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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7 Num. 95
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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The following first ran as "Conspiracy for the Day", 09/29/93
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AN EPIDEMIC OF NEGATION
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...Our Positivists who deal so unceremoniously with every
psychological phenomena... are like Samuel Butler's rhetorician,
who
"... could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a *trope*."
We would there were no occasion to extend the critic's glance
beyond the circle of triflers and pedants who improperly wear the
title of men of science. But it is undeniable that the treatment
of new subjects by those whose rank is high in the scientific
world but too often passes unchallenged, when it is amenable to
censure. The cautiousness bred of a fixed habit of experimental
research, the tentative advance from opinion to opinion, the
weight accorded to recognized authorities -- all foster a
conservatism of thought which naturally runs into dogmatism. The
price of scientific progress is too commonly the martyrdom or
ostracism of the innovator. The reformer of the laboratory must,
so to speak, carry the citadel of custom and prejudice at the
point of the bayonet. It is rare that even a postern-door is
left ajar by a friendly hand. The noisy protests and impertinent
criticisms of the little people of the antechamber of science, he
can afford to let pass unnoticed; the hostility of the other
class is a real peril that the innovator must face and overcome.
Knowledge does increase apace, but the great body of scientists
are not entitled to the credit. In every instance they have done
their best to shipwreck the new discovery, together with the
discoverer. The palm is to him who has won it by individual
courage, intuitiveness, and persistency. Few are the forces in
nature which, when first announced, were not laughed at, and then
set aside as absurd and unscientific. Humbling the pride of
those who had not discovered anything, the just claims of those
who have been denied a hearing until negation was no longer
prudent, and then -- alas for poor, selfish humanity! these very
discoverers too often became the opponents and oppressors, in
their turn, of still more recent explorers in the domain of
natural law! So, step by step, mankind move around their
circumscribed circle of knowledge, science constantly correcting
its mistakes, and readjusting on the following day the erroneous
theories of the preceding one...
What can we do? Shall we recall the disagreeable past? Shall we
point to medieval scholars conniving with the clergy to deny the
Heliocentric theory, for fear of hurting an ecclesiastical dogma?
Must we recall how learned conchologists once denied that the
fossil shells, found scattered over the face of the earth, were
ever inhabited by living animals at all? How the naturalists of
the eighteenth century declared these but mere *fac-similes* of
animals? And how these naturalists fought and quarrelled and
battled and called each other names, over these venerable mummies
of the ancient ages for nearly a century, until Buffon settled
the question by proving to the negators that they were mistaken?
Surely an oyster-shell is anything but trancendental, and ought
to be quite a palpable subject for any exact study...
There exists a certain work which might afford very profitable
reading for the leisure hours of skeptical men of science. It is
a book published by Flourens, the Perpetual Secretary of the
French Academy, called *Histoire des Recherches de Buffon*. The
author shows in it how the great naturalist combated and finally
conquered the advocates of the *fac-simile* theory; and how they
still went on denying everything under the sun, until at times
the learned body fell into a fury, an epidemic of negation. It
denied Franklin and his refined electricity; laughed at Fulton
and his concentrated steam; voted the engineer Perdonnet a
strait-jacket for his offer to build railroads; stared Harvey out
of countenance; and proclaimed Bernard de Palissy "as stupid as
one of his own pots!"
In his oft-quoted work, *Conflict between Religion and Science*,
Professor Draper shows a decided propensity to kick the beam of
the scales of justice, and lay all such impediments to the
progress of science at the door of the clergy alone. With all
respect and admiration due to this eloquent writer and scientist,
we must protest and give every one his just due. Many of the
above-enumerated discoveries are mentioned by the author of the