Customer Reviews

When Science Goes Wrong

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was a major disappointment. I'd seen an interview with the author on "The Daily Show" and wasn't that impressed, but bought the book anyway because of the promise inherent in its subject matter. Sadly, that promise remains largely unfulfilled in this pedestrian, and often irritating, effort by LeVay. The book is arranged in twelve chapters, each considering a specific instance of what LeVay deems to be 'scientific failure'. These specific aspects of the book bothered me:

1. Several vignettes (e.g. the 1928 St Francis dam break, a 1961 nuclear reactor explosion at the Idaho National Laboratory) clearly deal with *engineering*, rather than scientific, failures. But throughout the book, LeVay makes little distinction among science, engineering, and technology, which makes the title misleading.

2. "I had hoped to find out more about this from Tudor herself but ... she had died a few weeks earlier"
"Dyer ... seems to have disappeared from public view"
"Williams ... didn't respond to my requests for an interview"

The book is studded with this kind of admission. Failure to represent all points of view adequately may be inevitable in an exercise like this, and LeVay does acknowledge this difficulty. Nonetheless, the reader is left with some niggling doubts about his credibility. In a story about an experiment conducted almost 70 years ago, to miss obtaining testimony of the main protagonist by three weeks seems unfortunate, to say the least. And in almost every chapter, it seems, LeVay is forced to admit that testimony of at least one key person was unavailable.

3. One chapter, about the 'failure' of the BBC Met Office to predict a severe storm in 1988 has no discernibly useful comment to make about science, except maybe that computer weather prediction models are often inadequate. But it does give the unsettling impression that LeVay constructed a 'story' where none existed, then collected a bunch of selective quotes to buttress his preformed prejudices. Several times I found myself wondering about LeVay's status as a neutral observer, not the feeling one wants to come away with after reading a book like this. Similarly, the reason for including a vignette about a patient with late-stage Parkinson's disease, who flies to China for fetal-implant surgery forbidden in the U.S., with predictably disastrous consequences, is murky. What point is LeVay trying to make - that submitting to experimental surgery under poor supervision in an inadequately equipped facility is a bad idea? Well, duh! This type of pandering to lurid curiosity seemed better suited to World Weekly News than to a serious book.

4. Maddeningly, in several vignettes, one feels that an opportunity was missed to write a far more interesting story. A story about confusion of units leading to the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and its aftermath suggests at least two more interesting possibilities: an analysis of the culture at NASA which made such errors possible, even likely, or a discussion of the high prevalence (with often deadly consequences) of serious dosing errors in U.S. hospitals. Similarly, LeVay's account of the death of Jesse Gelsinger in the now-infamous gene therapy trial at U. Penn was an even-handed presentation of the facts of the case, but left me wishing for a more illuminating discussion of its implications. The reader is left with the impression that the case dealt a death blow to the future of gene therapy (which seems unlikely). Several interesting questions raised by the case are left largely unexamined, e.g.:

* how scientific ambition can corrupt the scientific process
* the potentially destructive hegemony of the status quo in the biomedical and scientific establishment
* direct funding of clinical research by pharmaceutical companies and associated issues
* the appropriate balance of risk and caution in the regulation of biomedical research

Pointing out cases where things have gone wrong is necessary and useful. But ultimately, unless it fuels a discussion of how things can be improved in the future, it starts to feel like a slightly smug exercise in playing Gotcha! LeVay's idiosyncratic selection of case studies, his conflation of science, technology, and engineering, as well as a repeated failure to explore the more interesting questions raised by his examples combine to make this book a real disappointment.

A most enjoyable book. I read other books of this author and have always been
fascinated by his literary style, but in this book the author outdid
himself. Because the stories told in this book lend themselves to mix personal
and scientific aspects, they read like a thriller, but a highly informative
one. The chapters span a wide range of topics relating to science, engineering
and technology, so that there is something for everybody. However, despite the
variety of subjects covered, there is a clear unifying theme: scientists, and
people with highly technical occupations, are as human as everybody else. They
make mistakes, are moved by noble and less noble motives, and have careers to
worry about. In each chapter the author effortlessy switches between the
description of technical issues and the emotions and conflicts of the people
around that issue. It is this mixture that makes the book so enjoyable and
accessible to everyone. Technical details are never presented as dry facts, but
always firmly attached to some key event in the story, and personal details are
always offered to provide a natural context for the more technical aspects. One
aspect of this book which I really appreciated is that it got me interested in
things which, at first look, seemed not terribly exciting, like Mary Tudor's
study of stuttering in orphans, which took place in pre World War 2 Iowa. As the
story in question and the characters became more developed I could see the
orphanage and Mary Tudor in my mind, and started asking myself questions on
ethics and motives which trascended the specific topic. I highly recommend this
book to anyone with an inquisitive mind. The author has an impeccable reputation
for his thourough research, and he clearly conducted an impressive series of
interviews in developing the material for this book. Combined with his mastery
of the English language this led to an excellent product, which makes for a very
satisfying read.

Most books start off with a strong first chapter, not this book. The second and third chapters are also weak.

