Scapegoating Trumps Science during Crises

Scapegoating is the act of blaming an innocent person or a group when things go wrong, and it has been a part of human behavior for thousands of years. We would expect that modern education, ways of thinking, and the application of the scientific method have defeated this human trait, at least amongst the practitioners of science. However, we find that this is not so, and in times of crisis, even science is trumped by scapegoating. During the medical crisis created in the early 1980’s by HIV/AIDS, instead of objectively looking for the causative agent, the biomedical community focused on the lifestyle choices of some of the victims: the gay community. The behavior of the physicians and scientists displayed the same elemental characteristics observed when scapegoating is analyzed in history and literature. Further, by replacing our naïve understanding of the methods of scientific reasoning, with one based on the history of the scientific process, we understand why the biomedical community acted as they did. Let us start with a definition of scapegoating.
The word ‘scapegoat’ is said to originate from William Tyndale’s translation of Leviticus Chapter 16 Verse 10 (Douglas 6), that describes a ritual of the tribes of Israel in which two goats are chosen for sacrifice. Whilst one goat is slaughtered and the burnt meat offered to God, the transgressions of the congregation are whispered into the ear of the other goat, which is then driven into the desert. The goat that escapes is the scapegoat, the vehicle through which the sins of the tribe are driven away. This origin differs significantly from the modern usage of the term, where we always refer to scapegoats as those who are blamed for a crime or an event, and punished for what has happened even though they are innocent. We don’t let them escape; instead we sacrifice them on the altar of false accusation. History and literature have many examples of this, especially in connection with epidemics.
Epidemics have always been a challenge for the medical profession, and many physicians, for example Nostradamus and Hippocrates, have built their reputations by trying to cure the diseases that ravaged society during their times. In the past, these physicians have based their understanding of these diseases on the metaphysical: Hippocrates believed that fevers were due to an imbalance in the body’s fluids and the positions of the stars could predict its onset (Sherman 57). Modern scientists look instead for material causes and adopt a scientific methodology that promotes objectivity, peer review and double-blind trials[i]. The biomedical community is supposed to have left behind the biases and subjectivity imposed by the human mind, but it appears that scapegoating is still an inherent part of their behavior.
By studying many examples of scapegoating in history and literature, Girard has identified three “stereotypes of persecution” that can be used to characterize it (Reader 107-117). Firstly, as a pre-condition for its occurrence, there is “an extreme loss of social order evidenced by the disappearance of the rules and ‘differences’ that define cultural divisions” (108). This homogeneity is echoed in The Plague: “these exiles of the plague…looked like everybody else, nondescript” (Camus 183). The plague strikes indiscriminately, ignoring differences of age, wealth, and social standing. This loss of differences between individuals leads to a cultural and institutional collapse as human relationships disintegrate. All life, and most death, now revolves around the plague, and the individual’s position at home, at work, and in the community, built over many years, is no longer important. The affected populace then starts surmising about the causes of this collapse, inevitably drawing the wrong conclusions.
This leads to the second stereotype: the accusation that a group of people have committed crimes which violate the strictest taboos, and brought about the cultural collapse. Allegations include violent crimes against authority such as parricide, sexual crimes such as rape or incest, or religious crimes such as the profanation of the host. These are fundamental crimes that “attack the very foundations of cultural order, the family and the hierarchical differences without which there would be no social order” (Girard, Reader 110). The populace has now coalesced into a mob, which believes that there are a small number of people who have committed these crimes, and caused the crisis to unfold. All they need to do is to identify these criminals and destroy or drive them away. No proof is needed, either of the existence of the crimes, or the involvement of the accused; the social disintegration is proof enough of both.
Finally, based on numerous examples, Girard shows that the people accused of these grave crimes are consciously chosen, not because there is proof of their guilt, but because they are the most vulnerable members of society. Paradoxically, they are chosen because in the midst of all the homogeneity, they still retain some semblance of difference. Minorities, the disabled, and even royalty are the stereotypical victims of scapegoating (112-113). In some circumstances, the innocent are intentionally chosen as the scapegoats in order to prevent the vicious cycle of vengeance that characterizes blood feuds (Girard, Violence 86). As they are not involved in the original dispute, and these marginalized members of society are powerless, the cycle of revenge is broken by choosing them as victims. Let us use these three stereotypes to analyze the HIVS/AIDS epidemic in the United States.
