"…excellent job of describing the chemical processes and their legacies-both beneficial and unintended. She never lets any of her characters be good or bad, just human. This humanity makes her stories gripping. I highly recommend this thoughtful and thought-provoking book. McGrayne successfully describes the ambiguous effects of chemical technology and the role that human strengths and frailties play on mitigating or exacerbating those effects."—Chemical & Engineering News
"…a compelling read."—Nature
"Sharon Bertsch McGrayne's appealing collection of biographical essays reminds us how much we owe to chemistry." —New Scientist
"On your next trip to the bookstore bypass the action adventure thrillers and seek out Prometheans in the Lab by Sharon McGrayne . . . I wish that (it) were twice its length." —PopularMechanics.com
"In this striking and readable collection of nine thumbnail biographies of heroic (and troubled) figures in the history of chemistry . . . McGrayne is conscientious about showing the downside of each chemical breakthrough, and the human flaws and 'features' of each Promethean." —Choice
"I highly recommend this thoughtful and thought-provoking book... McGrayne successfully demonstrates that chemistry and the use of chemical technology in our lives is a human endeavor, neither good nor evil, just human." - Chemical and Engineering News; "...a compelling read" -Nature
From the Back Cover
The History of the Chemical Revolution--and How it Has Shaped Our World
"Chemistry's relationship with the public is unique ... Chemistry's products become part of our everyday lives and are profoundly intertwined with society's tastes, needs, and desires...."
Leblanc, Perkin, Rillieux--they aren't household names of science, yet they are some of the chemists responsible for products that make our lives easier, cleaner, and sweeter. Soap, sugar, colorful dyes, clean water, safe refrigeration, and powerful cars--they're taken for granted, yet behind every chemical product is the story of a scientist and a breakthrough discovery.
Acclaimed science writer Sharon Bertsch McGrayne depicts this chemical revolution through the lives of its creators. Prometheans in the Lab takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of history through epidemics, wars, scandal, moral dilemmas, and personal tragedies as McGrayne explores the upside of each pivotal discovery, and also its sometimes devastating effects on the environment and public health. It is an enlightening account of chemical discoveries, the people who discovered them, and how they shaped the modern world--for better...and for worse.
"...these are the dramatic stories of bold chemists who irrevocably changed our lives. They are indeed Prometheans who made our modern world."
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne is a science writer and award-winning journalist. She has been a reporter for Scripps-Howard, Crain's, Gannett, and other newspapers covering education, politics, science, and health issues. She is a former science editor and writer for Encyclopaedia Britannica and the author of several books, including Nobel Prize Women in Science.
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne is the author of critically-acclaimed books about scientific discoveries and the scientists who make them. She is interested in exploring the cutting-edge connection between social issues and scientific progress--and in making the science clear, interesting and accurate for non-specialists.
Her latest book, The Theory That Would Not Die, tells how an 18th century approach to assessing evidence was vilified for much of the 20th century before--in an overnight sea change--it permeated our modern lives.
In a full-page review in the New York Times Book Review, John Allen Paulos wrote, "If you're not thinking like a Bayesian, perhaps you should be."
Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review.
"I recently finished reading The Theory That Would Not Die. ... Bayes's rule is a statistical theory that has a long and interesting history. It is important in decision making -- how tightly should you hold on to your view and how much should you update your view based on the new information that's coming in. We intuitively use Bayes's rule every day ... "-- Alan B. Krueger, chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Jan. 1, 2012, New York Times.
Nature called it, "A rollicking tale of the triumph of a powerful mathematical tool. ... An impressively researched history of Bayes' theorem."
"An example of the best in historical scientific journalism: it captures the main threads of the science while going much further on the human side of the story... This is a remarkable achievement. It taught me things, and it made me think. ... This book succeeds gloriously, by never losing sight of the story, and it's a wonderful story, one that desperately deserved to be told." --Robert E. Kass, Carnegie Mellon University
The Boston Globe calls it "an intellectual romp, ... a masterfully researched tale of human struggle and accomplishment, and it renders perplexing mathematical debates digestible and vivid for even the most lay of audiences."
"Engaging. ... Readers will be amazed at the impact that Bayes' rule has had in diverse fields, as well as by its rejection by too many statisticians. ... I was brought up, statistically speaking, as what is called a frequentist... But reading McGrayne's book has made me determined to try, once again, to master the intricacies of Bayesian statisics. I am confident that other readers will feel the same." -- The Lancet.
"As significant in our times as the Darwinian theory of natural selection..., yet Bayes' Rule is almost unknown to a wide segment of the educated general public." -- Times Literary Supplement.
"McGrayne is such a good writer that the makes this obscure battle gripping for the general reader. [She writes] with great clarity and wit." Engineering and Technology Magazine.