The first chapter of When Science Goes Wrong concerns a patient with an advanced state of Parkinson's who tries a promising, but untested procedure. The patient died, but likely not, from the untested procedure. Given the patient's debilitated state, undergoing the untesetd procedure was a reasonable decision for patient and his family to make. The untested procedure produced an interesting side effect, but other than this side effect, there wasn't much to the story.

The next chapter concerns a British wheatherman's poor choice of words in his forecast. His forecast was not substantially different than other forecasters which appeared later in the day, but who also got the forecast terribly wrong. The story told is more about the forecaster becoming infamous for his poor choice of words, than it is about "science gone wrong."

Similarliy, the third chapter concers a volcanic eruption in South American. But the storytelling is mostly about this certain city in Columbia, its nearby volcano, and a group of scientists who came to conduct research.

Fortunately, most of the other chapters are much more interesting. There is very intereting story about a dam built by William Mullholland (of Mullholand Drive fame). There is another interesting chapter about a nuclear accident in 1961. Another chapter is about an anthrax accident in the Soviet Union. Another chapter concerns a Mars lander. These chapters are truly stories about "Sciece Gone Wrong." Had there been more stories like these, Science Gone Wrong would easily rate five stars. I gave it just three.

Still, the not-so-interesting chapters are well-written, even if they don't properly reflect the title of the book. Also, as each chapter in an individual essay, it is book that can be read at lesiure. You don't have to remember the first chapter to enjoy the sixth.

Lastly, as there is nothing objectionable in text and the science is written in everyday language, Science Gone Wrong would make a suitable gift for a high school student interested in any branch of science.

Review by Jason Lush

Really should have been called "When Humans with College Educations To Really Stupid Things", but I guess that wouldn't be sensational enough.

When Science Goes Wrong is informative and engaging, but I believe it may have been rushed to press to capitalize on some event. The book covers twelve events in recent history in which seemingly smart people committed decidedly careless or outright stupid deeds, always at the cost of others.

Each of the twelve stories are factual and informative, but every one of them is jam-packed with worthless fluff and personal anecdotes that distract from the point. My advice is read the first three and last three pages of each chapter and you'll get all the relevant information you need.

Mostly, I'd echo Mr. Giltinan's comments. The book is a disappointment, more full of anecdotal stories of everyday failures than the more the more interesting analysis of WHY these failures occur and how they reflect on the nature of scientific inquiry (and, as Mr. Giltinan point's out, many of the events reported have more to do with technical application problems than actual "pure" science.)

Moreover, many of these stories are fairly well-known. It feels more like the kind of book you'd find engaging as an adolescent, learning about these events for the first time, than as an adult reader looking for some thoughts on the nature of scientific error.

It seems like the majority of books I am reading these days are authors who are on "The Daily Show". I really enjoyed this book. I usually read fiction but these vignettes are so surreal that it is hard to believe they actually happened.

This is a fascinating book. The author describes twelve instances, one per chapter, where scientists' work has resulted in some form of disaster. The scientific fields in which such incidents are presented include medical/biological disciplines, earth sciences, nuclear sciences, space science and psychology. In many of these cases the author shows how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It is clear from this book that the many scientific advances that we hear about regularly are peppered by a few serious fiascoes -often involving human error. The only way that I can envisage improving this book (or a sequel) is to include a few simple sketches or diagrams in the chapters where detailed descriptions of physical items are presented; this would greatly help the reader to better visualize that particular item and thus possibly better understand the nature of the disaster. The writing style is clear, friendly, accessible, authoritative and quite engaging. This book can be enjoyed by anyone, but science buffs as well as those who are particularly interested in the potential shortcomings of the science/human interface may appreciate it the most.

It's a type of book that keep you saying "That really happen". A good buy.

If you're like me and two of your greatest loves are books about science and reading about natural disasters and calamities... seek help. Seriously. It's just not right to have that particular set of amusements. But while you are in one of those old-fashioned "Girl: Interrupted" style mental wards, making fun of the girl who hides chickens under her bed, you should pick this book up and read it. Don't get me wrong, you don't want to let Whoopi Goldberg catch you because she knows you're not really and truly crazy the way Angelina Jolie is and eventually she'll let you out if you don't give her reason not to, but still... if that compulsive liar can read the Oz books, you can certainly tuck this bad boy away.

I guess the reason why I like this book can be summed up in one neat and tidy phrase: even scientists can be dumbasses sometimes. Like let's say for instance that you are a nuclear physicist and you know all about the harmful effects of radiation. Do you: a. conduct an experiment with a radioactive isotope using all kinds of lead shielding and so on, or b. conduct it using your hand and a screwdriver? Actually, that particular incident is *not* in the book; however, the twelve tales that are there are equally stupid. I just don't want to give them away because, well, it'll ruin some of the fun for you.

One final note: I am pretty sure that Simon LeVay is not related to founder of the modern Satanist movement Anton LeVay (well, he is an evolutionist so he's going straight to hell lololololol!!!!). If he was, I'm pretty sure the first line of the book would be something like "I AM THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS'S BROTHER BOW BEFORE ME", not something about a mortuary (and no, I am not going to give away why he mentions a mortuary).