Assignments
Introduction to the course, to each other, and to science as a concept, with discussion of a life in science and the paths that lead to it.
Agenda:
- Course mechanics, expectations, and schedule.
- A brief informal talk (by me) about my career (with Q and A).
- A roundtable presentation of your backgrounds and your interests in the subjects of this course.
- General discussion about the nature of science and the personal and educational routes taken to a scientific life.
Readings to inform the discussions:
H Varmus: The Art and Politics of Science (Norton, 2009)
Read the Introduction and a chapter or two that interests you
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190622/)
I.A. Richards, Practical Criticism (1930), Introduction, pp 3-18
The role of evidence in the arts and humanities
Available on line at Internet Archive
https://archive.org/stream/practicalcritici030142mbp#page/n27/mode/2
Some stories about how others became scientists (look at a few if you have time):
http://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/
Other longer, optional readings relevant to topics we will discuss:
Francois Jacob: The Statue Within (Cold Spring Harbor Press, 1995) (available on line: http://ineedbooks.xyz/?book=0879694769)
Perhaps the best written of the many memoirs of famous scientists; this one features World War II, remarkable modesty, and compelling, graceful prose.
JD Watson, The Double Helix (1969) Perhaps the most famous and enjoyable book about one person’s view of the competition, frustration, social complexities, and exuberance of making a great discovery in the life sciences. Despite the well-deserved criticism he receives for some of his views, this book remains a classic. For some interesting, contentious commentary about the book, look at contemporary reviews, especially this one: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kimler/hi481/Chargaff_review.pdf) http://faculty.washington.edu/hqian/amath532/Watson_The_Double_Helix.pdf
V Ramakrishnan, The Gene Machine (2018). A recent memoir by one of the three scientists who received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for determining the structure of the ribosome. Although the book is not yet freely available, this excerpt (https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/venki-ramakrishnan/gene-machine/9780465093366/#module-whats-inside) gives some of the flavor of a route to the life sciences for a young physicist who was born in India, trained in the US, and is now the president of the Royal Society of London. He will discuss this book in New York City on May 9th.
Some questions to consider in advance:
–What do we mean when we use the word “science”?
–What are the features of the sciences, the humanities, and the arts that make them similar or different? What do you think makes them appealing to some people and not to others?
–What are the natural sciences, how have the various types been categorized historically, and how do they differ from other sciences, like political or economic science?
–Education policy often depends on the answers to some of these questions. How has your education (or your plans for future education) been influenced by views on these issues?
Class #2: Wednesday, February 6th
What inspires people to become scientists?
In the first session, we talked about science as a profession and how some individuals became scientists. In this session, we will discuss some of the motivations, focusing mainly on a fictional character, Martin Arrowsmith. His story is based on a number of features of medical science in New York City in the first part of the 20th century, but the principles remain important today, illustrating some of the incentives for doing science and some of the practical and philosophical pitfalls. The story was told first in an award-winning novel (see below), which was made into a compelling movie.
Assigned viewing:
Arrowsmith (1931), movie directed by John Ford, starring Ronald Coleman and Helen Hayes. (Kevin Ambrose will arrange means of access to the film.)
Additional reading: Passages or chapters from one or more of the following books.
These two listings are books closely related to the movie:
Paul de Kruif, The Microbe Hunters (de Kruif, himself a microbiologist, published this wonderful collection of essays about heroic scientists in the age of discovery of the infectious causes of disease. Many scientists of my vintage claim this book as an inspiration for their choice of career.) I hope everyone will read at least one chapter.https://laurieximenez.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/1a_microbehunters_pauldekruif.pdf
- Lewis, Martin Arrowsmith (This excellent but long novel, published in 1925, was the basis for the movie. Paul de Kruif introduced the author, Sinclair Lewis, to scientists at the Rockefeller Institute in NYC to get him interested!) https://archive.org/details/martinarrowsmith030614mbp
Further readings (not required but some will be mentioned in discussion):
The other readings are further afield and address other aspects of the inspiration to pursue a scientific career. Some see science as way to get a grip on the meaning of life, a kind of philosophy, based on the way things are (see The Swerve, by Greenblatt); a way “to explain the world” (see the book with that name by Weinberg); a way to enjoy life through stimulating, thought-provoking careers (see the autobiography by Crick); and a way to gain personal gratification by improving the human condition (see book by de Kruif). Some of these motivations are illustrated by characters in the novels by Lewis and CP Snow or the short stories by Andrea Barrett. Others are inspired by a provocative idea (see Schrodinger’s short volume) or by a compelling history (like Judson’s) of a verdant field of science.
References
- Greenblatt, The Swerve (2014) A gripping tale about the rediscovery of Lucretius, who viewed the world in a very modern way. You can listen for free at
https://archive.org/details/00000000_20141012 (listen to the Preface, pp 1-13)
To learn about Lucretius and his poetry, read this version of On the Nature of Things
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/carus-on-the-nature-of-things,
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.html
- Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1990)
Especially Chapter 2 (The Gossip Test)
(or read PA Lawrence, “Francis Crick: A Singular Approach to Scientific Discovery,” Cell 167: 1436, 2016). http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(16)31529-X.pdf)
- Weinberg, To Explain the World (2015)
A dense, long, clear history of science by a great contemporary physicist
https://www.amazon.com/Explain-World-Discovery-Modern-Science/dp/0062346660
(instructively reviewed by Jim Holt in NYROB, Sept 24, 2015, p 53-54; http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/09/24/steven-weinberg-core-science/
C.P. Snow, The Search (a short novel written in 1934 by an eminent 20th century British novelist/politician/physicist about the early stages of the career of a British physicist; cheap paper versions available from Amazon).
