Bruce Charlton

Bruce Charlton   ( doctor,  editor,  Medical dissident,  Science/Dissident)
Nationality	UK
Alma mater	•  Newcastle Medical School •  Durham University
Medical science editor who published an an article by "HIV/AIDS denier" Peter Duesberg, and was consequently fired by the publisher.

Bruce Graham Charlton is a retired British medical doctor who was visiting professor of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Buckingham. A medical journal editor, he was fired in 2010 by the publisher after publishing an article by "HIV/AIDS denier" Peter Duesberg.

Education

Charlton graduated with honours from the Newcastle Medical School in Newcastle upon Tyne, took a doctorate at the Medical Research Council Neuroendocrinology group, and did postgraduate training in psychiatry and public health. He holds a master's degree in English literature from Durham University in North East England.

Career

He was Professor of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Buckingham. He also taught at the University of Newcastle. He is author of Thought Prison: the fundamental nature of political correctness (2011) and Not even trying: the corruption of real science (2012).

Medical Hypotheses

Charlton was editor of the journal Medical Hypotheses from 2003 to 2010. According to Charlton "the journal's essence was that it was editorially reviewed (not peer reviewed), and favoured revolutionary science over normal science; that is, it favoured ideas on the basis that they were (for example) radical, interesting, dissenting, or sometimes amusing in a way likely to stimulate thought.".

In 2009 Charlton published an an article by "HIV/AIDS denier" Peter Duesberg. The published Elsevier consequently fired Charlton from his position as editor.

Opinions

“It is entirely normal and unremarkable for ordinary 'scientists' to spend their entire professional life doing work they know in their hearts to be trivial or bogus – preferring that which promotes their career over that which has the best chance of advancing science. In fact it may be impossible to get a job, or get tenure, or promotion - except by dumping idealism and scientific ambition and embracing low-risk careerism.”
Bruce Charlton (2012) 

“Since the middle twentieth century there has been a massive expansion and not influence of peer review, peer review infiltrated into all the major scientific evaluations – peer review has become the self-perceived core process of science. Yet peer review is no more, no less, than the opinion of senior scientists. In practice, most peer review is a 'black box' mechanism – and all the more effective for its unknown operations [...]
The even-more-significant aspect of peer review is the rhetorical success of implying that a committee procedure is more objective and more valid than individual judgment; the almost-wholly successful trick of disguising that peer review is pure opinion, and therefore just as ‘unreliable’ and prone to corruption as individual judgment – but that in fact peer review is worse than individual judgment for the same reason that a committee decision is intrinsically worse than an individual decision: because the committee decision is removed from individual responsibility, hence removed from responsibility altogether.”
Bruce Charlton (2012) 

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.