A.N. Wilson, Professor Nutt and Adolf Hitler: the next Twitterstorm?

So far, it’s been an interesting week for the scientific community – and for its coverage in the media. The fall-out from Professor Nutt’s dismissal continues, and as The Media Blog reported earlier today, his views have given fuel to the media’s obsession with drug abuse.

One particularly noteworthy article, however, comes from the Mail's A N Wilson . In a typically inflammatory Mail headline, Wilson calls scientists “arrogant gods” whose running of the country would be “hell on earth” (preceded by the bizarre caveat excepting those who “do much good”).

And in an article full of religious semantics, he also references "mad scientists" from history – including Hitler’s Dr Mengele and his “revolting experiments… on human beings and animals”:

I am not suggesting that any British scientists are currently conducting experiments comparable to those which were allowed in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Russia.

But I see the same habit of mind at work in Professor Nutt and his colleagues as made those mad scientists of the 20th century think they were above the moral law which governs the rest of us mortals.

Already, there is outrage on Twitter at any link – whatever the caveats – between discussion around Professor Nutt and the Hitler regime.

And aside from this, the article contains plenty of elements that might precipitate a Twitterstorm:

Wilson manages a sly dig at evolution (“that very fallible genius Charles Darwin”)
There's a quotation from Margaret Thatcher (“‘Advisers advise and ministers decide.’”)
There's an explicit preference of religion over science (“The trouble with a 'scientific' argument, of course, is that it is not made in the real world, but in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical facts.”)

Overall, this has been a pretty good week for bad science – with journalists looking to scandalise mobile phones and radiation, as well as capitalising on the Nutt story.

And while Wilson has yet to trend on Twitter, the Daily Mail is in there at number ten (at the time of writing).