Andrea Barrett, Archangel (a 2004 collection of short stories about the growing influence of biological science on young people in the late 19th and early 20th century by a contemporary writer)
No free ride here: https://www.amazon.com/Archangel-Fiction-Andrea-Barrett/dp/0393348776
E.Schrodinger, What is Life? (1944)(an essay by a famous physicist about the physical properties of living things that raised intriguing questions about how life could operate according to the laws of physics) https://archive.org/details/WhatIsLife-EdwardSchrodinger
H.F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation (a magisterial yet intimate and informal history of the rise of molecular biology as a discipline, teaching how the central precepts of modern biology were elucidated) http://fr.ebooke.info/?book=0879694785
Questions to consider about the central topic:
In general: What are the motivations for a career in science?
For discussion of the ethical dilemmas in Arrowsmith (movie or book):
What special pressures or attractions exist in the conduct of research on human subjects?
What justifies the randomized clinical trial?
What patient protections would you want to impose?
What pressures were operating on Martin Arrowsmith when he made his decisions about distribution of his “vaccine”?
What would have been the right decision for you? Why?
Curiosities: Follow-ups to Arrowsmith:
Article in Dec 2016 STAT about treatment of infection with bacterial virus:
https://www.statnews.com/2016/12/07/virus-bacteria-phage-therapy/
DG McNeil, “New Ebola Vaccine Gives 100 Percent Protection,” NY Times Dec 22, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/health/ebola-vaccine.html
Class #3: Wednesday, February 13th Guest instructor: Jonathan Weiner, Columbia School of Journalism. Topics and readings will be distributed soon.
(I will be traveling from London to Cyprus to Beirut. Watch my blog for a report.)
Session title: “Writing About Science and Medicine: The Anatomy of a Story.”
Jonathan writes:
I’d like to introduce the class to science journalism by focusing on a single story. I’ll ask the students to read a New Yorker article of mine, “The Tangle” (see the attached pdf). The story behind this story is colorful and fraught, and it illustrates many of the field’s special challenges.
My topics will range from nitty-gritty details about the roles of editors and fact-checkers (and sometimes lawyers!) in a New Yorker story, to broad issues of subjectivity and objectivity. What is a story? What is narrative nonfiction? How is this kind of story like and unlike the scientific papers that it seeks to explain? How do you stay fair and balanced when you’re writing about scientific and medical controversies?
Along the way I’ll talk about the history of this genre and discuss a few landmarks and classics of the form.
Class #4: Wednesday, February 20th
What are the purposes of science? Why is science important enough for governments and other institutions to support it financially?
We will have talked in Session Two about the personal appeal of the sciences to try to understand why people elect to become scientists. But why do governments, universities, philanthropists, and others fund the sciences? What role does science play in daily life and in the management of societies and economies? And what means can governments use to support science?
Assigned readings
The three authors we will discuss (V. Bush, F. Bacon, and D. Sobel), speak about science in three different historical periods, yet all see science as a way for communities and nations to prosper by developing technical skills that promote progress, based on the findings of fundamental science.
Vannevar Bush, The Endless Frontier (1945). Essential summary pp.5-9. But also valuable to browse through the volume. https://archive.org/stream/scienceendlessfr00unit#page/42/mode/2up
Francis Bacon: see the paragraphs below.
Dava Sobel, Longitude, The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1998)., A highly enjoyable essay that shows the utility of science and a provocative way to fund it: prizes! Can be borrowed at:
https://archive.org/details/longitudetruesto00sobe_0
or purchased from Amazon:
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626 (a mini-synopsis)
From Wikipedia: “Bacon considered that it is of greatest importance to science not to keep doing intellectual discussions or seeking merely contemplative aims, but that it should work for the bettering of mankind’s life by bringing forth new inventions, having even stated that “inventions are also, as it were, new creations and imitations of divine works”.[2] He cites examples from the ancient world, saying that in Ancient Egypt the inventors were reputed among the gods, and in a higher position than the heroes of the political sphere, such as legislators, liberators and the like. He explores the far-reaching and world-changing character of inventions, such as in the stretch:
“Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.” Novum Organum, (1620) See Section CXXIX (p 37 of 139) on Kindle version.
Questions to consider:
What was the historical context in which Vannevar Bush wrote Science: The Endless Frontier? And how did that affect his formulation?
What are the implications of his vision of the relationship of government to science with respect to pursuit of basic science? Universities? Ownership of intellectual property? (Some of these issues will recur in subsequent sessions of the course.)
How does the story told in Longitude fit within the contemporary view of the relationship of government to science?
How is the Vannevar Bush view of science and government threatened by the current Administration? For one answer, read a recent article by Ron Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins University in Issues in Science and Technology: http://issues.org/34-2/perspective-knee-capping-excellence/
….or see the recent article by Eric Lander that addresses the issues more broadly
Class #5, Wednesday, February 27th
Guest Instructor: Steve Hall, NYU School of Journalism.
THE PURPOSE, PRACTICE, AND POLITICS OF SCIENCE
SESSION #5:
Science in the Public Square:
Education, Advocacy, Policy, and Explanation
The interface between science and society is crucial to democratic societies, and the ability of scientists to engage directly with the public (a field known as science communication) has gained urgent attention over the past decade. We’ll briefly consider the history of scientists talking to the general public (Aristotle, Humphrey Davy, and Charles Darwin, among the earlier practitioners), and then explore this increasingly important (and fractious) boundary through the lens of science explanation, political advocacy, communication of policy, and popularizations of science for broad public consumption.
