Top 5 Biggest Assholes of Science
We all know that science is the realm of the godless egghead who spends all his time coming up with ways to justify evolution and appease the dark overlord Beelzebub. However, every so often, one of these kind satanic souls is a real asshole. I'm not saying the following five people are the worst people to ever work in the realm of science, or even the biggest assholes to call themselves scientists. The thing that makes these five so annoyingly notable is the fact that they each contributed something important--and groundbreaking--to science as a whole. A person who thinks he knows everything is a dickhead, but a person who actually does know a hell of a lot more than you is always worse.
#5
EDWARD D. COPE
(and Othneil C. Marsh) | 
On the left, Edward Cope; on the right, a hole with an ass in it |
Pretty much every dinosaur you can name was discovered, assembled, and first described by either Edward Cope or Othneil Marsh (or, most likely, both) in the late nineteenth century. Cope is also the originator of Cope's Law, an important contribution to evolutionary theory that postulates that certain attributes tend to rapidly enlarge through the generations when they prove beneficial. Cope's Law explains the emergence of giraffe necks, peacock feathers, and human intelligence, among much else.
Cope and Marsh are best known for the so-called "Bone Wars," a decade-and-a-half-long bitter rivalry between the two paleontologists that lead to each trying to one-up the other in terms of how many fossils they could find and how many papers they could publish, all while insulting and bringing legal charges against each other. Nobody knows what sparked the bitter and famous dispute; all that is known is that they were once close friends and that, very suddenly, they came to hate each other in the worst way.
Oddly, though Cope is one of the most well-known paleontologists who ever lived, he really wasn't that good at finding fossils. Most of his discoveries were done by teams that he funded, not by Cope himself, and there is famous anecdotal evidence that the man could literally trip over dinosaur bones and not recognize them. Additionally, he was a raving, foul-mouthed, womanizing egomaniac. There is a pernicious rumor--debunked a little over a decade ago--that he tried to have his skeleton used as the universal type specimin for human beings but was posthumously denied the chance due to siphilitic growths on his bones. He did, however, have his brain preserved so that it could be weighed against Marsh's to see who was smarter in the end (Marsh declined the challenge).
Cope and Marsh's "Bone Wars" are the greatest example of science progressing through hatred and vitriole. Far from participating in just a friendly competition, these two were actively trying to discredit and destroy the lives of each other. They did not do the great science they did out of any altruistic notions of the importance of their work; they did it simply to prove their superiority. In essence, they're both big, gaping assholes (who just happened to be exceedingly talented in their fields).
#4
ANTOINE-LAURENT DE LAVOISIER | 
Fortunately, Lavoisier was too busy with science to take daily swims in his giant stacks of gold |
It is hard to overstate the contributions of Antione Lavoisier. He is regarded today as the father of modern chemistry; he isolated oxygen and hydrogen, and took the first real crack at organizing the elements; he helped create the metric system; he created a primitive--but nearly accurate--version of the law of conservation of mass; and he debunked the phlogiston theory. Without Lavoisier, we'd probably be a century behind where we are today.
Unfortunately, science was just his hobby. His day job was that of administrator of the biggest private tax company on Earth (at the time). Did I mention that he lived as an upper-class aristocrat in Paris in the mid-to-late eighteenth century? Needless to say, his career came to a sudden end when his head fell off during the French Revolution.
It wasn't just that he was an investor and the administrator of the "Ferme Generale"; he was also one of only 28 French tax collectors and chairman of the board of the Discount Bank. More importantly, he was also the one who had the brilliant idea to build a wall around Paris--spotted with tollbooths, of course--to keep the riff-raff from smuggling things like food and clothing into the city without paying the appropriate taxes.
What did him in, however, was a case of misplaced karma. A few years before the revolution, a scientist named Jean-Paul Marat presented to Lavoisier a proposition for an invention that Lavoisier curtly dismissed as proposterous. Marat would later leave science behind to become a notable revolutionary and political figure, and he harbored resentment for Lavoisier's rejection. It was Marat, suddenly infused with power during the revolution, who pointed his finger at Lavoisier and had him taken away to Madame la Guillotine. One can hardly blame him, though, since Lavoisier is the man who built a friggin' wall around Paris.
#3
FRITZ ZWICKY | 
Even his mother can't tell the difference |
Fritz Zwicky is an important figure in astronomy for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he was the first to postulate neutron stars and confirm the existence of supernovae (which he named). Secondly, he was the first to describe the problem of dark matter. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to him by President Truman in 1949. In a list of greatest astronomers who ever lived, Zwicky certainly wouldn't be at the top (that honor would no doubt go to Edwin Hubble), but he wouldn't be far below it.
On the other hand, he was also a giant dillweed. You remember that crazed roidhead Brucie from Grand Theft Auto IV? If Brucie had a Ph.D. in astronomy, that would be Fritz Zwicky. He was an adrenaline and work-out junkie, often interrupting conversations to show off how many one-handed push-ups he could do at a time. It wasn't uncommon for him to randomly shoot his faithful handgun into the air either. When it came to his science, he wasn't very adept at mathematics or other "minor" details, prefering to spend his time coming up with "big ideas" while "smaller minds" did the tedious work.
