When science sucks

Many years ago, I was given a tip that if you Google “French military victory” and click “I’m Feeling Lucky,” you will end up with a page that says, “Did you mean French military defeats?” If you click that in turn, it will give you someone’s witty notes on the outcomes of the wars that country had been involved in. I tried it and it is still there. While that clever trick led us to information that may not be historically accurate, I find that maybe it should be done for “triumphs in science” as well. Clicking it should lead you to a page with information on When Science Goes Wrong, a book by neuroscientist Simon Le Vay (Plume, NY 2008).

The book reads like a high stakes suspense/mystery thriller but from the inside — like you, the reader were a scientist and you are following the story and flagging up ominous circumstances along the way until each glorious fall. It is not a novel but a collection of a dozen stories. It was not meant to be comprehensive or read consecutively. Le Vay intended to give a coherent picture of science as a very human endeavor and as such, science does fail and those stories were when it did so horribly.

All the stories of science in Le Vay’s book are in the applied sciences — when the principles uncovered from the pure sciences are made to serve “practical” purposes other than a sense of “discovery.” This “practical” purposes range from gene therapy to cure diseases caused by accidents in your genes, to the engineering of dams, to meteorology, nuclear reactor operations, use of stem cells to cure Parkinson’s, to the effects of drugs like Ecstasy on the brain, volcanology, “germ” research in microbiology, forensic science, targets in space quest and curing a speech problem like stuttering. There is nothing patently wrong with these purposes — rather it was the way the researchers employed scientific procedures to pursue them that made for these great scientific failures.

It opens when a neurosurgeon doing an autopsy on a brain finds cells with hair on it. Again, the cells with hair were found inside the brain — not on the scalp. How on earth did that brain end up growing hair? If that does not get you to find out more, you will also come across the story of a 54-year-old citizen of the then Soviet Union suddenly falling ill and dying and being buried by the state without informing her husband who when he finds out where she was being buried was turned away by state police. He eventually died of grief. You will also find the kind of explosive disaster that could happen if sheer adventurism mixes with scientific spirit. Then of course, there are stories tainted with greed and lust for scientific recognition which get in the way of clear thinking in deciding and carrying out the timing and dosage of experimental protocols — the backbone of the scientific enterprise. I do not want to give away the “endings” to any of the stories. I think Le Vay’s writing style and his inclusion of details and scientific background is an experience that those who are interested in such things, should have without spoilers.

All the stories are supported by interviews and statements from the characters and institutions involved in the failure. I think Le Vay made a real effort never to let the readers forget that there are real lives at stake in the stories he told. He brought out the sentiments of family members and gave a live picture of how science is a part of human lives, regardless of whether you care about it or not.

Le Vay made it clear that this book is not an attack on science. He is neither a religious extremist nor a Luddite (afraid and resentful of technology) nor any of those who insist on only “natural” recovery from any illness. He himself is a neuroscientist who I think has a multi-dimensional view of science, its connections with other fields and most especially, its impact on human lives and on the planet. He had good reason to write a book on why science sucks — because it does at times. But just like if you once burned your fingers trying to light your stove, you do not stop cooking, it does not follow that we should stop science altogether.

Science moves forward through experiment and observation, charted by reason. It also corrects itself that way. Without science, understanding how things work would depend on hearsay, on who said it and how powerful those people are. Now, tell me if that sucks less. Science may suck at times but the alternatives of superstition and unquestionable authority are simply unacceptable.

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