By Paul Weiser
Sometimes science proceeds by revolution, more often by nuance. Newton and Einstein constructed grand systems, within which their successors had to find the vital qualifications and exceptions. Problems arise when the grand system becomes religious or political dogma.
Take, for example, the general truth that some substances tend to make people sick by gradual steps that can, at first, be detected only statistically. Thus we learned that cholesterol could cause heart disease, that fat could be unhealthy even when plumpness did not reach the level of obesity, and that sustained tobacco smoking correlated with various circulatory and respiratory diseases. This was the general system, valid as far as it went.
Yet each of these general observations (except one) turned out - on careful study - to have important qualifications and exceptions. There is "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol, the one healthy, the other damaging. There is "good" fat and "bad" fat - for that matter, depriving children of fats can be harmful because the brain consists of fatty tissue that must be accumulated and assembled to thrive. On other consumables, the pendulum swings constantly: caffeine good or bad? Wait a minute for the answer you want. Red wine healthy or harmful? Depends on who you ask.
The exception to the exceptions is nicotine (the active ingredient in tobacco). By repute, it has both beneficial and malign effects, sharpening attention and reducing excessive appetite but producing true physical addiction with unpleasant withdrawal symptoms... this when separated from the tar and particulates of smoke. But no one will research the possibility of "good" nicotine or an extract distilling out its benign effects because of the general anathema against tobacco for its real (though not universal) long-term health hazards.
Research forbidden is knowledge foregone. Knowledge foregone is the nearest possible neighbor to a lie.
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