The in-class discussion will focus on three aspects of science communication. The first will discuss public engagement for the purposes of either prediction or probabilistic risk warnings; a paradigmatic breakdown in communication surrounding the 2011 L’Aquila earthquake in Italy will be a central part of this segment.
Next, we’ll discuss the importance of science communication, and the virtues and perils of popularization (Carl Sagan, Neil de Grasse Tyson); the key readings here are the short Michael Mann OpEd piece and the Dan Gilbert talk. There are optional readings that chronicle the recent skirmishes between scientist communicators (Steven Pinker) and outside communicators (Malcolm Gladwell); and how technology (Internet, blogs, TED talks) have transformed the landscape of science communication. With this in mind, we might also discuss the current clash of science advocacy and anti-science forces in an era where facts are up for grabs.
Finally, we will reserve a little time toward the end of the session to discuss—with the help of J.B.S. Haldane’s “How to Write a Popular Scientific Article”—principles of clear communication as you begin to think about your student presentations.
REQUIRED CLASS READINGS:
—Stephen S. Hall, “At Fault,” Nature (pdf)
—Daniel Gilbert, “Talking to Humans: Is It a Good Idea?”:
http://www.danielgilbert.com/SPSP2016.pdf
—Michael Mann, “If You See Something, Say Something,” New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/if-you-see-something-say-something.html
—J. B. S. Haldane, “How to Write a Popular Scientific Article” (pdf)
OPTIONAL CLASS READINGS:
—Charles Darwin, Chapter 1, “The Voyage of the Beagle”
—Steven Pinker on Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?_r=2&emc=booksupdateema1&nl=books&
—George Orwell, “What Is Science?”
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/science/english/e_scien
—Peter Medawar, “Science and Literature” (in Pluto’s Republic, 1986)
—Boris Kachka, “Proust Wasn’t a Neuroscientist. Neither Was Jonah Lehrer” (New York, 2012)
http://nymag.com/news/features/jonah-lehrer-2012-11/
—“President Trump’s War on Science,” New York Times Editorial Board:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/opinion/sunday/trump-epa-pruitt-science.html
—Joel Clement, “I’m a Scientist. I’m Blowing the Whistle on the Trump Administration,” Washington Post:
—New York Times and ProPublica, “E.P.A. Officials, Disheartened by Agency’s Direction, Are Leaving in Droves”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/climate/epa-buyouts-pruitt.html
Questions to Consider:
—What are the responsibilities, and risks, of communicating scientific information to the public?
—Does public advocacy undermine the evidence-based, non-biased mission of scientific research?
—Who makes for the more “reliable narrator” in disseminating scientific information to the public—scientists themselves or mediators like journalists? Are there situations where you would rather hear from a scientist than a journalist, and vice versa?
—How does a writer or speaker figure out how to “pitch” a scientific explanation at the right level for a general audience?
Class #6 MARCH 6, 2019
SESSION #6 MHC360
CREDIBILITY OF SCIENCE
In our last session together, Session #4, we discussed the benefits of science and why and how governments support it through grants, prizes, and other mechanisms. We talked about the large vision of Francis Bacon and focused on Vannevar Bush’s blueprint for funding science through the US government (Science: The Endless Frontier) and Dava Sobel’s short book about prizes for determining position at sea (Longitude).
Some of you may be interested to read what the new Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) had to say about Vannevar Bush’s essay in a speech he gave recently at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (A transcript of his talk, with many misspellings, is attached.) His remarks are being interpreted as a turn away from the government’s traditional role as the central provider of funds for basic research. We will open Session #6 by trying to interpret the significance of his talk.
What are the failures and uncertainties of science and their consequences?
Our objectives in this session are to discuss the weaknesses of the scientific method
—-its inherent uncertainty and its fallibility, as well as the undermining of science by misconduct and poor practices (such as those that produce work that is not reproducible).
Another way to think about these problems is to ask: Why do scientists get things wrong? The answers include misconduct (willful cheating); sloppiness; and the fundamental difficulties of deciphering how the world works (that is, science is hard and never-ending, and mistakes are inevitable).
We will consider what can be done about these things—for instance, to minimize inaccuracy, error, and fraud—and what the consequences of these properties of science might be for public policy, including policies based on flawed science, public distrust of science, and the willful misuse or abuse of the nature of science to advance special interests.
INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS:
1) Misconduct.
Everyone should watch this short talk on YouTube by Howard Schachman, who made a compelling case for a strict definition of what constitutes misconduct:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k554m3CghYI
2) Reproducibility
Science has always been defended as sound because important conclusions, proposed by individual laboratories, are accepted by a scientific community that has repeated or built on the evidence that supports the conclusions. But this claim has recently been challenged.
Everyone should read this brief account of the difficulty that pharmaceutical companies claim to have had in reproducing work that could affect what drug companies work on:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html
Several people have argued that we should have mechanisms for reproducing important or widely cited work. Think about the benefits and difficulties of doing this. At least three people should look at January 2017 papers from the open access journal, eLIFE (https://elifesciences.org/archive/2017/01)
to see what is being done and what some people think about the efforts to demonstrate reproducibility.
At a minimum, those three should look at the very short essay by Nosek and Errington: https://elifesciences.org/content/6/e23383
Some of you interested in cancer biology should look at an article about one of the five replication efforts (perhaps one about certain mutations in melanomas: https://elifesciences.org/content/6/e22662)
Another possible contributor to the replication problem is “publication bias”, a tendency to favor publication of so-called “positive results.” Some of you from the social sciences might find this interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=nissen+gb%2C+magidson+t%2C+gross+k
- Failures of scientific methods can have important practical consequences.
