The Story of Doll and Hill: Why Millionaires and Wise People Should Hire A Scientist/Analyst Like They Hire a Plumber!
Are citizen-funded scientists our best hope for objectivity in science?
Most people have not heard about Doll and Hill. In fact, millions of humans lost their lives because they did not hear about Doll and Hill. This is an excerpt from my upcoming book:
“Sometimes corporations have larger clout than governments in the science world. Consider the case of smoking. In 1950, Richard Doll and A. Bradford Hill, researchers at the British Medical Research Council published a groundbreaking paper1 which provided direct statistical evidence that linked increases in smoking in the first half of the 20th century to cases of lung carcinoma and death. This was a few years after Otto Warburg identified smoking as a potential carcinogenic mutagen. It took the world, and even British citizens, some 40 years to hear about Doll and Hill, despite their position with the British government. Even fewer people have heard of Warburg, who also implicated electromagnetic waves. Why? Because scientists and medical doctors, either too busy with their own business, or self-deluded and biased by personal gains, ignored research by the likes of Doll, Hill and Warburg. In fact, many commercial ads used doctors and scientists, as well as actors and celebrities, to promote smoking certain brands of cigarettes. Imagine how many lives would have been saved if the majority of scientists, doctors and government officials publicized Doll and Hill’s research earlier.”
For decades, nearly the entire population of the planet, including most doctors and scientists, were busy making money and spending it on products (including cigarettes), services (including doctors treating them for cancer and other smoking-related diseases) and cancer research (Mostly treatment, not prevention). What is the historic lesson here? Information age is gameable and confusing. To stay ahead of the game (by 40-50 years in the case of data linking smoking to cancer) it does pay off to have our own trusted investigative data analysts and science investigators.
Science today is even more complex and profitable than in 1950. Having lost their faith in other establishments, many people worship at the altars of science and scientists. Yet, tragically, reductionist science (the kind that dissects problems into individual components) is so expensive that it needs to be sponsored, like a big business, by corporations. That means reviewing and separating good science from bad (biased), and noise from signal, requires a lot of time and expertise. Most scientists who can do this are either employed by corporations or by governments, and are too busy, conflicted, restricted or unaware to conduct objective reviews and share it with the public.
Wealthy people realize the importance of good (unbiased) data. Many of Hollywood elites hire their own expert nutritionists, investment analysts, fitness coaches, and personal chefs and doctors (not part of managed-care systems or receiving pharmaceuticals and referral benefits). For news, people now trust independent podcasters and comedians more than sponsored corporate news networks (see the interesting stats at We Dropped Cable News! Joe Rogan vs. The Entire $10 Billion TV News Industry: Shocking Stats About Plummeting Cable News Subscriptions in America).
Yet, when it comes to science and data, there are still very few podcasts out there by independent and objective (not sponsored) scientists or data analysts who make a living by working for ordinary citizens!
We hire our own mechanic and plumber because we are too busy to become an expert or don’t have the tools and time to fix our own cars and pipes. Yet, for the increasingly complex and sponsored (advertised) world of data and science, which impact our entire body, mind and relationships, we trust opinions shared on mainstream (sponsored) channels. That is exactly what happened to the women who trusted sponsored experts on drugs like Thalidomide (advertised under brand names like Mornidine shown in the picture, a morning sickness drug for pregnant women), which by 1961 had caused at least 20,000 severe birth defects, missing limbs and deformities in babies (as seen in the picture).
I truly believe citizen-funded “people’s experts” with integrity are like what investigative journalists were in the 20th century (when TV and paper news departments were cost centers, run independently from sponsored entertainment divisions) and our best judges of objective data and scientific debates in the 21st Century. But as of right now, the numbers and cost-benefit rations are not promising for independent (rogue/outspoken) scientists on social media. Well-researched science opinion blogs about any topic (COVID, nutrition, vaccines, chemicals, lifestyle, etc.) take hours to produce and are boring to many readers, even if the blogs are written in simple language (like I try to do). Successful independent science bloggers (like Heather Heying) who publish real science (not theatrics) reach a subscriber base which is often a fraction of that of entertainment, sports or political channels. This seriously limits the prospects of (corporate-)independent income for scientist bloggers. Indie science bloggers also face serious censorship, de-platforming, demonetizing and mob attacks when they talk against lucrative narratives sponsored by powerful corporations and governments. So the cost (risk)-benefit outlook is currently not that appealing for citizen-funded scientist bloggers and analysts. I personally made more in one hour of consultation with venture capital firms (in 2010) than I would be likely making by 2023 on Substack for an entire month of independent blogging and researching for people. I like my independence and like to think that my public blogs make a difference in the lives of some people. But it is a lot easier and more lucrative for capable scientists to work for, instead of challenging, large interest groups, and to leave citizen-funded grassroots channels and social media to entertainers and politicians. After all, scientists are usually on the shy and introspective side.
With corporate science being among the most lucrative careers out there, it is unclear if we will ever have a lot of citizen-funded scientists working publicly for ordinary people. I am not sure how many independent-minded critical thinkers are out there who value good information enough to pay a few dollars a month for it anyway. Those who know that they don’t know the unbiased truth are already seekers or have their own platforms. But I am fairly certain that the wealthy will soon realize the need to hire their own scientists once they realize useful data and research like that by Doll and Hill is buried even deeper today than in 1950.
About me:
Ray Armat, Ph.D. is an independent scientist/philosopher, author, educator and former NASA grantee, with 30+ years of industrial as well as academic research and teaching background in materials/polymers science, chemical engineering, economics, business development and biology. Drawing on my interdisciplinary education and experience, I try to find good science, simplify it and bring you useful, uncompromised insight and analysis.
Doll, R., and A. B. Hill. “Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung.” BMJ, vol. 2, no. 4682, 1950, pp. 739–748.