Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistris

Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould were invited in 1978 to a symposium on adaptation at the Royal Society of London. The idea was for them to present their dissenting position on the subject. It was Jay Gould who ended up presenting their critique of the “adaptationist programme”, in one of the most influential papers in the field ¹.

At the end of the talks, the work of these two researchers was fiercely attacked by the symposium’s own moderator!, who demanded that they admit they were wrong and that their criticism had no scientific basis whatsoever².

Jay Gould tells it like this:

[the criticism] was so off the wall that it was just amazing.

When I got up to give my re-reply, the second coordinator of the conference was standing in front of the podium — which had the motto of the Royal Society, “Nullius in verba,” on it — and I asked him to step aside. He was annoyed: why was I asking him to move, that was not fair.

But he later realized why I had.

Now, I’m stupid about certain

things that scientists are supposed to be good at. […] I’m not a great experimentalist. But I pride myself on having immersed myself in Western culture and having learned some languages, and knowing certain aspects of humanism that many scientists don’t take up.

I asked him to step aside, and I said that I thought Arthur had been entirely wrong, that he’d completely misunderstood the motives of my talk, and that I was doing nothing but trying to uphold the motto of the Royal Society, which had sponsored this meeting. The reason that was an effective strategy was that I knew that most people, most members, didn’t know what the motto “Nullius in verba” meant. It looks like it means “Words do not matter” or “Do not pay any attention to words,” since nullius means “nothing” and verba is “word.” So most people think it means that words mean nothing and you have to do the experiment. But nullius is genitive singular; it can’t mean that. It means “of nothing” or “of no one.”

I knew what the motto meant. I knew that it was a fragment of a statement from Horace — a famous quotation from a poem, in which he says, “I am not bound to swear allegiance to the dogmas of any master.”³ Nullius addictus jurare in verba magister.

It’s “Nullius in verba,” or “In the words of no (master).” It’s just a fragment from a larger line. “That’s all I’m doing,” I said. “I’m saying that we are not bound to swear allegiance to the dogmas of any master; I’m here to present an alternative viewpoint that’s consistent with your own society. How can you castigate me?”

There you have it, that is the story of why that mysterious Latin phrase sits in the tagline under this blog’s title.

You will understand, then, why I am not very interested in accepting the dogmas of masters, even the ones I once had.