He was also a jerk. He believed "humbleness is a lie" and that it was important "to call a child by his name," meaning that if he thought somebody was stupid, he would not hesitate to say so as publically as possible while being sure to remind everyone that he (Zwicky) was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He refered to his collegues at the Mount Wilson observatory as "spherical bastards," spherical because they were bastards no matter how you looked at them.
But if he treated his collegues poorly, it's nothing compared to how he treated his rivals, most of whom he threatened to kill (by beating them to death). One of those rivals, Walter Baade (with whom Zwicky did some important work), became so afraid of him that Baade refused to be left alone with him. Another rival, Robert Oppenheimer, published an influential paper on neutron stars years after Zwicky had done similar work, but refused to credit or even question Zwicky on the matter, even though they worked in offices on the same floor of the same building. As a credit to Zwicky's reputation, none of his contemporaries seemed interested in the fact that Oppenheimer had plaigarized him, and they then proceeded to shower praise, not on Zwicky, but on Oppenheimer. So either Zwicky was an asshole, or each and every one of his collegues really was a bastard.
[NOTE: The facts of the above paragraphs concerning Fritz Zwicky have been disputed and I apologize if I have offended. I do not claim that my research is flawless--most of the anectdotes above I am simply repeating from other places both in print and on the Internet--and it is my hope that this article will be read as a humor piece, as it was meant, and not a factual account.]
#2
JOHANNES WILHELM GEIGER | 
Hans Geiger, before and after radiation (citation needed) |
Co-inventer of the radiation detection machine that bears his name, Hans Geiger is also important in that he helped confirm the existence of atomic nuclei, a feat of extraordinary ramifications. He was also a patriot and war hero, and worked to create the first atomic bomb in order to end World War II.
The bad news is that he was trying to build that bomb for Germany. Not only was he artillery officer in World War I and a member of the Uranium Club (the Nazi version of the Manhattan Project) during World War II, but he was also an enthusiastic Nazi in his own right. He wasn't just working for his country because he had to; he also turned in some of his long-time Jewish collegues and used his position to assist the Nazi cause. If it hadn't been for another scientist (and a Jewish one at that) along with the speedy arrival of the Allied powers, Geiger might very well have pushed Germany to a catastrophic victory.
Really, is there any more to say here? The man was a Nazi. If that doesn't make him an asshole, I don't know what does.
#1
SIR RICHARD OWEN | 
One of these is cartoonishly evil; the other is Snidely Whiplash |
Going back to paleontology, where we started, Sir Richard Owen was the man who coined the word "dinosaur." However, his most important contribution to science was the nearly single-handed establishment of the British Museum of Natural History in London. Owen had this crazy notion that natural history museums should be open to the public and that everyday people should be allowed to view scientific achievements. He even came up with the seemingly obligatory idea of small placards in front of exhibits to explain to people what they are looking at. By doing this, Owen brought science into the mainstream and allowed it to be as widely accepted and understood as it is today.
Sir Richard Owen was also, quite possibly, the biggest asshole in all of science. What he did to fellow scientist Gideon Mantell (the man who can best be credited with discovering dinosaurs in the first place) is a story so amazingly dickish that one has to wonder if Richard Owen is the reason "Dick" is now short for "Richard." First, Owen took credit for discovering the first dinosaur, the Iguanadon, despite the fact that Mantell already had. Owen even dismissed Mantell's correct deduction that the Iguanadon was bipedal, insisting that the monster walked on all fours. Then, Owen used his position at the Royal Academy to ensure that Mantell's many papers and rebuttals went unpublished.
Mantell was severely injured in an accident, and Owen siezed the opportunity to rename several of his specimens and take credit for their discovery. Eventually, destitute, alone, and unrecognized, Mantell died of an opium overdose. However, his humiliation was not yet complete; his skeleton, twisted and deformed as a result of scoliosis, wound up in the care of Sir Richard Owen, who decided to display Mantell's spine and pen an outrageously demeaning obituary for him that was published in The New York Times. As far as anybody can tell, Owen did all this just for the heck of it.
Owen did not just devote his time to ruining Gideon Mantell, however. Shockingly, it appears as though Mantell is just one of many examples of how Owen systematically destroyed up-and-coming scientists. He was infamous for being a plaigarist, though it didn't catch up to him until late in his career, when it was finally proven and he was kicked out of the Royal Academy. None of his contemporaries liked the man--who was described as brutish, mean-spirited, insincere, dishonest, arrogant, deceitful, and rude on the best of days--and he never succeeded in rearing a pupil or earning a single follower. He was also the only man Charles Darwin ever hated, and the two were constantly feuding over evolutionary theory.
The main thing to understand here is that Owen achieved success only on the backs of others. It is impossible to count the number of lives he ruined through vile deceit and selfish sociopathic malice. This makes him a bigger asshole than any of the other guys on the list--even the Jew-outing Nazi--and that is worthy of recognition.
-e. magill 09/14/2009
|
|
|