James Berger, Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics, Duke University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences wrote, "A book simply highlighting the astonishing 200 year controversy over Bayesian analysis would have been highly welcome. This book does so much more, however, uncovering the almost secret role of Bayesian analysis in a stunning series of the most important developments of the twentieth century. What a revelation and what a delightful read!"
"A Statistical Thriller... McGrayne's tale has everything you would expect of a modern-day thriller. Espionage, nuclear warfare and cold war paranoia all feature... a host of colourful characters and their bitter rivalries carry the tale... McGrayne's writing is luminous. ... To have crafted a page-turner out of the history of statistics is an impressive feat. If only lectures at university had been this racy." -- NewScientist
"A compelling and entertaining fusion of history, theory and biography... McGrayne is adept at explaining abstruse mathematics in layperson's language." -- Sunday London Times
"Approachable and engrossing. ... One of the 100 best holiday reads." -- Sunday London Times
"A book simply highlighting the astonishing 200 year controversy over Bayesian analysis would have been highly welcome. This book does so much more, however, uncovering the almost secret role of Bayesian analysis in a stunning series of the most important developments of the twentieth century. What a revelation and what a delightful read!" --James Berger, Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics, Duke University, and member, National Academy of Sciences
"We now know how to think rationally about our uncertain world. This book describes in vivid prose, accessible to the lay person, the development of Bayes' rule over more than two hundred years from an idea to its widespread acceptance in practice." --Dennis Lindley, author of Understanding Uncertainty
"Many gripping and occasionally startling stories that grace Sharon Bertsch McGrayne's highly enjoyable new history of Bayesian inference. ... Actuaries play a particular notable role in McGrayne's hidden history of 20th century Bayes." --Contingencies
"Well known in statistical circles, Bayes's Theorem was first given in a posthumous paper by the English clergyman Thomas Bayes in the mid-eighteenth century. McGrayne provides a fascinating account of the modern use of this result in matters as diverse as cryptography, assurance, the investigation of the connection between smoking and cancer, RAND, the identification of the author of certain papers in The Federalist, election forecasting and the search for a missing H-bomb. The general reader will enjoy her easy style and the way in which she has successfully illustrated the use of a result of prime importance in scientific work." --Andrew I. Dale, author of A History of Inverse Probability From Thomas Bayes to Karl Pearson and Most Honorable Remembrance: The Life and Work of Thomas Bayes
"Very compelling, ... very interesting reading." -Jose Bernardo, Valencia List
"Makes the theory come alive, ... gives a voice to the scores of famous and non-famous people and data who contributed, for good or for worse." -Significance Magazine
"McGrayne's book is not a textbook and does not attempt to teach Bayesian inferential techniques. Rather, McGrayne offers a very thorough, informative, and often entertaining (in our humble opinion) discussion of the Bayesian perspective... Strongly recommended [for students] as it provides the theoretical underpinnings of the Bayesian perspective and shows how Bayesianism has been applied to real world inferential / statistical problems." -- Jon Starkweather, RSS Matters.
"An intellectual romp ... a masterfully researched tale of human struggle and accomplishment, and it renders perplexing mathematical debates digestible and vivid for even the most lay of audiences. Acknowledging ignorance is the first step toward knowledge, yes, and when we wed our ignorance with our better instincts we often find the best possible second step." -- The Boston Globe.
Wiskunde die je laat leren van je onwetendheid. -- NRC Handelsblad.
"McGrayne explains [it] beautifully. ... Top holiday reading." -- The Australian.
OTHER BOOKS BY McGRAYNE
McGrayne's first book dealt with changing patterns of discrimination faced by leading women scientists during the 20th century. Another book portrayed a group of chemists and the interplay between science, the chemical industry, the public's love of creature comforts, and the environment.
McGrayne's work has been featured on the Charley Rose Show and reviewed in Nature, Physics Today, Significance, the Washington Post, Ms., JAMA, Chemistry and Engineering News (C&EN), New Scientist, American Scientist, PopularMechanics.com, and the like. She has appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday and been invited to speak at more than twenty universities here and in Europe, at national laboratories such as Argonne National Laboratory and the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), and at the Centennial meeting of the American Physical Society.
She has written for Science, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Isis, American Physical Society News, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Notable American Women. Excerpts of her books have appeared in The Chemical Educator, The Physics Teacher, and Chemical Heritage Foundation Magazine. Nobel Prize Women in Science is used extensively in college courses in the United States and Europe. The National Academy of Sciences presented the Empress of Japan with a copy of the book and now publishes it.
McGrayne is a former prize-winning journalist for Scripps-Howard, Crain's, Gannett, and other newspapers and a former editor and co-author of extensive articles about physics for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she lives in Seattle, Washington.
