I am frequently struck by the paradoxical behavior of biologists. Recently, I attended a conference on biofuel development that included a discussion of the feasibility of deriving fuels from algae. In the open meeting, only a few biologists voiced an opinion, all stated very politely. In private, however, the opinions that I heard were invariably strong and contentious, and few people agreed with what appeared to be the general consensus. It seemed that most of the meeting participants were unwilling to let their viewpoints be publicly known.
Biologists were not always so shy about their scientific views. When I was a graduate student in the 1970s, I was trained by scientists who thought that all students should get up in public and defend their ideas. At first, this was quite difficult, but we were motivated by the need to pass an oral examination in our second year. Success required dealing ...
