Triviality in Science: A Brief Meditation on Fashions

TRIVIALITY IN SCIENCE: A BRIEF MEDITATION ON FASHIONS* ERWIN CHARGAFFt I It has happened more than once that I found it necessary to say ofone or another eminent colleague: "He is a very busy man, and half of what he publishes is true; but I don't know which half." Similarly, many people complain that by far too much is now being published in science and that half of it is rubbish; but would they know which half ? Since most published papers have gone through some sort of reviewing process, we must assume that at least two referees—usually beginning graduate students in the editor's laboratory or in that of the official referee—have found them worthy. Of course, young Homer is known to nod even more often than old Homer; but we ought to be grateful to all these editors and referees for their truly human fallibility, for a journal containing only jewels of the first water would be too dazzling to contemplate . What we consider asjunk is conditioned by our interests. We are very lenient to papers in fields distant from ours and honor them for their unintelligibility. We are very rough on papers related to what we are working on—especially if our names are missing from the bibliography; an omission that, as I have pointed out before 1, is essentially irreversible , since bibliographies usually are wafted in their entirety from one paper to the next, except for the insertion of the respective authors' own contributions which, ifluck has it, may then accompany, plasmidlike, the standard package in its subsequent passages. Most of us will probably agree that among the publications in the disciplines with which we are familiar some are very good, quite a few very bad, and the majority mediocre. There is, however, less likelihood *This essay includes material forming part of two lectures entitled "On the Fashions of Science" which were delivered on January 22, 1976, at Wayne State University, School of Medicine, Detroit (Individual Science Lecture), and on January 29, 1976, at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas (Marrs McLean Lecture in Biochemistry). tProfessor emeritus of biochemistry, Columbia University. Address: 350 Central Park West, New York, New York 10025. 324 I Erwin Chargaff · Fashions in Science of agreement as to which particular papers belong to these three categories; and even those articles that I should not hesitate to classify as rubbish may find a few admirers, alongside their own authors, ofcourse. But how about papers that do not achieve publication? I should doubt that there are many, for one of my innumerable maxims has been: "No paper, once written, remains unpublished." Scientific papers possess, it would seem, some sort ofélan vital that impels them to break through to the pub ic although there can be no assurance that anybody will ever read them. But how close is the agreement among editors or referees as to which manuscripts ought to be published and which rejected? I am assured by highest sociological authority that it is very close in the physical sciences (97 percent); and even in the "biomedical sciences," with much wobblier standards, it is reasonably close (75 percent) 2. This is taken to indicate that the various scientific disciplines have evolved strict codes on the basis of which the papers are evaluated. This is certainly true, but only on one level of inspection: manuscripts that arejudged as being derived from technically incompetent experiments will be rejected with near unanimity. But even here a warning finger must be raised: Americans are notorious decimal hunters, in love with the newest instrumental, and even mental, gadgets, and they often do not realize that gadgetry has a way of becoming obsolete much faster than does the solidity of the thought processes. It is, hence, not impossible that a perfectly acceptable paper will not be accepted owing to the absence of the newest style of chromium plating. Exaggerated accuracy has turned into many an idiot's delight. But there is beyond this a different, and perhaps deeper, consideration . It has to do with the periodic changes of the manner in which we look at things, of what interests us, and of what we reject. Profundities become...