I was intrigued by the title and thought I would try it...this is an amazing book that puts into perspective life before refridgeration, soap, safe drinking water, sugar, dye, and more. This book makes a clear link between scientific discovery and the subsequent ripples in society -- as well as how those discoveries impact the lives of the scientists. Prometheans also shows how complicated science can be - for every discovery that changed modern society, it brought with it a host of new issues, ills, and irrevocable changes. A great example is Thomas Midgley, the man who created Freon and tetraethyl lead. Without him we would have no fridges, freezers, cheap gas (or a hole in the ozone layer). In his chapter, you discover that the early factory workers working with lead went insane from the fumes and ended up killing each other in psychotic rages; plus the high levels of lead were polluting the environment. This led to workplace reform and an overhaul of factory safety regulations. Then there's Wallace Carothers, who invented Nylon. He suffered from depression for years, and being around potent lab chemicals and fumes didn't help his outlook any; he killed himself with a cyanide pill he'd carried around for 15 years. I am not a scientist but interested in general scientific discovery. This book was great because each scenario is presented in a historical context, each side is shown and not portrayed in an extreme negative or positive light. It's very balanced, and didn't overwhelm me with incomprehensible explanations of the hard-core science behind the science. This is great & would make a great TV series.
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If you enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind," you should check out "Prometheans in the Lab." Scientific genius and mental illness are clearly not rare combinations. Like John Nash, several of the nine chemists profiled so ably by science writer Sharon Bertsch McGrayne were odd ducks who struggled with intractable mental disorders while achieving society-changing breakthroughs in their labs. McGrayne's nine subjects invented processes and products that define modern life. Wallace Carothers, an American and the inventor of nylon in 1935, was apparently afflicted with bipolar disorder. Throughout his career he tried to contend with severe mood swings, along with other maladies. In the end, his illnesses overwhelmed him, and he dosed himself with cyanide. Fritz Haber, a German, invented modern nitrogen-based fertilizer in 1908 and helped end Europe's millennial-long fear of famine. As a young man, he was hospitalized for "neurasthenia," after suffering sleeplessness, excitability, and nervous tension. Unlike Nash and Carothers, Haber's illness did not progress to a chronic and profound mental disorder. But neither was his life a bed of roses. His wife's depression ended with her suicide. And while Haber's prodigious scientific accomplishments brought him fame, they also brought him infamy. In World War I, he initiated and organized chemical warfare for Germany, through the use of chlorine gas. He argued that poison gas would save lives by shortening the war. (Not all of Germany's enemies were outraged; it turned out that some influential Americans agreed with him.) Most of the brilliant researchers McGrayne covers did not have mental illnesses. Many of them suffered from a much more prosaic and more ubiquitous "problem"- the inability to really foresee untoward consequences of their inventions. Paul Hermann Muller, a Swiss, invented DDT and in 1948 won a Nobel Prize for medicine. McGrayne's chapter on Muller includes a look at the huge plusses and minuses of the use of DDT. On the one hand, DDT saved millions of people from death from malaria and typhus. On the other side, the substance devastated wildlife, particularly bird populations, wherever it was used in any quantity. Muller apparently had a premonition that DDT was not an unmitigated good, but he didn't vigorously investigate its deleterious properties. McGrayne is an outstanding contributor to the genre of well-researched, readable books on scientists and science for everyday people. You don't need a science background to enjoy her book; you just need to be curious about some very unusual people and where all sorts of everyday stuff-nylon, fertilizer, soap, DDT, synthetic colors, leaded gasoline and even clean water--came from.
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I picked up this book because a ...review said, "On your next trip to the bookstore bypass the action adventure thrillers and seek out Prometheans in the Lab... It is one of those `story behind the story' books that are often written about celebrities and politicians [but it's about] the chemists responsible for the major chemical processes that undergird modern living.... I wish it were twice its length." The reviewer was right. The book tells science stories you definitely didn't learn in high school. But it also dramatizes the tangled relationship between technology's benefits and drawbacks and the public's conflicting desires for new products and environmental purity. Great stories, and a great read. *****
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First Sentence:
Nicolas Leblanc was a catch-as-catch-can chemist, a "wannabe" scientist hovering on the fringes of stardom. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tetraethyl lead, refrigeration industry, washing soda, madder red, lead isotopes, leaded gasoline, lead pollution
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New Orleans, Nobel Prize, Ethyl Corporation, General Motors, New York, Fritz Haber, Norbert Rillieux, Thomas Midgley, American Chemical Society, William Henry, National Academy of Sciences, Nicolas Leblanc, New Jersey, North America, African Americans, Bureau of Mines, Department of Agriculture, Edward Frankland, Julian Hill, Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Standard Oil, Environmental Protection Agency, Public Health Service, Rachel Carson
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