The CRU's Climate Change Scandal

The recent behavior of scientists at the UK's Climate Research Unit shows that scientists — even brilliant ones — are not better than other people. They are at least as prone to vanity, malice, groupthink, charlatanism, and outright dishonesty as those in any other line of work.

My latest column for The Week asks what the news about the scandal at the UK's Climate Research Unit tells us.

On their way to discovering the double helix structure of DNA, James Watson and Francis Crick drew important inspiration from an unauthorized glimpse at the unpublished research of a third scientist, Rosalind Franklin.

Yet when James Watson published his famous memoir in 1968, he made scant mention of Franklin’s contributions—holding her up instead to vicious and misogynistic mockery.

Scientists—even brilliant ones—are not better than other people. They are at least as prone to vanity, malice, groupthink, charlatanism, and outright dishonesty as those in any other line of work. Happily, science is bigger than the scientists. Nobody would respond to Watson’s bad behavior by saying, “See—that proves that DNA does not exist!”