| JUNK SCIENCE An Overdue Indictment of Government, Industry and Faith Groups That Twist Science for Their Own Gain Dan Agin, Ph.D. New York: St. Martin Griffin, 2006 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-312-37480-8 | ||||
| ISBN 0-312-37480-1 | 323pp. | SC | $14.95 | |
I must point out that I agree with most of what Dr. Agin writes in this book. Also I agree emphatically with his disapproval of corruption in science.
However, I do think he draws some erroneous conclusions, or at least expresses himself unclearly, at several points. I'll go over them here.
Some critics also maintain that world hunger is not a problem of food supply but a problem of poverty. The answer to this is that of course people who are not poor can afford to buy food. But increasing food production reduces the price of food, and with advanced technology we'll be able to increase food production long before we can eradicate poverty. In short, let's prevent starvation first, and take on the challenge of eradicating poverty later on. – Page 68 |
This is admirable, but I think it misses the point. Even in America, there are significant numbers of people, even working people, who have trouble putting food on their family table (as George W. Bush tried to say.) Unless food is free, some people will be inadequately nourished. Does Dr. Agin advocate giving food away? I don't get that impression. Then he must anticipate that the cost of raising food will come down so far that everyone will be able to afford it. I don't see that happening; it evokes the comment about nuclear power making energy "too cheap to meter." That never happened, and I can't see anything similar happening with food supplies.
According to Hayflick, one example of the consequences for science policy of the failure to distinguish research on age-related diseases from research on the fundamental biology of aging is that "it's virtually impossible to raise funds for research on aging, because in the minds of policymakers and the public no one suffers or dies from it." More than half of the budget of the U.S. National Institute on Aging is spent on Alzheimer's disease, yet the elimination of this disease "will have only a trivial impact on life expectancy and will not advance our knowledge of the fundamental biology of aging." Hayflick suggest that greater attention must be given to a question that is rarely posed: Why are old cells more vulnerable to disease than young cells? – Pages 82-83 |
It seems a very curious thing for a scientist to say. If we do not know the cause of Alzheimer's Disease, how can we know whether or not that cause is related to the fundamental biology of aging? Displaying a similar overconfidence, the author predicts on page 85 that no significant progress on understanding aging will happen during the twenty-first century, and further that "the idea that the human species is on the verge of immortality is without scientific basis." Strictly speaking, that last statement is correct: science can make no claim about future knowledge. But that is irrelevant. Dr. Agin, I'm sure, is well aware that it is impossible to prove a negative. He therefore oversteps the bounds of science when he sets limits on future discoveries. Surely proteomics is an infant science; surely the riddles of the aging process are complex. And surely my concept of "on the verge of" differs from Dr. Agin's. But he is wrong to deny the possibility of rapid breakthroughs. Consider that only 55 years ago, in 1953, Watson and Crick elucidated the spiral structure of DNA. Now we can sequence anyone's DNA pattern and use it to establish paternity, convict or absolve men of rape, and advise of the susceptibility to genetic diseases like Huntington's chorea. We may not learn how to greatly increase human life spans by the year 2063. But to declare that we will not is simply wrong.1 Compare this with his prediction on page 151 that psychiatry as a discrete medical specialty "will probably disappear by mid-century." I'd put money on that. We have already seen the intellectual bankruptcy of psychotherapy.
Now Krauthammer's entire argument crumbles into sophistry. First, with an unreasonable assumption of moral inviolability, Krauthammer's argues that embryonic stem cells should not be created, exploited, and then destroyed. And even if they are created and exploited, Krauthammer argues that the exploitation is useless and dangerous because the applications of stem cell research are a matter for the "far future." Krauthammer, it seems, has been peering into a crystal ball and he's advising us where human stem cell therapy will be in five years, ten years, twenty years, or maybe even one hundred years. Krauthammer says the research will go nowhere. He says the research will go nowhere until the far future. The "far future" is the far future. The problem is that the future of science is unpredictable—unless scientific research is shut down by government fiat. – Page 225 |
Exactly so, Dr. Agin. It is impossible to set limits on the extent of future knowledge. Can you think of anyone else who tried to do that impossible thing in this book?
I might speculate that Dr. Agin's passionate protest against Krauthammer's pessimism about stem-cell research is inspired by a private worry. But that worry will come to us all someday, in one form or another.
Autopsy results: Weight of Einstein's autopsied brain: 1230grams. Average weight of 91 controls ages 30-70 years: 1400 grams. Average weight of 8 age-matched controls aged 65 years: 1386 grams. – Page 258 |
This is all very well. But I wonder, and in this chapter on the relationship of race and IQ Dr. Agin fails to point out, how well the differences in preservation methods (and the duration of preservation) were controlled for in these studies.
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