Leverage Research and the disease of secrecy
A continuation of an earlier exchange with Nevin Freeman about Leverage Research, the closed-door Bay Area “psychology research” organization founded by Geoff Anders. The previous round of the conversation had focused on whether trusted insiders vouching for Leverage’s work counted as evidence; this note steps back to argue that the more fundamental problem is the secrecy itself.
While many of the things in our discussion are important and useful, when it comes down to it, the key underlying issue is Leverage’s extraordinary level of secrecy. We haven’t really discussed this, so it might help to bring it into the open (heh).
Leverage’s website has virtually no information about itself, even basic facts like where it is or who runs it ( leverageresearch.org/about ). This level of secrecy is very rare among nonprofits or research institutions. The only orgs I can think of where I’d expect to see a website like that are quant hedge funds, which are extremely different in both motivation and structure. As the famous Sean Carroll says: “Present your discovery in a way that is complete, transparent, and unambiguous. What we’re getting at here is that scientific discoveries, unlike sonnets or declarations of love, are universal rather than personal. They belong to everyone, and once they are presented to the world, they can be explored equally well by anybody. By almost any standard, I understand general relativity better than Einstein ever did. (Most parts of it, anyway.) Not because I’m anywhere nearly as smart as Einstein, but because we’ve learned a lot about GR since Einstein died. Once the theory was invented, he didn’t have a monopoly on it; it was out there for anyone to understand and move forward with. Even if he had repudiated his own theory, it would have had no effect on whether or not it was correct.
Your discovery should be the same way. If it’s a revolutionary new theory, it should be a theory that anyone can use. That means it needs to be clearly expressed and unambiguous. I’ve had more than one long and fruitless discussion with alternative scientists who would say ‘You tell me the experimental result, and I will explain it with my theory.’ That’s not the way it works. Your theory should have a life of its own; it should be a machine that I (or anyone) could use to make predictions. And if it’s a physics theory, let’s face it, it’s going to involve math. In this day and age, nobody is going to be moved by a model of elementary particles that comes expressed as a set of three-dimensional sculptures constructed from pipe cleaners.
Likewise, if your breakthrough is an experiment, it had better be a dramatically obvious one — and the more you are violating cherished scientific beliefs, the more dramatic the effect had better be. If what you’re claiming requires a re-arrangement of the energy levels in organic molecules, in flagrant disregard of the Schrödinger equation, you are going to need much more than a two- or three-sigma effect. And, equally importantly, you have to be up front about what the apparatus is, so that anyone can reproduce the experiment. No fair saying ‘Well, if you come into my lab, I’ll turn it on and show you how it works.’ And ‘This experiment was done in the ’70’s in a secret underground lab in Gdansk, and the KGB has suppressed the lab notebooks’ isn’t any better. If you’re actually playing the role of a scientist, share your procedure with everyone, so that they can become true believers themselves. If, on the other hand, you just want to make money, then by all means don’t tell anyone; just start producing the free energy (or amazing stretchy widgets, or whatever) and sell it on the open market. The millions of dollars that will doubtless flow your way will be very comforting as you rail against the establishment for failing to appreciate your genius.” ( The Alternative Science Respectability Checklist ) (Leverage making money for the benefit of its employees or board members would, of course, not be legally allowed as a 501(c)3.)
There are some rare cases, of course, where an extreme level of secrecy for scientific research might be justified. The Manhattan Project is the most obvious example, and I’ve studied the secrecy surrounding nuclear research and its effects in some depth. However, I think it’s unlikely that Leverage could convince me that this secrecy is necessary, as long as the reason for secrecy itself seems to be kept secret. Alex Wellerstein, who I’ve talked with a few times, is arguably the leading historian of nuclear secrecy, and as he quoted on his blog: “If something is secret, and something else touches it, it too becomes secret. Secrecy becomes a disease. Everything around the secret issue becomes secret, so the trial became a secret, so I became a secret.” ( Alex Wellerstein, Forbidden Spheres )