One striking example, recently in the news, concerns the use of science in the judicial system. At least one person, preferably more, should read the executive summary of a recent report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) on the imperfect accuracy of such methods:
Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods (PCAST, Executive Office of the President, September 2016)
Philosophers of science have long worried about what is necessary for scientific observations to become the basis of accepted conclusions about how the world works. One of the best-known theses is this one:
Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery,1935. At least three people should browse sufficiently in this book to summarize Popper’s widely cited point of view.
Excerpt: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/ph103/2013-2014/pdf/Popper_LSD_Ch1.pdf
Squashed version: http://sqapo.com/popper.htm
Brief optional amusements:
- Sara Whitlock, “A new PhD student learns her first lesson: Certainty doesn’t exist in science,” STAT 12/30/16
https://www.statnews.com/2016/12/30/science-grad-student-lesson/
- PLOS ONE essay on the role of the media and institutions in promoting questionable conclusions:
https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/02/science-media-news/
4) The inevitability and virtues of scientific errors
These titles refer to the virtues of making mistakes in honorable efforts to solve big problems. None of this is required reading, but I’d be pleased if one or more of you wanted to follow up on Watson’s The Double Helix by reading the two chapters in Livio’s excellent book that describe how Linus Pauling (arguably the greatest chemist of the 20th century) got misled about the structure of DNA and lost out to Watson, Crick, and others.
- Livio, Brilliant Blunders From Darwin to Einstein: Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, Simon and Schuster, 2013. (Chapters 6 and 7)
- Schultz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, HarperCollins, 2010.
Hannah Bloch, “Failure is an option,” National Geographic, September 2013.
5) Consequences of the inherent inaccuracy of science and its propensity to error for the formulation of public policy.
We will think about this in relation to current debates about some highly sensitive topics: climate change, vaccination, evolution, and compensation for sports injuries, and we will also discuss these issues as they affected the control of tobacco use.
Climate change
Everyone should read Robert Proctor’s brief summary of the issue and its contemporary relevance:
The debates about climate change can affect legislation, regulation, and budgets; everyone should look at this very recent development and consider the consequences:
For those who have not followed the science about climate change, here is a brief, useful consensus view:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/28/science/what-is-climate-change.html
Sports injuries
There are complex medical issues here and a lot is at stake for team owners. You may notice a pattern in the way the issues are framed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/sports/hockey/nhl-chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy-cte-juliet-macur.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share The league’s onerous demand in a class-action suit on head injuries seems to show little regard for medical privacy and accepted scientific facts.
Other contentious issues (with different degrees of consensus)
Does immunization increase the risk of autism?
Is evolution of species still a theory or an established fact?
Does tobacco use increase the risk of cancers and other diseases?
I am making no specific reading assignments for these topics but our discussion will be informed by anything that anyone chooses to read from a vast literature.
Additional readings
To enlarge the discussion beyond science to politics and to think about how the political approaches are framed, here are a few relevant, recent books on the political uses of uncertainty:
- Oreskes and E.M. Conway: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming(Bloomsbury Press, 2010). I will summarize the argument for our discussion.
- Nesbit: Poison Tea: How Big Oil and Big Tobacco Invented the Tea Party and Captured the GOP(St. Martin’s Press, 2016)
Shawn Otto, The War on Science (Milkweed, 2016)
Session #7 March 13th. Equity issues in science and its applications
Scientists would like to think that their work is done for the benefit of all, but it is evident that the benefits are not shared equally, even in the countries in which the work is done. This is so because of numerous factors—most obviously, economic disparities that influence whether people can afford the services and products that science enables, but also because of location, educational levels, gender, and ethnicity. Furthermore, we would like to believe that opportunities to participate in scientific work are available equally to all who have the necessary talents, but it is evident that social networks, gender, and race strongly influence access to those opportunities. In this session, we will talk about some notable examples of the lack of equity and discuss ways in which the more subtle factors—especially issues of gender and ethnicity—can be studied, understood, and perhaps ameliorated.
In doing the readings below, think about the following questions:
- What are the possible origins of the disparities in health outcomes?
- How can we distinguish between prejudice and other factors to account for the under-representation of female and minority personnel in the sciences?
- Some of the assigned papers make use of social sciences to enhance understanding of gender and racial disparities. What kinds of changes in the medical and scientific enterprise would you recommend after reading these papers?
- How does the current debate about US immigration policies affect science?
Assigned readings:
- Social scientists have been studying the factors that influence the participation of population groups in the scientific enterprise. Here are two recent, much discussed examples of such studies that might help address the problems of inclusion and fair treatment of minority populations in the US scientific enterprise:
C.A. Moss-Racusin et al, Science faculty subtle gender biases favor male students. PNAS 109: 16474, 2012. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf
Donna K. Ginther1,*, Walter T. Schaffer2, Joshua Schnell3, Beth Masimore3, Faye Liu3, Laurel L. Haak3, Raynard Kington2,†
Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards
Science 19 Aug 2011:Vol. 333, Issue 6045, pp. 1015-1019 DOI: 10.1126/science.1196783 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1015/tab-pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21852498
Just last week, the NY Times reported a story about an apparent inequity in the size of NIH grants awarded to men and women: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/science/women-scientists-grants.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share
A study finds that female scientists who win grants from the National Institutes of Health get $41,000 less than men.
