Bad Science

One of the last decisions of the Pope Benedict VI before he called it quits was to unveil a trove of centuries old documents from the Vatican Library. One of them is a transcript from the trial of Giordano Bruno (translated from Latin below). It has a very modern feel and it puts the early history of science in a new light.

Rome, late 1597.

Grand Inquisitor: Mr. Bruno, are you the lead PI on the grant 1590-02 funded by the Vatican Science Foundation?

Mr. Bruno: Yes your Highness. I am eternally grateful to the indulgences-buying public for this opportunity.

Grand Inquisitor: Yeah, yeah, a bit late for your false gratitude.  Are you familiar with the  Grant Proposal Guide?

Mr Bruno: the 1220 edition?

Grand Inquisitor: Yes, of course. The newest.

Mr Bruno:  Unfortunately I am only familiar with the stone-tablet executive summary. The sheepskin copy burned with the rest of the library in 1425 and has not yet been replaced.

Grand Inquisitor:  Never mind, never mind. (murmurs to himself) That explains the formatting issues in his proposal.
Can you remind the Court what your project was about?

Mr. Bruno: The project was called "A New Paradigm for Planetary Motion". I had a cool scheme for using the deferent and three epicycles for the rapid calculation of planetary positions. The calculations were quite complicated but I found a way to make them distributed.  I planned to have three postdocs running epicycles and a graduate student running the deferent.  They were passing the numbers between themselves using homing pigeons.  The first milestone was  to tabulate Jupiter's motion for the next 50 years.

Grand Inquisitor: Did you ever get there?

Mr. Bruno: (with growing agitation) No, your Highness. It was soon clear that I needed one or two more epicycles to get the right accuracy but with the restrictions on grant supplements and an accelerated spending schedule I was stuck.  I started looking for alternatives and  I came across the writings of  Mr. Copernicus. With his scheme I could do three whole planets with three postdocs. I got really excited and regrouped in this direction. But it was such rubbish, and Mr. Copernicus turned out to be a total dimwit - hot air and pretty pictures. His scheme looked good but I could not even compute the position of the Moon with it! But I did not give up; the postdocs were working hard, perhaps too hard and disasters started mounting.  One got leprosy and the other got into a habit of wearing cilice. His continuously infected wounds made closer collaboration difficult. The third one eloped  with the graduate student and I was left alone.

 Grand Inquisitor: Did you report any of it to your Sponsored Research office?

 Mr. Bruno (suddenly worried): No Sir, I did not. (apologetically) My sponsored research office is exclusively staffed with veterans from the last Crusade, and these dudes do not have any sense of humor. Just the other day they  put a fellow who listed more than ten slain enemies in his cv on the rack for forcing them to yank his proposal from surepath.vat

Grand Inquisitor: (in somber and accusatory voice) So you went out of scope on your project and then kept it hidden from the grant office?!

Mr. Bruno: Your Highness, in the business of planetary motion you are only as good as your last horoscope. I wanted to get ahead of the guys in Istanbul (his voice trails off sadly)

Grand Inquisitor: Listen son,  when you are funded by the Vatican Science Foundation you ought to take it seriously. For every month of your project there is a village somewhere that paid for it with their indulgences. These are simple people, and you are right,  they do deserve  a good horoscope.  (sternly) But the modern world needs solid science, not someone who is chasing some flashy half-baked  ideas. (and slightly raising his voice) We do not want to go back to the Dark Ages! (screaming) What  were you thinking??

(calming down) Mr. Copernicus is one of our guys but he is lazy and he trades solid mathematics for  ideas that are either wrong or not very useful.  He was preoccupied with locating the center of the universe but seriously, who cares when everything moves?

(pauses briefly)
The panel that reviewed your proposal liked the concept of a human computing machine, and they called it potentially transformative.   Isn't it something?  The only other  discovery of that magnitude that the panel took a note of was an utensil they called a fork, and I

(the protocol ends abruptly here)

Well, Mr. Bruno strayed from the path  and in the end he did not fare well but this newly found document sheds some light on the level of scientific oversight  of this period.   Traditionally, Mr. Bruno's persecution is being viewed as one of the last excesses of the Middle Ages. However, this document indicates that it was one of the signs of the Enlightenment, as it represents the laying of foundations for rigorous scientific exploration. The  Ptolemy system involved sophisticated mathematics which anticipated Fourier analysis, compressed sensing and, if Mr. Bruno's project came to fruition, parallel computing. On the other hand, Mr. Copernicus is the inventor of the elevator talk - a simplistic idea that can be encapsulated in a 30 second sound bite that can be unleashed on an opportunity hunter such as your agency director. Unfortunately, the harsh treatment of  Bruno gave credibility to his scientific blunders and ultimately, trading accuracy for simplicity became standard. The Copernican revolution was a significant scientific  setback as it jettisoned sophisticated  multi-parameter mathematical model  for a useless philosophical metaphor.
Luckily, the Grand Inquisition's tough rulings on issues of grant compliance, scope deviations and bad accounting of indulgences-related funds led to the establishment of strong standards for reporting requirements,  putting future research on rock-solid foundations and going without mercy after bad science.  While burning on the stake has been largely phased out, we anticipate a steady increase of the incarceration rates among scientists.  To wit, over four hundred years after Mr. Bruno's trial, and 200 miles from  Rome, seven Italian scientists were put to jail for questionable earthquake modeling tools. Clearly more is yet to come, but not all of it is bad.   In fact, various scientific communities view their jailed colleagues as proof that science matters, that their theories and discoveries have important societal consequences, and that straying from the path of the righteous cannot be taken lightly.  These principles are firmly rooted, and communities with  low incarceration rate have started doing some soul searching regarding the validity of their scientific work. The biggest level of dissatisfaction is among the economists. While they are being rewarded with Nobel prizes and leadership positions in governments, their incarceration rate is zero. Yes, zero! In spite of ruining countless countries and creating one global crisis after another, so far none of them ended up in jail!  The situation has grown so desperate  that  several prominent economists demanded jail time for themselves after they denounced their theories as flawed, or even (in extreme cases) as total nonsense.  The courts have so far sided with the self-accusers on the merits of their  work, but in the end they ruled that their theories are "not even bad".  A similar crisis is developing among psychologists and social scientists.
On the other hand, many engineers, architects, biologists, etc are languishing in jail, and this speaks volumes about the consequences  of badly designed bridges, eyesores in the middle of our cities or frustrating people with questionable "revelations"  found in their DNA. These days purchasing "bad science insurance" became a norm in the community, and seeking protection from one's bad ideas is very much in need.  A typical package provides protection from results of shoddy science of up to $100,000,000 and up to 20 years, and the premiums take a serious toll on one's lifestyle.  Sadly, many scientific screw-ups have much higher costs, and this leads to a massive increase in collaborative work, with the aim of diluting one's personal responsibility. The days of the academic rat race and the "publish first" mentality are waning, and Gauss' motto "Pauca sed matura" guides modern researchers as they cautiously move ahead.