There has recently been some discussion in the blogosphere about the case of Marcus Ross, who received a PhD in geosciences by defending a thesis about events 65 million years ago, even though he is very clear that he believes the earth is only 10000 years old. Most of the discussion is uninteresting, but Janet Stemwedel and Rob Knop have some thought-provoking posts on the subject. The posts are:
Intellectual honesty in science: the Marcus Ross case at "Adventures in Ethics and Science"
Science is Not Just a Game at "Galactic Interactions"
Knowledge, belief, and what counts as good science at "Adventures in Ethics and Science"
The comments are also interesting. One of the things Janet notes that seems exactly right is that how you view the case will be sharply affected by how open you are to an anti-realist interpretation of scientific theory. People who are strongly realist in inclination will tend find it easy to view Ross as a flat-out fraud; people who are strongly anti-realist in inclination will tend to have difficulty seeing that he did anything wrong at all. And, of course, there are all sorts of positions in between.
For my part, I take a Duhemian view of the whole situation: this is what you get when your view of science becomes too closely associated with the esprit geometrique, concerned with useful results, and loses sight of the esprit de finesse, concerned with understanding the world as it really is. As Duhem noted, scientific progress requires both inclinations of mind; too much emphasis on either one leads to aberrations.