- One of the benefits of science that we might expect to be available to all in an enlightened society is advanced health care. The following two papers are classic studies that attempt to identify factors accounting for disparate outcomes:
Peter B. Bach, MD; Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH; Otis W. Brawley, MD; Aaron Galaznik; Sofia Yakren; Colin B. Begg, PhD
Survival of Blacks and Whites After a Cancer Diagnosis
JAMA. 2002;287(16):2106-2113. doi:10.1001/jama.287.16.2106
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/194853
KEVIN A. SCHULMAN, M.D., JESSE A. BERLIN, SC.D., WILLIAM HARLESS, PH.D., JON F. KERNER, PH.D., SHYRL SISTRUNK, M.D., BERNARD J. GERSH, M.B., CH.B., D.PHIL., ROSS DUBÉ, CHRISTOPHER K. TALEGHANI, M.D., JENNIFER E. BURKE, M.A., M.S., SANKEY WILLIAMS, M.D., JOHN M. EISENBERG, M.D.,
AND JOSÉ J. ESCARCE, M.D., PH.D.
THE EFFECT OF RACE AND SEX ON PHYSICIANS’ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION New England Journal of Medicine 340:618, 1999. http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199902253400806
- Another aspect of the story may depend on the way in which clinical trials are done; here is an illustration of the problem from a recent news article:
(“As immunotherapy research takes off, the patients getting the treatment have been overwhelmingly white. Researchers know this and say they are trying to correct it.”)
Additional readings (not required but interesting):
- Several interesting women scientists have been written about. One of them, the astrophysicist Vera Rubin, died recently: here is an obituary by Dennis Overbye:
(“Dr. Rubin, who was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1993, ushered in the cosmic realization that most of the universe is invisible.”)
- Another, perhaps the most famous, woman scientist is the crystallographer, Rosalind Franklin, about whom numerous biographies (including Rosalind Franklin and DNA by Anne Sayre [Norton, 1975]) and a play (Photograph 51) have been written.
- A recently published account by a woman who studies plant biology has received a lot of praise last year:
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl, Knopf, 2016. (Reviewed in Nature in 2016)
- An exceptional Stanford neuroscientist, Ben Barres, also a transgendered person, died in December 2017, and the obituaries in Nature (553282, 2018) and the New York Times (December 29, 2017) were very informative about the role gender plays in science.
- A notable black embryologist, E.E. Just, is the subject of another terrific biography:
Manning, K. R., Black Apollo of Science. The Life of Ernest Everett Just. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford, 1983.
A briefer version of Just’s career, based on Manning’s book, can be viewed here:
http://www.genetics.org/content/179/4/1735
- One recent entry on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass from the NY Times online, February 22nd about how scientists construed race in the 19th century:
- Not so long ago, Jewish scientists were also subject to life-threatening discrimination. Some of it is summarized by Jeremy Bernstein’s essay in The New York Review of Books, December 8, 2016 (“Great Scientists Against Terrible Odds”)
Session #8, March 20th. Portrayal of science in the arts
Assignment #1: Watch the film called GATTACA (1997).
The movie portrays a future, one perhaps not far away, in which genetic information obtained at birth governs lives and dictates what people might be allowed to do.
We will talk about the following questions:
–How close is the premise to current scientific reality? Closer than it was twenty years ago when the film was made?
–How likely is it that genetic information can be as predictive as the film implies?
–What are the political benefits of making a film of this sort?
–What do you expect the film to achieve as entertainment, instruction, or a call to action?
Kevin will obtain the movie and provide links to it.
Assignment #2: Read the original short novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley two hundred years ago (1818) when she was younger than most of you. The book can be acquired inexpensively for a Kindle reader or in libraries and used book stores. Kevin will also try to find a link to a free version; I didn’t succeed.
There are movie versions—the most famous was made in 1931—and several derivatives (such as The Bride of Frankenstein, etc) but none of the cinematic versions adhere closely to the original text.
Consider these questions as you read:
–What inspired the writing of this strange novel?
–Why do you think it has had such a powerful and sustained hold on the public’s imagination and on the public’s conception of science? —
The novel deals with the origin of life and makes many allusions to other writings about the creation of human beings. What does that mean about the relationship of science and religion?
Because of the novel’s bicentennial in 2018, special attention was given to Frankenstein that year, including new editions of the text, critical appraisals, and a special exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York. One especially brilliant essay about the writing of the book appeared in The New Yorker (and can be heard on a podcast):
Life and Letters: It’s Still Alive, by Jill Lepore. Two hundred years of “Frankenstein.” http://nyer.cm/1bH4KoU
Additional, optional material: There are many other interesting examples of ways in which science and scientists are depicted in the arts. I have listed some of these below; none is required for class but you might look at them in the future and I am likely to refer to them during our session.
Fiction:
CP Snow, The Search (1934) An early novel by the physicist turned novelist and politician, CP Snow, about the trials of starting out in competitive academic science in England.
Allegra Goodman, Intuition (2006) A deft novel about young scientists working in a biomedical research laboratory in a place modeled on the Whitehead Institute at MIT.
Andrea Barrett, The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998) A prize-winning novel about the rigors of geographical discovery in the late 19th century by a writer who teaches the literature of science at Williams College.
Carl Djerrasi, Cantor’s Dilemma (1989) An insightful novel by a famous chemist about how doubt pervades the relationship between an cancer researcher and his trainees when important but uncertain results are obtained.
Theatre:
QED A portrayal of the famously irreverent Nobel Prize-winning, CalTech physicist, Richard Feynmann.
Wit A moving account of a scholar of John Donne’s poetry dying of ovarian cancer.
