Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

by Paul A. Offit

6. Be cautious about being cautious.

7. Pay attention to the little man behind the curtain.

If Andrew Wakefield and Linus Pauling’s hypotheses were right, then subsequent studies would have shown that they were right. When well-designed studies refuted their claims, they chose to attack those who had found them to be wrong. They did what any good lawyer would do; they argued conspiracy. (The legal aphorism is that when the law is on your side, argue the law; when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; when neither is on your side, attack the witness.) The minute that you hear researchers claim conspiracy, you should suspect that their hypotheses are built on sand. And although their this-is-what-happens-when-you-speak-truth-to-power lament is appealing, it doesn’t mean that it’s right. As Norman Levitt, a mathematician and debunker of pseudoscience, famously said, “While Galileo was a rebel, not all rebels are Galileo”—no matter how hard they try to convince you that they are.