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Steve Dutch weighs in on the Cook
cult |
Americans are taught to revere explorers and innovators as heroes
(Lindbergh, Lewis & Clark).
In reality, many Americans resent those who succeed through hard work
and effort.
We often reconcile these conflicting emotions by making heroes out of
anti-intellectuals and cranks and pretending they were really
persecuted geniuses
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(1982 TV Docudrama)
Cast: (Dr. Crook) Richard Chamberlain, (Peary) Rod Steiger.
Summary: Separate claims of the North Pole's discovery result in
controversy in this account of the famous explorers' travels
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Pseudoscience and American Values
Cook Versus Peary: the Race To the Pole (1982 TV Docudrama)
This docudrama seems to have launched a steady movement to vindicate
Dr. Frederick Cook's claim to have reached the pole first, or at the
very least, to discredit Robert Peary's claim.
The Career of Dr. Frederick Cook
Circa 1900—Attempts to pass off ethnic study of another worker as his
own
1906—Fakes first climb of Mount McKinley
1908—Claims first visit to North Pole
1920's—Imprisoned for mail fraud
1982—TV docudrama made Cook, not Peary, the victim
In Theory:
Peary represents the values Americans are supposed to admire:
perseverance and self-sacrifice
In Theory:
Cook represents everything Americans supposedly despise: dishonesty
and theft of others' rewards
So Why Does the Cook Cult Exist?
Americans are taught to revere explorers and innovators as heroes
(Lindbergh, Lewis and Clark).
In reality, many Americans resent those who succeed through hard work
and effort.
We often reconcile these conflicting emotions by making heroes out of
anti-intellectuals and cranks and pretending they were really
persecuted geniuses.
Steven I. Dutch
Professor, Natural and Applied Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 |
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"...controversy is good ...because it generates
new effort to find the truth... But beyond healthy controversy
lies darker and more dubious ground...a “docudrama” broadcast on national television
...reached that ground with the portrayal of an innocent Cook
being victimized and deprived of his rightful claim by a
malevolent Peary." |
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Gil Grovenor, NGS, 1990. |
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Pierre Abelard ca. 1100 A.D.
1) Use systematic doubt and question everything
2) Learn the difference between statements of rational proof and those
merely of persuasion
3) Be precise in use of words and expect precision from others
4) Watch for error, even in Holy Scripture --Sic et Non
Bad Models of Science
Science is Tentative
Scientific progress is Non-directional
Science does not find Truth
Quantum Pop Philosophy
Everything is relative
There is no such thing as certainty
Perception determines reality
Cognitive Development (Perry, 1970)
I. Dualism
1. Knowledge is dualistic: right-wrong, good-bad
2. Ambiguity recognized but seen as illegitimate (bad information) or
a test
3. Ambiguity legitimate but temporary (incomplete knowledge)
II. Relativism
4. Ambiguity is real but either separate from right-wrong (special
case) or it's what instructors want to hear
5. Ambiguity is general, right-wrong knowledge is a special case
6. Need for orientation and commitment recognized
III. Commitment
7. Initial commitment
8. Implications and responsibilities of commitment seen
9. Need to continually redefine commitment seen
The Baseball Analogy. Of all possible ideas, all but an
infinitesimally tiny fraction are trivially false. The Earth is not a
cube, tetrahedron, cylinder, torus, etc. Of the remainder, all but an
infinitesimally tiny fraction are non-trivially false. The earth is
not a perfect sphere, or flattened by 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000, elongated
along its polar axis, etc. Of all possible ideas, the range occupied
by valid ideas is an infinitesimally tiny point.
To Nolan Ryan, the strike zone is a big target. There are many
different correct ways to throw a baseball, none necessarily more
correct than any other. To a Little Leaguer, however, the strike zone
is a tiny target. Now imagine the stands are full of people who have
no idea at all how to play baseball. Some think you throw the bat at
the ball, some think the object is to hit the batter, others think the
object is to throw the ball as far as possible into the stands.
From out in the bleachers, the strike zone is a pinpoint and there is
only one correct way to throw a baseball. At that distance, fastballs,
curves and sliders are trivial variations on a single theme. This
analogy is to baseball exactly what pseudoscience is to normal
science, and the study of pseudoscience is important because it helps
to develop an external perspective on science that most scientists,
immersed in the minutiae of their own specialties, do not have.
Relativistic concepts of science work well in a graduate student bull
session or a faculty tea where the participants, for the most part,
are well educated and share a common set of assumptions. Just as a
group of major league pitchers might enjoy discussing the many ways to
throw a baseball, scientists enjoy discussing the role of alternate
viewpoints about science and the way it works. This approach would not
only be utterly irrelevant to a totally naive audience, it would be
positively misleading. Discussing all the ways of throwing a pitch
would be meaningless to somebody who didn't know the rules of
baseball; worse yet, it might actually mislead him into thinking that
hitting the strike zone wasn't crucial. Similarly, discussing science
as a social construct serves to mislead many non-scientists into
thinking there's reason to doubt many findings that are rock-solid.
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Steven I. Dutch
Professor, Natural and Applied Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Green Bay, WI 54311-7001
Phone: 920-465-2246, Fax 920-465-2376
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