Photograph 51 A dramatization of Rosalind Franklin’s relationship with Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and others during the discovery of DNA structure.
Copenhagen The German physicist Werner Heisenberg goes to visit his mentor, Niels Bohr in you-know-where.
Proof A young women reveals her mathematical skills.
Film:
The Man Who Knew Infinity A recent well-reviewed biopic about the Indian math genius, Ramanujan, and his mentor at Cambridge University.
Arrowsmith This you have seen for Session #2.
Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet An oldie about discovering a treatment for syphilis.
Contagion A realistic account of the birth of an epidemic.
Paintings:
by William Blake, Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt van Rijn, Hans Holbein, and many others
(you can find most of these on line)
Session #9, March 27, 2019
How scientific findings are disseminated
In this class, we will discuss how the results of scientific work are communicated to other scientists and to the wider public. We will focus mainly on the distribution, publication, and use of primary scientific articles, emphasizing how well the scientific community has exploited the new opportunities provided by computer sciences and the internet. Along the way, we will consider the economics, fairness, and influence of the system used for publication. Although we will talk about these items in several scientific fields, most of the discussion will address biomedical research because that is where changes have been occurring at the greatest rate over the past couple of decades and with the most contentious arguments. (It is also the place where I have had a significant role and am still deeply engaged.) In particular, we will talk about several features of an evolving system for disseminating the results of research: models for publication of peer-reviewed research in traditional subscription-based journals and in open-access journals; the increasing use of “pre-print servers” to display work on-line prior to peer review; the creation and operation of public digital libraries, such as PubMed Central; novel approaches to peer review and post-publication assessments; and the roles of authors, publishers, and research funders in these modes of dissemination and use of research reports.
Required reading:
Chapter 15 (“Science Publishing and Science Libraries in the Internet Age”) from my book, The Art and Politics of Science (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190606/) The chapter describes the development of public digital libraries and open access publishing in the life sciences.
Extra reading (try to read at least a couple of items from this list; all are short):
Chapter 15 also alludes to the virtues of preprint servers in physics and some other sciences. Preprint servers in biology have been promoted more recently for the life sciences in: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/352/6288/899.full.pdf
(For an interesting perspective on one aspect of the problem, see: RD Vale and AA Hyman, “Priority of discovery in the life sciences” eLIFE 2016;5:e16931.)
Science magazine has also provided a useful summary of the various attitudes that biologists have towards the use of preprints: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/are-preprints-future-biology-survival-guide-scientists
Some newer and contention themes have emerged from the funders of research:
A plan (Plan S) to compel grantees to use Open Access principles to insure that work supported by the funders is rapidly made accessible to all: (https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback/). Some have posed objections to the plan, including the head of the US National Academy of Sciences (M McNutt, “Plan S falls short for society publishers—and for the researchers they serve” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 116:2400-2403, 2019) and those objections have been responded to: https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/open-access-and-plan-s-howwellcome-tackling-four-key-concerns).
A broader concept that would undermine what many view as the excessive influence of a few current journals: to put the decision to publish back in the hands of authors and encourage post-publication evaluation and organization of papers: ( BM Stern and EK O’Shea, “A proposal for the future of scientific publishing in the life sciences” PLOS Biology 2019 https://doi.org/10.137/journal.pbio.3000116
In your reading some or all of these relatively brief materials, consider the following questions:
–What factors enable and restrict access to new scientific findings? (Think about publication practices, the influence of review, and the mechanics of distribution, searches and retrieval.)
–What do you believe are the ideal methods for getting such information to other scientists? To the general public? And when in the process of dissemination? What makes science newsworthy?
–What are the costs of publishing and who should pay them? (The public? Funders of science? Scientists themselves?)
–What is the role of primary scientific reports as opposed to review articles, news accounts, histories of science, and textbooks?
–Why is publishing so important and also so contentious? What is the relationship of publication to career development? How should peers evaluate a scientist’s record?
April 3rd: Session #10: Science and ownership
Topics: Industrial science: interfaces with government and academia, including ownership and patenting of intellectual property
In this class, we will first discuss how science contributes to the economy, considering some of the conflicts that occur in the transformation of scientific discoveries into practical items of commercial value. We will talk about some articles, legal rulings, and books that illustrate problems about ownership (patents and licensing) and financial returns (to basic scientists and product developers), and we will think about what is in the best interests of the public versus the owners of intellectual property.
To whet your appetite for these topics, here are some assigned readings about current events:
Public funding is backing a new immunotherapy treatment, but the bulk of any profits will go to a private company. So are taxpayers getting a good deal?
An academic provides an inside view of the relationships being forged with corporations, and the accompanying expectations.
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/opinion/bernie-sanders-trump-should-avoid-a-bad-zika-deal.html
Bernie Sanders and a former head of the NIH square off over the development of a vaccine against Zika virus
Background
In considering these three recent conflicts, we will depend on several aspects of patent law, as first spelled out in the US Constitution:
Article I, section 8, reads, “Congress shall have power… to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Here are some relevant readings; please read at least one or two:
(1) Charles R. McManis & Sucheol Noh, “The Impact of the Bayh-Dole Act on Genetic Research and Development: Evaluating the Arguments and Empirical Evidence to Date” (An accessible legal essay that reviews some important aspects of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, legislation that strongly influenced how academic institutions pursue ownership of biological findings and products.) A PDF is on the class website.
