[PhilPhys] Annual Lecture Series

[Center for Philosophy of Science]

63rd Annual Lecture Series: John Bickle

October 21 @ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm EDT
Title: Heterodox scientists: A sliver of hope for our increasingly conformist times?

Abstract: Nowadays we all face tremendous pressures to conform to domineering narratives. This holds for science as much as for politics. Recent exposés of the silencing of scientific ideas-alternative public health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and alternatives to the amyloid plaque explanation for Alzheimer's disease's memory impairments are two spectacular recent examples-have spurred a growing awareness of a need to once again appreciate heterodox science, science that challenges a field's accepted views. But current broader cultural forces and the structure of institutionalized science itself discourages heterodox pursuits. Prospects for this familiar historical route to scientific progress look increasingly bleak.
In this talk, I suggest one possible way forward. Heterodox scientists produce heterodox science; exemplary heterodox scientists produce groundbreaking heterodox science. An exemplar of these relationships was Gary Lynch's neurophysiology lab at UC Irvine in the late-1970s. Lynch's early discoveries shifted the focus of long-term potentiation research from pre- to post-synaptic mechanisms. But Lynch's and labmates' approaches to scientific practices were as heterodox as their discoveries. By detailing the lab's practices alongside their discoveries, I argue that their heterodox discoveries were a result of their heterodox practices. This historical-cum-philosophical investigation leads to a speculative suggestion: perhaps we can promote potentially revolutionary heterodox science in our increasingly conformist times by first making spaces for heterodox scientists.

This lecture will also be available live streamed on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
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