He was spot on in how difficult it is for "outsiders" to have half a chance at sharing their knowledge.
In his book “Alternative Science, Challenging the Myths of the Scientific Establishment” Richard Milton writes: “We are living in a time of rising academic intolerance in which important new discoveries in physics, medicine, and biology are being ridiculed and rejected for reasons that are not scientific. Something precious and irreplaceable is under attack. Our academic liberty — our freedom of thought — is being threatened by an establishment that chooses to turn aside new knowledge unless it comes from their own scientific circles. Some academics appoint themselves vigilantes to guard the gates of science against troublemakers with new ideas. Yet science has a two-thousand-year record of success not because it has been guarded by an Inquisition, but because it is self-regulating. It has succeeded because bad science is driven out by good; an ounce of open-minded experiment is worth any amount of authoritative opinion by self-styled scientific rationalists. The scientific fundamentalism of which these are disturbing signs is found today not merely in remote provincial pockets of conservatism but at the very top of the mainstream management of science on both sides of the Atlantic. Human progress has been powered by the paradigm-shattering inventions of many brilliant iconoclasts, yet just as the scientific community dismissed Edison’s lamp, Roentgen’s X-rays, and even the Wrights’ airplane, today’s “Paradigm Police” do a better job of preserving an outdated mode of thought than of nurturing invention and discovery.
One way of explaining this odd reluctance to come to terms with the new, even when there is plenty of concrete evidence available, is to appeal to the natural human tendency not to believe things that sound impossible unless we see them with our own eyes — a healthy skepticism. But there is a good deal more to this phenomenon than a healthy skepticism. It is a refusal even to open our eyes to examine the evidence that is plainly in view. And it is a phenomenon that occurs so regularly in the history of science and technology as to be almost an integral part of the process. It seems that there are some individuals, including very distinguished scientists, who are willing to risk the censure and ridicule of their colleagues by stepping over that mark. This book is about those scientists. But, more importantly, it is about the curious social and intellectual forces that seek to prohibit such research; those areas of scientific research that are taboo subjects; about subjects whose discussion is forbidden under pain of ridicule and ostracism. Often those who cry taboo do so from the best of motives: a desire to ensure that our hard-won scientific enlightenment is not corrupted by the credulous acceptance of crank ideas and that the community does not slide back into what Sir Karl Popper graphically called the ‘tyranny of opinion.’ Yet in setting out to guard the frontiers of knowledge, some scientific purists are adopting a brand of skepticism that is indistinguishable from the tyranny they seek to resist. These modern skeptics are sometimes the most unreflecting of individuals yet their devotion to the cause of science impels them to appoint themselves guardians of spirit of truth. And this raises the important question of just how we can tell a real crank from a real innovator — a Faraday from a false prophet. Merely to dismiss a carefully prepared body of evidence — however barmy it may appear — is to make the same mistake as the crank. In many ways cold fusion is the perfect paradigm of scientific taboo in action. The high priests of hot fusion were quick to ostracize and ridicule those whom they saw as profaning the sacred wisdom. And empirical fact counted for nothing in the face of their concerted derision.
The taboo reaction in science takes many distinct forms. At its simplest and most direct, tabooism is manifested as derision and rejection by scientists (and non-scientists) of those new discoveries that cannot be fitted into the existing framework of knowledge. The reaction is not merely a negative dismissal or refusal to believe; it is strong enough to cause positive actions to be taken by leading skeptics to compel a more widespread adoption in the community of the rejection and disbelief, the shipping up of opposition, and the putting down of anyone unwise enough to step out of line by publicly embracing taboo ideas. The taboo reaction in such simple cases is eventually dispelled because the facts — and the value of the discoveries concerned — prove to be stronger than the taboo belief; but there remains the worrying possibility that many such taboos prove stronger (or more valuable) than the discoveries to which they are applied. In its more subtle form, the taboo reaction draws a circle around a subject and places it ‘out of bounds’ to any form of rational analysis or investigation. In doing so, science often puts up what appears to be a well-considered, fundamental objection, which on closer analysis turns out to be no more than the unreflecting prejudices of a maiden aunt who feels uncomfortable with the idea of mixed bathing. The penalty associated with this form of tabooism is that whole areas of scientific investigation, some of which may well hold important discoveries, remain permanently fenced off and any benefits they may contain are denied us. Subtler still is the taboo whereby scientists in certain fields erect a general prohibition against speaking or writing on the subjects which they consider their own property and where any reference, especially by an outsider, will draw a rapid hostile response.
Sometimes, scientists who declare a taboo will insist that only they are qualified to discuss and reach conclusions on the matters that they have made their own property; that only they are privy to the immense body of knowledge and subtlety of argument necessary fully to understand the complexities of the subject and to reach the ‘right’ conclusion. Outsiders, on the other hand, (especially non-scientists) are ill-informed, unable to think rationally or analytically, prone to mystical or crank ideas and are not privy to subtleties of analysis and inflections of argument that insiders have devoted long painful years to acquiring. Once again, the cost of such tabooism is measured in lost opportunities for discovery. Any contribution to knowledge in terms of rational analysis, or resulting from the different perspective of those outside the field in question, is lost to the community. In its most extreme form scientific tabooism closely resembles the behavior of a priestly caste that is perceived to be the holy guardians of the sacred creed, the beliefs that are the object of the community’s worship. Such guardians feel themselves justified by their religious calling and long training in adopting any measures to repel and to discredit any member of the community who profanes the sacred places, words or rituals regarded as untouchable. Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the taboo reaction is that it tends to have a cumulative and permanent discriminatory effect: any idea that is ideologically suspect or counter to the current paradigm is permanently dismissed, and the very fact of its rejection forms the basis of its rejection on all future occasions. It is a little like the court of appeal rejecting the convicted man’s plea of innocence on the grounds that he must be guilty or why else is he in jail? And why else did the police arrest him in the first place? This ‘erring on the side of caution’ means that in the long term the intellectual Devil’s Island where convicted concepts are sent becomes more and more crowded with taboo ideas, all denied to us, and with no possibility of reprieve. We will never know how many tens or hundreds or thousands of important discoveries were thrown in the scrap heap merely because of intolerance and misplaced skepticism.”
