Anecdotal Accounts of Science

Death of a Rat. Understandings and Appreciations of Science By William D. Stansfield Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books (2000). 360 pp. $29.00Many of us with an interest in public understanding of science have a favorite quote to illustrate the extent of the challenge. Here is mine:A 1999 international marketing poll (published by Seed Trade News) asked the general public to respond to the statement “Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified ones do.” Across Europe, 35% answered “true” and 30% “don't know.” The equivalent numbers for the U.S. were 10% and 45%.With all the commotion about genetically modified plants, this sort of finding is particularly disturbing. It appears that we are in the midst of a major public debate on a technology of great global importance, and for one reason or another the publics debating the issue don't know the first thing about it. And GMOs are just the tip of the iceberg. How as a global community are we going to discuss nanotechnology, robotics, genomics, information technology, climate control, and so forth?The old answer was for the publicly funded research community to simply keep its head down. If not unregulated, then liberally self-regulated, they would beaver away on the science and engineering developments that they thought would be good for the world. The public was only occasionally informed of a new discovery or gadget. The ivory towers shone brightly, but in the distance.How times have changed. Of recent we have seen a marvelous explosion in both basic science and its transfer into technologies that are impacting everyday life. Notwithstanding recent difficulties in the technology sector, science and technology are recognized as major economic engines, distinguishing the national haves from the have nots. Not a day goes by without a new product, service, or bold new project being announced. And this new joint public and private activity is delivering. Immunology has given us edible vaccines and xenotransplantation; nuclear physics has given us controlled fission and positron emission tomography; biochemistry has given rise to genomics and designer drugs; and electronic engineering has delivered everything from cell phones to massively parallel computing.But just as motor car manufactures built faster and faster cars, and only then turned their attention to safety features that would help protect us from the perils of performance, so today's wonderful new science and technology brings its own challenges. Privacy and confidentiality, global equity, international and domestic governance, and risk management all need urgent attention if the new technology is to be controlled and used to improve the human condition. As Einstein said, “Never forget this, in the midst of your diagrams and equations: concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors.” A worthwhile first step is to make sure that the public understands science and learns how to critically assess its risks and benefits. Only then will society be able to direct science and technology, and not vice versa.In writing Death of a Rat, author and teacher William Stansfield makes a worthwhile contribution to this cause. His declared aim is “to provide an audience of inquisitive minds (high school or adult level) in the general population (laity, non-specialists) with an entertaining way to broaden its understanding and appreciation of science.” His strategy is to talk through some classic and mostly well-known case studies, teasing out the lessons to be learned and highlighting what these cases tell us about how individual scientists and the science community fit into and shape society.We are led through classic discoveries including the structure of DNA, X-rays, and the cause of and cure for scurvy. We are warned of science gone awry, with accounts of the Piltdown (ape-human missing link) forgery, unsubstantiated claims for homeopathy, and the ridiculous case of a transplantation immunologist using a black felt-tipped pen to make skin grafts appear more impressive. And we are led a merry dance through disputed discoveries such as the polymerase chain reaction and the laws of heredity typically ascribed to Gregor Mendel.Through these case studies, Stansfield examines how ethics, animal rights, funding, competition, politics, egos, career development, law, religion, and more besides have over the past few centuries variously shaped, restricted or supported and corrupted science from its lofty goal of discovery and description. Whereas the book is hardly a fast-faced page-turner, for those interested in the history behind the most celebrated science events (as Stansfield certainly is), and willing to work through some basic but often unnecessarily technical accounts, it is rewarding.Explanation by example is of course a tried and tested component of much of our teaching. So often when we are faced with explaining an idea, a process, or a theory, it is not until we get to the “let me give you an example” part of the explanation that we are successful in blowing away some of the fog and revealing at least part of a clearer landscape. But with this approach there is always a risk that our examples might not truly represent the whole picture. We must be careful that our enthusiasm to present interesting and entertaining accounts does not turn our examples into anecdotes.Stansfield certainly knows how to write and has done his homework in researching some celebrated and genuinely interesting accounts of famous scientific events. But I'm not sure what Death of a Rat tells us of the necessarily more mundane scientific climate that prevails. Indeed if a newcomer were to base his or her impression of science on Death of a Rat, I think they would come away with the impression that science was more akin to espionage, being composed of equal parts brilliance and skullduggery. I must admit to the feeling of having missed out on all the excitement.Nowhere do we read about the frustration of failed experiments, endless late nights and long weekends in the laboratory trying to get a new technique to yield clean results, and the tedium of turning out good but repetitive data as experiments are worked through. And where is the real world of stupor-inducing conference presentations, limited funding, grant applications in triplicate, rejected manuscripts, and lost races to publication? Science as a profession and (for many) vocation has such high points that many stick with it, warts and all, for a lifetime. But it's not quite the continuous stream of drama, intrigue, and excitement that Stansfield often suggests. Nonetheless, for science and science history students who want to dig a little deeper than the usual water cooler discussions of, for example, Gallo's and Montagnier's fight over HIV, or how penicillin was really discovered, Death of a Rat does a good job.As the preface stresses, individual cases can be read in isolation, although the next-to-useless index won't help you find them. Other changes that a second edition would benefit from include some updating (the “morning after pill” RU 486 is now available in the US, and the bioethicist Art Caplan moved to U. Penn. many years ago), more attention to graphics and illustrations, and a bit more effort devoted to the final chapter (a lackluster hybrid of summary and prediction). More importantly, I would urge Stansfield to add a major new chapter exploring his assumption that a science-savvy public is a good thing. I agree with him entirely, but it is surely important to define and illustrate how an educated public benefits science and why now more than ever a critical and thoughtful public understanding of science is necessary as we prepare to collectively navigate our way through the technological risks and opportunities that lie ahead. The scientific advances of the last twenty years have been exciting, but as a Business Week article on technology warned a few years ago, “you ain't seen nothing yet.”