Review of the book by Jacques Robert, published by Héliade in June 2026, preface by Nathalie Heinich.
"Svedutista." That's how our friend, the Venetian painter Ludovico De Luigi, who recently passed away, defined himself. A term untranslatable into French, except perhaps by another neologism, that of "unveiler": a painter of what lies beyond the facades.
Seeing things behind things.
Jacques Robert is a "revealer." At La Petite Sirène and the Observatoire d'Ethique Universitaire, among others, we know this Professor Emeritus of Oncology, a tireless critic of political correctness and easy answers, well through his articles and opinion pieces. He now gives us the pleasure of publishing a book, an extension of a previous work (Impostures in Cancerology –H&O Editions, 2023) by extending its demystification and demythologization business to science in general and to those who are supposed to develop it in particular.
While its 289 pages flow with the fluidity of a novel, as evidenced by Nathalie Heinich's incisive preface, this is neither science fiction nor an Orwellian vision of the future. It is an observation. A state of affairs. The stark assessment of a major ailing body: the scientific world. With a scalpel-like pen, Jacques Robert dissects and analyzes the tumors that are currently invading science. The book is divided into five bibliopsies.
Section 1: The fish rots from the head down.
In this first part, Jacques Robert begins by emphasizing the growing distrust, especially among the younger generation, towards science, with the paradox that they are its greatest users, "unwittingly," through technology and biomedical advances. This represents a denial of reality, a technomythology that we previously analyzed in the article "The Unbearable Weight of Reality."[1]A denial into which certain elites readily plunge. University elites are not immune and, through cowardice or opportunism, contribute to this devaluation of science. Jacques Robert emphasizes this on page 40: "The University suffers, on the one hand, from the continuous increase in the number of high school graduates and the high rate of students pursuing university studies, and on the other hand, from the regular creation of new programs entrusted to it [...]; the resulting imbalance is unsustainable." And the author goes on to give us examples of some of these academic failings.
Scientific publishing, supposedly producing "scholarly knowledge" in a technocratic and mercantile spirit, is not immune to this demagogic headlong rush. The author explains how the erosion of publication criteria, the perverse drift of editorial ethics rules, and the arithmetic—but not qualitative—pressure of "Publish or Perish," the tyranny of the Impact Factor, and the denial of the fundamentally unpredictable nature of research, all contribute to the erosion of what constitutes the foundations of science: universalism, objectivity, rationality, critical thinking, the acceptance of complexity, and the inexhaustibility of knowledge. Science shifts the focus of questions.
Section 2: Science is soluble in ideology.
This second section revisits in detail the ideological drift discussed in the first part of the book. Leading institutions like the ENS and Sciences Po become synonymous with widespread intellectual dishonesty. Universities, such as Lyon 2, are transforming into hotbeds of antisemitism. Conversely, the social sciences are becoming "unscientific and asocial"—factories for recycling idle, pedantic sociologists.
Jacques Robert reminds us that the ideological perversion of science is nothing new. Whether relying on reactionary myths or progressive illusions, the same unscientific constants reappear, such as racism and the denial of evolution and complexity. And beyond the social sciences, the "soft sciences," today anthropology, biology, medicine, and physics are contaminated by a supposedly progressive ideology that is in fact regressive and denies the specificity of humankind. In the intellectual mush of this "wokism," disciplines are scattered like puzzle pieces into "studies." Theses based on aberrations without scientific foundation, such as gender theory, or subjective, inclusive, intersectional theses, relying on partial, biased, and distorted data, flourish. Titles and presentations are laughable... to avoid tears. Because they remind us so vividly of the murderous dogmatism of Stalinist Lysenkoist theses and those on racial purity from the Nazi period.
The career prospects for these "ignorant PhD students" are virtually nonexistent, except to swell the ranks of useless assistants surrounding harmful professorial gurus and thus "justify" these detrimental training programs. And to create a mass of frustrated individuals, future useful idiots for some petty leader, fueling the current pre-insurrectionary climate.
Jacques Robert then highlights the link between the ideological decay of science and the underlying political issues in a chapter where he analyzes the opposition between (scientific) universalism and communitarianism. He also shows how this threatening, sometimes active (cancellation), pressure from a fanatical minority, supported by complicit media and compliant institutions, leads to self-censorship. Even worse: the murder of courageous teachers.
