Science Isn’t About Sainthood
Should we rename concepts or equations named for racist scholars? A recent opinion piece argued that scientists who value diversity and inclusion should not use the name of Ronald Fisher, a pioneer of modern statistics and also an outspoken advocate for eugenics, when describing equations. (e.g. No more “Fisher’s equation.”) If the question is whether to remove one statistician’s name from a few equations, the stakes are low, the intent is good, and equations are so frequently misnamed that some formulas attributed to Fisher might well deserve other names anyway. So be it. Fisher is canceled and the world moves on.
Fisher, however, is not science’s only sinner, he’s just the latest one to get noticed. What will our standard be moving forward? Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other group-directed -isms and phobias are obviously out, and good riddance to them. But the inclusive task of removing objectionable people from textbooks will surely entail righting many other wrongs as well. The sins of scientists are manifold, and we’ll need an army of historians to scrutinize the record and compile lists of proscribed names.
For instance, many luminaries of twentieth century physics enabled literal violence when they worked on nuclear bombs. Readers might excuse the Manhattan Project in light of the stakes in World War II. (The Nazis weren’t exactly passionate about diversity and inclusion…) However, weapons research, both nuclear and otherwise, continued apace after the war’s end in 1945, drawing in countless talented scientists and engineers of Western, Communist, and other ideological or geopolitical extractions. These weapons were mostly wielded in Cold War hotspots populated by people too poor and powerless to keep superpowers at bay. Should our ethical frameworks also deny honors to nuclear weapons scientists like Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, Lev Landau, Andrei Sakharov, and others whose names festoon physics formulas?
Speaking of nuclear weapons, racism, and equations, many Nazi scientists denounced Einstein’s theory of relativity. They also attempted to build nuclear weapons. I wonder what they said when using E=mc2 in calculations. Obviously there’s a substantial difference between condemning eugenics and purging Jews, but it’s still awkward to use ideas from a scholar whom you deem unmentionable. As a great Jewish philosopher said, accept truth whomever it comes from.
Scientists’ complicity in injustice is not limited to bloodshed; watersheds have suffered too. My shelf holds science books by researchers from corporate labs, and many of those companies have, let’s say, mixed environmental records. Can I, in good conscience, recommend that students read these books, and see their corporate authors as models to learn from? Should I recommend that students buy these books, and enrich writers who built their expertise and reputations on sometimes ethically questionable projects?
Even trailblazers from marginalized groups can present conundrums. Surgeons Mildred Jefferson and Lavinia Brown were, respectively, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first Black woman surgeon in the Southern United States. Brown was also the first Black woman in the Tennessee legislature. Brown’s name adorns at least one university building; if Jefferson is not similarly honored then that is an omission desperately needing correction. However, Jefferson also founded and led many anti-abortion groups, while Brown fought (unsuccessfully) to expand abortion rights as a legislator. If you have a stance on abortion then you disagree with one of these women, presumably due to deeply-held values. Which trail-blazing Black woman doctor’s name should accordingly be struck from places of honor?
In short, if naming rights for discoveries can only go to people of unquestionable character, we’ll have many unnamed discoveries. To paraphrase a guy who got in trouble after committing assault in a Jewish house of worship, perhaps he, she, or they who is without sin should erase the first eponym.
Or maybe we should go the other way, never naming anything after scientists. What would be the harm in un-naming? I often use Fisher information in my research, but that which we call Fisher information by any other name would be as useful. Though abstinence from eponyms might seem extreme, there is precedent. Many devout Muslims refrain from depicting humans in artwork, as only God is perfect. If a values system accepted by more than a billion people, many from cultures with long scientific traditions, can thoughtfully limit the ways in which they celebrate humans, it is not radical for scientists to consider eschewing named equations.
Then again, just what is in a name? Could an eponym just be a label rather than a laurel? I studied at a public university bearing the name of a Catholic saint, and I teach at a public university bearing the name of a Roman deity, but nobody seriously construes these names as state endorsements of religion. I grew up amidst street names like Arthur and Chambers; I have no idea which of the many people bearing these names were being honored, and what their sins and virtues might have been. I was more interested in just getting around town. Likewise, referring to an equation by Lev Landau’s name is just a convenient means to identify the formula, not an endorsement of Stalin’s nuclear weapons program.
Maybe, in the end, it’s OK that textbooks name flawed people. Perhaps we should even be glad that you don’t need to be a saint to be a scientist. As much as we should strive for high ethical standards, the most hopeful thing we can say about science is that a community of imperfect people managed to produce accurate and reliable findings. I will not defend eugenicists and their ilk with the trite “They were people of their time” line, but I will say how relieved I am that the common prejudices of one’s era do not necessarily preclude achievements that stand the test of later times. It’s our only real hope for progress.
