A 21st-century enlightenment

Self-delusion

Prosper-René Blondlot was a turn-of-the-20th-century French physicist who claimed to have discovered a new type of radiation. He called his discovery the N-ray after Nancy, where he lived. Many other French scientists confirmed his observations. In contrast, physicists in other countries were unable to see N-rays. When the scientific journal, Nature, sent an American researcher to France to settle the question, it soon became apparent that N-rays did not exist. Blondlot was not a deliberate fraud; his very human wish to be well-regarded led him to deceive himself. Ironically, the more famous Blondlot became, the easier it became for other French physicists to confirm his findings. Blondlot's self-delusion became contagious.

Even renowned scientists can be deluded. In March 1989, the University of Utah held a press conference to announce that two faculty chemists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, had discovered a non-polluting source of energy they called "cold fusion." The university leaked the story to The Wall Street Journal, which splashed it across the front page and followed it up over the succeeding weeks. The claim was big news because it promised an endless supply of cheap and clean energy. Pons was a well-published scientist, and Fleischmann was a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society; other scientists had to take their claim seriously.

Curiously, for such establishment figures, Pons and Fleischmann flouted the usual academic conventions. They went directly to the media without making the details of their work available to other scientists for replication. Physicists were forced to guess about the methods used in the Pons and Fleischmann experiment to replicate the cold fusion. When preliminary results started to come in, they were largely negative. Pons and Fleischmann dismissed these studies; researchers used the wrong techniques or materials, did not wait long enough, and their methods were sloppy.

The Utah legislature appropriated $5 million for the university to commercialise cold fusion. Orchestrated by public relations consultants hired by the university, a congressional hearing was held in Washington to laud the discovery and appropriate even more money so that America could commercialise the technology "before the Japanese" (which seems a rather quaint fear today).

Nothing came of any of this. The entire episode was created by sensationalist media, a university desperate for prestige, and gullible politicians. Incredibly, although no new evidence has been presented over the decades to show that cold fusion exists, many scientists still believe it does. Blondlot went to his grave, still believing in the existence of N-Rays. Self-deception is difficult to dislodge.

A 21st century enlightenment

The discipline of constructive dissent relies on the cardinal virtues of the Enlightenment: rationality, reason, and empiricism. These virtues are constantly under threat. Consider Prince Charles's remarks:

It might be time to think again and review it [the Enlightenment] and question whether it is effective in today's conditions, faced as we are with enormous challenges all over the world. It must be apparent to people deep down that we have to do something about it.

We cannot go on like this, just imagining that the principles of the Enlightenment still apply now. I don't believe they do.

Others share Charles' views. For example, academics in New Zealand recently claimed that indigenous creation myths are just as valid a description of how the world works as physics. Such views underline the pressing need to reinvigorate the Enlightenment for the 21st Century.

Like the Enlightenment, constructive dissent is essentially a mindset, a way of thinking about the universe and our place in it. It provides an objective way to collect facts, assess them, test hypotheses, and ensure intelligent debate. Practitioners of constructive dissent accept the provisional nature of our understanding and keep their minds open to other possibilities. Most of all, constructive dissent is a form of optimism because its practitioners believe that, with deeper understanding, the future can be better than the past-and what could be more optimistic than that?