(2)https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4225052/pdf/40142_2014_Article_55.pdf
An essay by Robert Cook-Deegan, a leading scholar on genetics and the law, about the Supreme Court’s decision on DNA patenting in a case that invalidated the patent held by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA1 gene. Reference #23 has the Court’s decision, an important document (US Supreme Court, American Association of Pathologists v.Myriad )
(3) The latest and most intense patenting fight in recent times has been over the gene-editing method often referred to as CRISPR/Cas9. An account of one ruling, by no means the last, can be found in the NY Times by Andrew Pollack: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/science/broad-institute-harvard-mit-gene-editing-patent.html
Here is one of many articles about the effects of the CRISPR fight on science: “Pursuit of profit poisons collaboration,” by Jacob S. Sherkow, Nature, April 14, 2016 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27075081
(4) Debate about the invention and royalties from the HIV test kit was among my most difficult problems in my first year as NIH Director. One account of the settlement is here: http://articles.latimes.com/1994-07-12/news/mn-14822_1_hiv-test-kit
(Another account of the fight over these royalties, France vs USA, can be found in my memoir, The Art and Politics of Science.)
Some interesting, longer, optional readings on these topics
These are not required for class but keep them in mind if you want to read more about ownership of intellectual property, fights over priority in science, and other items related to turning discoveries into fame and profits. All can be found at Amazon.com
L. Jardine, The Man who Measured London (a lively biography about Robert Hooke, a remarkable scientist and difficult person who played critical roles in English science, the Royal Society, and the plan for London in the late 17th Century)
R. Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (a very popular social history of the origins and politics of the most famous cell line in medical research: HeLa cells)
S. Hall, Invisible Frontiers (an excellent account of the early days of the recombinant DNA industry by a journalist who met with you in February)
A. Kornberg, The Golden Helix (a personal story of the founding of the company DNAX by a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist )
B. Werth, The Billion Dollar Molecule (a highly readable story about the development of a biotech company by superb chemists)
J. Shreeve, The Genome Wars (one of several good accounts of the race to finish and possibly commercialize the human genome)
R. Hoffman and C. Djerassi, Oxygen (a play by two distinguished chemists about priority for the discovery of oxygen; the play is another example of representation of science in the arts)
April 10, 2019 Session #11
Scientific communities: Changes in the demography of science
In this session, we will consider the several factors that determine the vitality of scientific communities. We will view those factors and their consequences from the perspectives of social planners and scientific leaders who are thinking about the likelihood of success in scientific careers. Some of the factors include: the kinds and numbers of jobs available for the conduct of scientific work; the educational and training mechanisms required to develop the scientific work force; the mechanisms used to support research (including, especially, grants in the public sector and also allocations for research in the private sector); and government policies and political support for them.
Last April 12th, the National Research Council issued a long-awaited and Congressionally mandated report entitled The Next Generation of Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences Researchers: Breaking Through. The report was inspired by widespread concerns, during the past decade or more, that newly trained investigators in the biomedical sciences are increasingly at risk of being unable to fulfill their potential because of a paucity of suitable positions and financial support for their scientific work. Such limitations have been viewed as threats to the future of the U.S. scientific enterprise and as perverse conditions fostering an unhealthy, “hyper-competitive” atmosphere in the current world of medical science.
During class, we will discuss the causes and consequences of the current state of affairs and some possible remedies. The following questions are among those you should think about:
–What do you see as the major events that have created the current crisis of confidence in our traditionally successful research enterprise?
–Given current conditions and systems for training, research, and funding, what feasible short-term changes would you recommend?
–If you could dictate the availability of talent (the labor force), research positions in academic, government, and commercial sectors, and funds for the support of research, how would you organize the system?
–Should there be a limit imposed on the age at which a scientist can obtain federal grants? (In other words, should we improve the chances for young investigators by requiring older ones to exit public funding mechanisms?)
To help you think about these issues, please look at the following materials:
- Last year’s report from the NRC, which is freely available for downloading from the National Academies website (https://www.nap.edu/download/25008)
I would recommend reading the Summary and any additional chapters or appendices that you find especially interesting.
- A short paper that I co-authored and published in PNAS with three senior colleagues in 2014 and attracted widespread attention. It seemed to capture current anxieties about how imbalances of the labor force and resources (especially jobs and grants) were affecting the performance of science. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4000813/
- A preprint (!) from a similar group of authors, representing the advocacy group called Rescuing Biomedical Research (RBR), that makes some specific recommendations for improving prospects for NIH grant support for young investigators. https://peerj.com/preprints/26465/ This article has now appeared in Science magazine: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/360/6390/716.full.pdf.
(The delay in appearance of the peer-reviewed article, which differs very little from the preprint, illustrates the utility of posting preprints, a topic we discussed in Session #9.)
Of course, there is a great deal written on these topics, and you can find references to most of that work in the cited reports. But if you read the PNAS paper and the recommendations in the NRC report summary, we will have the basis for a lively discussion.
For some of you, this topic has important practical consequences; for others, I hope the significance of the issues for the future of medical science will be apparent.
April 17, 2019 Session #12 Controversial Science
As you have learned during this course, science is complex and its practitioners have complicated relationships to government, business, the arts, the law, and virtually all other elements in our society.
In this final session before you begin to present your projects, we are going to talk about the ways in which scientific work is viewed, conducted, and sometimes regulated when it is thought to pose risks to society or to individuals. When the dangers are obvious and extreme—for example, the design and testing of atomic or biological weapons or the use of medical methods that could pose serious threats to individuals —a variety of legal tools and rigorously monitored precautions (such as bans, international treaties, or the labeling of research as “classified”) or regulatory measures (such as those employed by the Food and Drug Administration) are available. But there are other forms of science that are not clearly threatening and hence not “classified.” That is what we’ll focus on in this session.
