BMJ  2006;333:50 (1 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7557.50

reviews

Book

Intuition

This is a novel about research institutes, the precariousness of their funding, and the vulnerability and vanity of the human characters that inhabit them. It also claims to be about the nature of scientific discovery.

A gawky, brilliant, and highly strung postdoctoral researcher, Cliff, has spent seven years working obsessively on the task assigned him by his professors on his first day in post—to find a cure for cancer by injecting variants of a virus into nude mice—with spectacularly negative results. One day, while making routine measurements, he notices that the tumours are regressing in half his sample. Within a month they have melted away.

Cliff's contemporary at the lab and erstwhile girlfriend, Robin, already miffed that his attention has shifted from her to the contents of the cages, and knowing that at his recent appraisal he was told his grant was coming to an end, suspects fraud and embarks on a one woman mission to expose him. But the professors use their contacts to fast track a paper into Nature and outgun the competition for a much needed grant that will save everyone's jobs and buy gleaming new equipment all round. Crucially, the findings have yet to be replicated, so much of the plot hangs on uncertainty. Even we, the readers, never find out if Cliff's scribbled and barely coherent lab notes came from honest and timely observation or from a desperate attempt to cover his tracks.

You will have to read the book to see whether Cliff ever gets back under the sheets with Robin. But you have probably heard enough to consider this book (widely acclaimed by literary critics) as an example of how high stakes science is portrayed to the lay public. In Goodman's universe, science is 100% inspiration. There is nothing between an absence of findings and the prime slot in Nature; nothing between "incurable" and "curable" cancer; and precious little for the mid-career scientist between unemployment and a Nobel prize. The literary tropes of suspense, surprise, irony, and twists in the plot lend themselves to dramatic and unexpected discoveries by the laboratory underdog, whereas a story about dogged puzzle solving by middle ranking scientists with an average amount of ability and integrity is not much of a story.

I've been mean with the stars because I'd like to see quality writers be more responsible when portraying scientific issues. Goodman should read Ian McEwan's Saturday (see review BMJ 2005;330: 368[Free Full Text]) to see what can emerge when a talented writer does his homework before grappling with a specialist subject matter.

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University College London p.greenhalgh{at}pcps.ucl.ac.uk

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Related Article

Saturday

John Quin
BMJ 2005 330: 368. [Extract] [Full Text]