In the summer of 1981, it was noticed that some young men in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York were exhibiting combinations of rare disease symptoms. On further investigation, all the patients were found to have impaired immune systems: unable to fight common diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis, they were dying. As the patients displayed symptoms of more than one disease at a time, it was labeled Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome [AIDS], and different causes were postulated. These ranged from the use of possibly toxic designer drugs, repeated exposure to a combination of infectious agents, or a new infectious agent altogether (Cochrane 178). In the face of spiraling infection rates and deaths, and confusing test results that few scientists could agree upon, prejudice took the place of reason. Ignoring the intravenous drug use of some, and the poor nutritional and general health of most of the victims, researchers and the Centers for Disease Control quickly characterized it as a sexually transmitted disease limited to the gay community; stigmatizing the victims before starting to fight the disease and its spread (14).
By focusing on the sexual lifestyle choices of gay men, the research community passed up other possibilities, and were blindsided with respect to the spread of AIDS in Africa where it is more common amongst heterosexuals (180, 189). The “focus on groups at risk rather than risky activities” (Goldstein 45), increased the marginalization of the “4H” minorities: Homosexuals, Haitians, Hemophiliacs and Heroin-addicts, the groups most affected by AIDS. Heterosexuals have not been considered primarily at risk in North America due to these prejudiced policies, yet in Newfoundland, AIDS is almost completely transmitted through heterosexual contacts (22). Due to the possibility of homophobic stigmatization in close-knit communities, persons at risk of AIDS didn’t get themselves tested, leading to widespread infection.
Looking at the genesis of the AIDS pandemic using the stereotypes identified by Girard, we find that all the elements of scapegoating are present. In the beginning of 1982, the medical community recognized that there was an epidemic that was growing quickly, and rapidly disseminated information about the cases that were being observed (Epstein 49). Although it would be the end of 1983 before it would “achieve the status of a ‘Worldwide Health Problem’ as the headline …in the New York Times” would claim, medical professionals had already recognized it as a health crisis; one that threatened to plunge the world into chaos (55), fulfilling the first stereotype. The second stereotype, violation of a taboo, or sexual crime, was the ‘abnormal’ sexual lifestyle of the homosexuals. Just the name ‘sodomy’ evoked memories of the Old Testament and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Cochrane gives numerous examples of the opinions expressed in writing by health officials in San Francisco and the U.S. Public Health Service that linked the AIDS epidemic to the gay lifestyle, and especially to the May 1975 repeal of California’s sodomy laws (22-24). While it was expected that conservative leaders like Jesse Helms claimed that AIDS was a scourge brought down on gays because of their sexual lifestyle (Epstein 52), a similar conclusion by the biomedical community was not. Finally, as a minority that had traditionally been hidden in the closet, gays were the stereotypical scapegoats. We see that all three stereotypes identified by Girard can be applied to understand the behavior of the biomedical community and human nature, the innate behavior developed over thousands of years to preserve the species, trumps the scientific method of reasoning that was invented comparatively recently. Closer scrutiny of this so-called objective scientific process yields an understanding of why this is so.
A scientist using the scientific method supposedly gathers observations that lead to a hypothesis, which is then used to predict a new set of experimental results; the correctness of the prediction validates the hypothesis. Reproducible experiments, and peer review of research findings ensure that facts, rather than prejudice, supposition, or intuition are the basis for understanding the phenomenon being studied. However, as Kuhn points out, the potentially vast number of possible experimental observations in the real world, as well as limitations of the instrumentation used, mean that even the first set of observations are already constrained by a “paradigm” (41) that is believed by the scientist. Scientists do not start from first principles, looking at each possible observation as a data point, but rather start with an assumption of what they already expect to find and design experiments accordingly. These initial assumptions are not necessarily based on scientific facts, but rather on the personal biases of the scientists involved, or the organizations funding their research. This makes it easy to understand the prejudice against gays in the research funded by the conservative Reagan administration of the 1980’s: the scientists were formulating research proposals that reinforced the homophobic views of those controlling the research funds. There are rare instances when a completely different viewpoint is adopted by a scientist, who then proceeds to create a brand new paradigm; Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein are examples of scientists who were revolutionaries, leading to the overthrow of one paradigm by another. As Kuhn describes, this has been the real history of science, and it is not always the experimental validation of a theory that makes a paradigm successful, but rather the personal choice of the scientists involved. This could be due to several reasons, including “idiosyncrasies of autobiography and personality” and “the nationality or the prior reputation of the innovator” (151-152). Thus scapegoating of the gay community by the medical profession in the early 1980’s is not an anomaly; this is how science works, guided by the human nature of its practitioners.
