't. That's the important difference here. It was the Department of Defense that had enormous power but was in no position to squash a dominant scientific position. The nuclear winter scientists had the most scientific credibility but lacked the power to suppress the few technical critics who they faced.
Suppression is much more likely, then, when the side backed by power and money also has a near monopoly on scientific credibility. This was the case in the debates over nuclear power, fluoridation and pesticides, at least until the critics became more successful.
In my studies of patterns of suppression, I've concentrated on social debates where scientists have had an important role. But suppression is found in other sorts of areas. Political dissidents regularly encounter suppression. In the capitalist countries, many socialists, trade unionists and other critics of corporations have been suppressed. In socialist countries, opponents of the government are prime targets. In dictatorships of any complexion, critics of the authorities are likely to be attacked. Feminists who challenge male-dominated institutions have been attacked. And the list goes on.
There's plenty of documentation of attacks, but in most areas it's not very systematic. Suppression in science has been of special interest to me both because of my background in science and because many people think science is done by rational, objective researchers who are not influenced by social factors.
In spite of all my studies, there are still many basic questions that I can't answer. Often I'm asked, especially by journalists, "How frequent is suppression?" My answer is, "I don't really know and no one else does either. There haven't been enough studies to provide an answer. What I can say is that it's much more common than most people realise."
Another question is "Is the amount of suppression increasing?" Usually they think it is, because they've come across some recent cases. I know that there's plenty of evidence of suppression in the "old days." So my answer is "No one really knows. There haven't been enough studies to tell one way or the other."
Then there are questions like this: "Suppression seems to be more common in Australia than other countries. Do you agree?" Some think it's more common in Australia, others that it's more common in the US, or Canada, or wherever. Sometimes it's a comparison between universities in different countries, or the media, or whatever. My answer is always the same. "There isn't enough evidence to say one way or the other."
What I can say is that suppression is much more common than most of us realise. It's under our noses but we don't see it. Few people make a fuss about being suppressed and in many cases they don't even know it has happened. In my experience, if a good investigator goes into virtually any organisation - government bureaucracy, corporation, university, church, trade union, etc. - then it's possible to find many cases. But doing this is not a way to win friends in high places.
Finally there are the sceptics who ask whether suppression really makes any difference. This is easier to answer. The risk of suppression discourages most employees from speaking out about corruption involving millions or billions of dollars; a few courageous individuals have spoken out, such as A. Ernest Fitzgerald who exposed massive cost overruns in US military contracting. Engineers warned about the risks of defective O-rings in the Challenger spacecraft, but were overruled - and disaster occurred. Dissidents in many countries have been crucial to challenges to repressive governments. They are symbols of freedom and inspire others to oppose tyranny. Even when money and lives are not directly at stake, tolerance of dissent is vital to any society that calls itself free.
In my studies of dissent, I sometimes like to imagine that I could tell the full story, revealing the hidden facets on all sides of the issue.