Section 3: The numbers and letters of my mill.
In this third part, the author explains how the shortcomings and excesses previously presented, this collective irresponsibility that Marc Bloch spoke of in The strange defeatThis will lead to the exponential growth of a reprehensible but age-old practice: cheating. The methods and motives are varied (profit, fame, narcissism, jealousy, etc.). Examples of plagiarism, falsification, and data fabrication are discussed.
Here we observe a phenomenon of co-evolution. A Red Queen race, as in Alicewhere the cheater is always one step ahead of their pursuer. And it is science and its associated technological advances that, paradoxically, provide cheaters with new methods of wrongdoing: manipulation of texts using artificial intelligence (so unintelligent and so unartificial); manipulation of images by computer; and industrial-scale fraud by the formidable paper mills! These "paper mills," predatory publications mostly based in Asia, China in particular (with political objectives as well), produce bogus articles for a fee, to which anyone can claim to contribute. If you have no ideas, others will, provided they're willing to pay. A system of fraud fueled by the race for Impact Factor and the creation of a "credible" CV in the global job market. Following the principle of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," there's nothing better for hiding a dirty piece of paper than to mix it with the good ones it resembles. Information overload kills information and, above all, hinders verification methods. Jacques Robert warns us about the dangers of these frauds, not only for the image of science but also for the health and safety of citizens that corrupted, toxic data, unfortunately exploited and applied, can cause.
Section 4: Se non è vero, è ben trovato.
Alongside the cheating, the author highlights in this fourth section the scientific imposture of which he had already provided numerous examples in cancer research in his work cited earlier.
Here, pseudo-sciences, false sciences, and other inventions of gurus (such as Scientology, whose only science lies in its name) are brought before the tribunal of true and verifiable science. The author exposes the unsavory underbelly of these "21st-century magical sciences," as he calls them: astrology, parapsychology, anthroposophy, geobiology, not to mention the longevity claims of peddlers of youth-elixirs, the "de-Darwinism" of creationists and other anti-evolutionists, and the eco-zeal advocated by our ignorant proponents of punitive ecology. These deceptions unfortunately thrive thanks to the leniency of certain institutions. In passing, Jacques Robert paints a portrait of a few armchair and television Cagliostros. We thus discover that some well-to-do academics did not hesitate to compromise themselves basely for a pathetic moment of glory and "originality" by awarding the "scientific" label to an astrology thesis defended by Germaine Hanselmann, better known by the glamorous pseudonym Elizabeth Teissier. Some Nobel laureates are not immune to this "esoteric meltdown" either (physicists in particular), while others have more mercenary motives.
Our "unveiler" concludes this section with some comical, but frightening, examples of scientific scams that make one wonder how they managed to gain attention and support.
Section 5: E pur si muove!
At the end of each section, the author has outlined some possible remedies which he develops here and which courageous institutions and policies could implement.
Ah, courage! Such complacency and the creation of pointless committees to bury problems are so comfortable! When what's needed is to say, "This is gangrene, sire; we must amputate." And act.
The author highlights the value of the widely distributed preprint system, allowing for comments and broader analysis of the results of scientific research before final publication; the role and vigilance of PubPeer with regard to scientific fraud; the monitoring work of whistleblowers and observatories, such as those of the Little Mermaid or University Ethics.
A final, brief section expresses a rather cautious optimism, even a touch of disillusionment, given how unequal the fight seems in the face of fraudsters' impunity and institutional inertia. A simplistic message spreads faster and is far easier to accept than a necessarily complex truth. Hence the essential role of education, with the primary objective of developing critical thinking. This isn't a discipline in itself, but rather one that permeates all disciplines.
Science can only be saved by scientists themselves, who must not succumb to resignation and mere tolerance ("there are institutions for tolerance," as Clemenceau said). It's a battle where one must not fear taking blows. And there will be blows! The Galilean struggle of Reason against Ideology. But besieged Vienna resisted the Ottomans. And didn't David defeat Goliath?
With this work, Jacques Robert offers us a first good dose of antibiotics to fight back.
Claudio Rubiliani. Biologist, Doctor of State.