Recognizing that science in practice almost always differs from the idealized process is very important, not just for the scientific community, but for humanity. Epstein points out that Robert Gallo, one of the co-discoverers of the HIV/AIDS link, initially had no interest in a syndrome that was reportedly caused by the gay lifestyle. His interest was piqued only when the research of Luc Montagnard in France showed that AIDS may be linked to a retrovirus, Gallo’s area of specialization (68). Therefore, the scapegoating of homosexuals misdirected efforts that may have led to an earlier development of a test for the virus. Scapegoating is just one way in which the scientific methodology fails to live up to its promise.
Science also falls short of the ideal due to the search for fame, recognition and funding by individual scientists and their arrogance when showered with accolades. Hooper describes the search for a cure to the polio epidemic that scourged the United States from the 1920’s. After Jonas Salk created the first polio vaccine early in the 1950’s, the search continued for a stronger polio vaccine that could be administered orally as a single dose. Mass immunization, especially in the developing world, could not be easily carried out as a series of three injections given months apart. There was a race between groups of scientists in the United States and Europe to create the first oral polio vaccine. All used a live virus created by taking the actual virus that afflicts humans and then attenuating its potency by growing it in a biological medium. These growth mediums were mostly prepared from monkey kidneys, filtered to remove bacteria. As retroviruses had not been discovered at that time, some mediums used may have inadvertently been contaminated with Simian Immune Virus [SIV], a close relative of the HIV. During human trials in the Belgian Congo, using vaccines possibly prepared using chimpanzee kidneys, SIV in the laboratory animals may have mutated into HIV in the humans who received the vaccine. The earliest AIDS cases, and HIV tainted blood have been found in samples collected in the late 1950’s in the Congo, coinciding with polio vaccine trials conducted at about the same time, providing strong circumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis. The enormity of this possibility, both in human and legal terms, has stymied efforts to test polio vaccine samples from that era for HIV, in order to verify whether they were contaminated. But maybe this is just an instance of science being the scapegoat?
Putting this allegation, that one variant of the live polio vaccine was the source of HIV, under the microscope we can see some distinct patterns. Once again there is a social collapse: the horrific spread of AIDS in Africa. Once again there is the breaking of a taboo: mixing the biological matter of different species to produce the vaccine, which could be termed the ultimate form of miscegenation. In fact, Hooper specifically mentions transplants of animal into humans as a possible source of new human viruses (816). And once again a victim: the scientist. Of course, in this case the allegation could easily be proved or disproved with a simple test of the stored polio vaccines. The demand by Hooper that this be done, may be the most telling evidence that this is not an act of scapegoating: no proof is needed to condemn a scapegoat.
Science, and its first cousin Technology, have transformed the lives of all humanity in ways that are both good and bad. Whether the good outweighs the bad is difficult to judge, and requires us to make value judgments not just with respect to science, but with respect to life itself. This is what scientists and technologists do all the time, yet claim to have an objective process. Our analysis of scapegoating in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the real history of scientific discovery shows that much of what happens in science is not objective, but affected by external factors. It is time to recognize this and take control of the process. The first step would be a de-mystification of science and its processes, by publicizing the reality behind the way it appears to work.
Educating the lay public about the drawbacks of the real processes of science may be viewed by scientists as a means to seize political control of their profession, and a throwback to the times of Galileo; his was an example of a scientist who was forced to recant his scientific results to conform with the religious authorities of the time. But there is already an implicit social, political, even religious bias in real science; making it explicit lets us confront the biases head-on and deal with them up-front as stated assumptions. Only then can scientists focus on the problems that face humanity, not scapegoats nor themselves.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage International, 1991.
Cochrane, Michelle. When AIDS Began. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Douglas, Tom. Scapegoats. London: Routledge, 1995.
Epstein, Steven. Impure Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996
Garrett, Laurie. Betrayal of Trust. New York: Hyperion, 2000.
Girard, Rene. The Girard Reader. Ed. James G. Williams. New York: Crossroad, 1996.
---, Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Goldstein, Diane E. Once Upon a Virus. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004.
Hooper, Edward. The River. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1999.
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962.
Sherman, Irwin W. The Power of Plagues. Washington, D.C.: ASM Press, 2006.


[i] In a double-blind trial the efficacy of a treatment is tested by pairing up test subjects who share significant characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity etc., and then giving one the treatment and the other a placebo. By keeping the identity of the person actually being treated secret, and both under close observation, the efficacy is measured.