Content area
Full Text
Abstract
The promulgation of bogus scientific information is so extensive that any meaningful correction is impossible and retraction would wipeout well over half of the published scientific literature of the past half-century. The resistance to the correction of error in scholarly publications is merely a symptom of a much larger systemic cancer corrupting professional and governmental institutions-indeed, all of institutional science. Research is no longer driven by a desire to determine objectively whether a hypothesis is valid, but rather by the will to make hypotheses appear true (Lushington, G.H., and Chaguturu, R. [2015]. A systemic malady: The pervasive problem of misconduct in the biomedical sciences. Part I. Issues and causes. Drug Discovery World 16 [spring]: 79-90). In early April 2015, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, attended a closed meeting in London that addressed "one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations. The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue" (Horton, R. [2015]. Offline: What is medicine's 5 sigma? The Lancet. 385[9976]: 1380). Henry Bauer, emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Tech, has analyzed why supposedly authoritative information about the most salient science-related matters has become dangerously misleading or false: "Large institutional bureaucracies now dominate the public face of science. ... [T]here exist knowledge monopolies composed of international and national bureaucracies. Since those same organizations play a large role in the funding of research as well as in the promulgation of findings, these monopolies are at the same time research cartels" (Bauer, H.H. [2004]. Science in the 21st century: Knowledge monopolies and research cartels. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 18[4]: 643-60]. In The Breakdown of Nations, Leopold Kohr famously said, "Wherever something is wrong, something is too big." A conjoining of government, big business, and academe has emerged. This supranational network imposes dogma-which can be neither corrected nor retracted-to protect the status quo. AIDS dogma epitomizes the institutional despotism that punishes, persecutes, torments, and silences anyone challenging scientific and especially medical dogma. With firsthand knowledge, I use AIDS in South Africa as the quintessential example of the political use of dogma by the United States.
From Democratic...