Historical examples
Two famous episodes of controversial science give some perspective on the current debates.
- Recombinant DNA research. The most notable was the controversy in the mid-1970’s about the use of recombinant DNA technologies. There are many places to read about this, but here are a couple:
One reflection by the main organizer, Paul Berg of Stanford:
https://www.nature.com/articles/455290a’
Another by the man who was the head of NIH at the time, Don Fredrickson:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234217/
In retrospect, could this controversy have been handled better? Did the resolution of the debate provide a useful precedent for dealing with subsequent controversies?
- Human embryo and stem cell research. Another example is the long-standing (and still ongoing)controversy about studies of human embryos and the so-called “pluripotent” stem cells derived from them. Some of this is discussed in Chapter 13 from my memoir:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190607/
A short recent synopsis outlines the prospects for use of such cells in experimental work and medical treatment:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03268-4
More recent and current examples.
We will devote much of our class time to the consideration of two contemporary issues—one that gets relatively little airtime (DURC and bioterrorism) and another that has saturated the science press for the past few months (the use of CRISPR technology to modify the human genome in patients or embryos).
Readings to inform the discussion
- DURC and bioterrorism.
The vast majority of scientific work is thought to pose minimal or no risk of harm. But in some instances, scientific work may be viewed as having “dual” potential: the likelihood of producing new knowledge that has beneficial applications but some chance of being used—unwittingly or with malevolent intent—to cause harm. Such research is often called “dual use research of concern” (abbreviated as DURC).
Many features of DURC are summarized in a recent report (which I co-chaired) from the National Research Council. The report is attached as a PDF or can be read online from this link: https://www.nap.edu/read/24761/chapter/1
It will be useful to skim the background information and the recommendations.
Several of the controversies in the world of DURC have involved the study of viruses that could be used as weapons or could initiate epidemics as a result of careless handling of genetically modified agents. Some examples include:
—Work on the horsepox viruses that was too late to be included in the DURC report, here reported on NPR:
—Studies of influenza viruses engineered to be able to be transmitted by the airborne route:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/11/scientists-brace-media-storm-around-controversial-flu-studies
- Gene editing with CRISPR/Cas9 and other tools.
There is now enormous interest in the use of gene editing to treat diseases, make improved agricultural products, and even change the human germ line. Foreign Affairs magazine has devoted most of a recent issue to this topic; see for example the article by Bill Gates:
or a plea from an ethicist to consider forms of regulation:
The National Academies have also weighed in with a report on germ line editing, summarized in this news release, following a high level meeting in Washington in 2015:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=24623
However, despite a declared consensus that gene editing of the human genome should not be attempted at this time, a scientist from China (Dr. Jiankui He) described his attempts to perform such editing of human embryos, with the goal of rendering the resulting infants resistant to infection with HIV, at a second high level meeting in Hong Kong a few months ago (http://www.nationalacademies.org/gene-editing/2nd_summit/index.htm).
Here are some accounts of what happened:
— “Shock greets claim of CRISPR-edited babies” Science 362: 978, November 30, 2018.
–https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/health/gene-editing-babies-crispr.html
Here are some of the many responses to that electrifying news.
— The terse summary from the meeting’s organizers:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11282018b
–An editorial in The New York Times; “Should scientists toy with the secret to life?” January 28, 2019
–Three essays appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, January16, 2019:
- A perspective from some of the meeting organizers: “After the storm—a responsible path for genome editing,” by G. Daley, R. Lovell-Badge, and J. Steffann.
- An essay by a well-known ethicist: “Rogues and regulation of germline editing,” by R. Alta Charo.
- A lively journalistic account: “The future of gene editing—towards scientific and social consensus” by L. Rosenbaum.
A few other topics that are worth noting:
–The use of DNA to track and identify people.
- The dark side: “China uses DNA to track its people with the help of American expertise,” New York Times, Feb.21, 2019.
- A useful application: “She helped crack the Golden State killer case. Here’s what she’s going to do next” in the New York Times, August 29, 2018.
- A method to escape a loophole: “One twin committed the crime—but which one? A new DNA test can finger the culprit” in the New York Times, March 1, 2019. (see Krawczak et al, “Distinguishing genetically between the germlines of male monozygotic twins,” PLOS Genetics, December 20, 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007756)
–The Trump administration’s attempt to curtail or terminate the use of human fetal tissue in research.
- “Trump officials move to limit human fetal tissue research,” Science 362: 1223, December 14, 2018;
- “Why we need fetal tissue research” Science 363, p.207, January 18, 2019.
–Efforts to limit the impact of statements by people opposed to vaccination and thereby improve protection against measles, papilloma viruses, etc.
- “The law and vaccine resistance”, Science 363: 795, February 22, 2019;
- “Make America measles-free again,” The New York Times, p.A22, March 12, 2019. There are many other articles and we will hear a report from one of you on the difficulties of controlling misinformation spread by social media.
Some general questions about controversial research:
Our discussions will be guided by several underlying questions that arise in virtually all of the older and more recent controversies. Think about these while preparing for class:
Should scientists be able to follow their curiosity wherever it leads? Of course not. But what are the limits?
What influences those limits? Danger to health, property, security, environment? Ethics? Beliefs? Costs?
Who should set the limits? The executive branch? Lawmakers? The scientific community?
What are the dangers of setting limits?
How should scientists proceed when matters are unresolved by authorities? When should dangers be considered: before starting an experiment or when it is time to publish?
What has been done in the past? And what has been learned from those experiences?
What shall we do about current uncertainties?
