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Science Bloopers
From Galileo Galilei, who narrowly escaped being burned at the stake for the heresy of supporting Copernicus' assertion that the sun is at the centre of our solar system - to the long-held conviction of science that it is impossible that stones could fall from heaven - until a meteor shower destroyed the newly built glass roof of the Louvre - the history of science abounds with examples of unfounded and unexamined assumptions being taught by the experts to generations of students as academic wisdom.
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The "Semmelweiss Syndrome"
The problem is academic inertia - to put it mildly - where unfounded assumptions are taught and perpetuated by the studied "experts", and woe to those who dare to go against this "academic wisdom". This is best illustrated by what I call the "Semmelweiss Syndrome".
Ignaz Phillip Semmelweiss was a mid 1800's Hungarian obstetrician working in Vienna, who discovered that the simple act of washing his hands between attending to his patients dramatically reduced the incidence of infectious diseases, and saved many lives. He was ridiculed and vilified by his peers to such an extent that he eventually went insane and committed suicide.
Even such giants as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, who, about 70 years later, discovered that many bacteria cause diseases,
"...had to fight the medical establishment, heirs to centuries of prejudice and stupidity .."
( Christopher Wills, Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego, in his book "The Wisdom of the Genes", 1989, page 138).
Today, of course, the ripe arms and crawling hands of 19th century physicians are a thing of a long gone past, and sterile conditions have become the sine qua non of medical practice. Although 104 years posthumously, Semmelweiss was honoured for his breakthrough discovery when the University of Nagyszombat in Budapest was renamed the "Ignác Semmelweiss University" on November 7th, 1969.
One would think that academia would have learned something from such a great embarrassment. Unfortunately not. Barbara McClintock was similarly ridiculed by her peers, and more so because she is a woman, for her 1950 discovery that genes often switch location on chromosomes during the process of procreation (meiosis). And it was not until 33 years later that she was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for her landmark discovery. Since then, her "jumping genes" have become a cornerstone of modern genetics.
More recently: Kilmer McCully is a physician and scientist who reluctantly became another victim of academe's "Semmelweiss Syndrome". In the 1960s he was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Because of his insistence that homocysteine was one risk factor for heart disease, he was forced out of the school because everybody knew cholesterol in the blood was the big risk factor (even though everybody knew at that time there were other major risk factors). He has been on the staff of the Rhode Island VA Hospital since. It took until about 1995 for the medical sciences to realize that he had been right all along. All of a sudden, and 40 years later, homocysteine has now been recognized as a major risk factor, and some studies show it is as predictive as serum cholesterol for heart attacks.
Obviously, the "Semmelweiss Syndrome" is as alive and well in academia today as ever. Since 1986 I have tried, and tried, and tried - hence this web site - to get this information across to the scientific experts and institutions, but so far, without any success whatsoever. I still find myself subject to the same instant academic prejudice as McClintock, Semmelweiss, McCully, and all the many other 'lone voices in the wilderness' whose erstwhile 'heresies' eventually became the cornerstones of modern science......
Naturally, and ever since 1986, and repeatedly, I've also tried to inform all the major cancer, diabetes and arthritis societies, our federal and provincial health and agriculture ministries, including our prime minister, our national research institutes, the news media, even, in desperation, the tabloids - you name it, I've tried it - but so far without any success. What bothers me most is that those societies (cancer, diabetes, arthritis) who are in the best position to disseminate this information - as an alternative and with a proper 'disclaimer' that this is not yet completely proven scientifically - to the people they are ostensibly dedicated to help, have not seen fit to do so. Out of over 40 Cancer Societies, and over 30 Arthritis societies around the world I had recently sent an email to, only one responded. Just one.
The same is true of the major Health sites and Health Directories on the Web. They have all chosen to ignore this information. I've also, and repeatedly, tried the message boards on several major health sites, with equally underwhelming success. Inured to death by endless spam, my postings are either removed sight unseen, and if not, the most common response - without looking at this web site - is to keep this 'spam' off their message boards and, occasionally, I get severely 'flamed', or more accurately, 'scorched'. Obviously, they haven't even looked at this web site. What a testy bunch.
On the positive side though, and thankfully, almost all responses from individuals who have somehow found this web site are very grateful for this powerful information.
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