Author | Sam Kean |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Nonfiction, History, Popular science |
Publisher | Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Publishers |
Publication date | July 13, 2021 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print, eBook, Audio |
Pages | 368 |
ISBN | 978-0316496506 |
Website | http://samkean.com/books/the-icepick-surgeon/ |
The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science is a 2021 American nonfiction book written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown and Company. It features a series of stories throughout the past several centuries involving abuses and crimes committed by scientists in the pursuit of knowledge at all costs. Extensive documents and other historical sources, among additional facts portrayed through footnotes, are used to discuss the impact of various individuals from their actions, along with an appendix contemplating on the potential future crimes that may be committed by new scientific advancements.
The book is split into chapters generally in chronological order. It begins and ends with the same quote from Albert Einstein, which reads "Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." [1]
A prolog to the book has its own apocryphal story about Egyptian Queen Cleopatra originally written by the philosopher Plutarch. It claims that the Queen did experiments on both criminals and her own servants involving the effects of poisons and whether one could determine the sex of a child before it was born. [2] The first chapter discusses the history of pirate William Dampier who used his thievery as a source for biological research on animals through his travels. While his work would serve as a precursor for the studies done by Charles Darwin, Dampier is also remembered as having been a prolific thief and murderer. [1] The second chapter is an inspection of how Henry Smeathman went to Sierra Leone for his work in entomology and became a contributing part of the slave trade in the region, which Kean also notes is the contributive taint infecting many early scientists and the trinkets they ended up collecting for museums. [3] The third chapter covers the grave robbing activities of John Hunter and, years later, of Robert Knox and his hiring of individuals to provide cadavers for university research. [1] [4]
The fifth chapter looks into the activities of Thomas Edison and his competition against alternating current producers versus his direct current technologies. In order to present the alternating current as dangerous, Edison killed 44 dogs, 6 calves, and 2 horses in a purposefully misleading exhibition. [3] The sixth chapter considers the scientific conflict between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, who actively sabotaged and committed fraud against each other in order prove themselves the better paleontologist. [5] The seventh chapter goes over the horrific actions of Nazi scientists during World War II. It also uses them as context for the other people discussed in the book to consider the idea of whether good deeds outweigh bad actions. [6] The eighth chapter tells the story of Walter Freeman and his lobotomy work, where he acted as the eponymous icepick surgeon by devising a new method for conducting lobotomies involving an icepick inserted through the eye socket in order to cut the limbic lobe from the rest of the brain. Despite his claims of curing patients, a significant number died from his method of operation. [7] The tenth chapter is on the torture and interrogation methods of Henry Murray who created an abusive study used on volunteer students to determine the effectiveness of his verbal torture methods. His work is most well known for being used on one particular volunteer, Theodore Kaczynski, who went on to become the Unabomber. [1]
Footnotes are included throughout the book to include extra details about various subject matter. They are often paired with a URL address link to podcast episodes also covering the people discussed in the book. An appendix is used as a repository for additional material and scientific individuals and crimes committed beyond what was in the book, along with possible future crimes in science with new technologies and areas of exploration. [1]
Writing in The Washington Post , Lucinda Robb described the book as having "the flair of a beach thriller and the thoughtfulness of philosophy" while being both "delightful" and "highly readable" and each page having a "wealth of information and juicy details, all held together with virtuoso storytelling". [1] Brandy Schillace for the Wall Street Journal noted the "gems of phraseology" that Kean included in the book, but that rather than just being a "gathering of amusing vignettes", he successfully managed to get across the "systemic ways that early sins have crept into the heart of science and medicine today" through his descriptions. [8]
Publishers Weekly stated in a review that Kean "argues convincingly" on his premise that the individuals and events discussed in the book are uniquely terrible in what they did for the pursuit of scientific knowledge, concluding that The Icepick Surgeon is an "engrossing look at crimes often committed by otherwise moral people [that] deserves a wide readership". [9] Library Journal 's Kate Bellody described the work as a "witty, thought-provoking book" and that it serves as a "lively, compelling addition to the true crime and popular science genres". [10] Deborah Blum reviewed the book for Science and noted that, while the subject matter is "murky, wide-ranging, and complex" and that there are several topics that Kean does not touch on including sexual misconduct in the sciences, he still manages to "ultimately succeed in touching on many issues that have fueled doubts about scientists". [5] Writing for Ars Technica , Diana Gitig considered how the book is sometimes excessive in the amount of detail and number of centuries-old documents that are focused on, but despite the fact that the book "raises more questions than it answers", it manages to showcase that as a "hallmark of good experiments—as well as good books about science and scientists". [6]
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. It is violation of scientific integrity: violation of the scientific method and of research ethics in science, including in the design, conduct, and reporting of research.
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law or criminal law, or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements.
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder is a 1998 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author discusses the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scientist.
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Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud is a book published in 2000 by physics professor Robert L. Park, critical of research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. Other people have used the term "voodoo science", but amongst academics it is most closely associated with Park. Park offers no explanation as to why he appropriated the word voodoo to describe the four categories detailed below. The book is critical of, among other things, homeopathy, cold fusion and the International Space Station.
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Internet fraud is not considered a single, distinctive crime but covers a range of illegal and illicit actions that are committed in cyberspace. It is differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator. It is also distinguished by the way it involves temporally and spatially separated offenders.
Walter Jackson Freeman II was an American physician who specialized in lobotomy. Wanting to simplify lobotomies so that it could be carried out by psychiatrists in psychiatric hospitals, where there were often no operating rooms, surgeons, or anesthesia and limited budgets, Freeman invented a transorbital lobotomy procedure. The transorbital approach involved placing an orbitoclast under the eyelid and against the top of the eye socket; a mallet was then used to drive the orbitoclast through the thin layer of bone and into the brain. Freeman's transorbital lobotomy method did not require a neurosurgeon and could be performed outside of an operating room, often by untrained psychiatrists without the use of anesthesia by using electroconvulsive therapy to induce seizure and unconsciousness. In 1947, Freeman's partner James W. Watts ended their partnership because Watts was disgusted by Freeman's modification of the lobotomy from a surgical operation into a simple "office" procedure.
An ice pick is a pointed metal tool used to break, pick or chip at ice. The design consists of a sharp metal spike attached to a wooden handle. The tool's design has been relatively unchanged since its creation. The only notable differences in the design are the material used for the handle. The handle material is usually made out of wood but can also be made from plastic or rubber. These materials can be better in terms of safety and allow the user to better grip the pick during use.
The Relativity of Wrong is a 1988 collection of seventeen essays on science by American writer and scientist Isaac Asimov. The book explores and contrasts the viewpoint that "all theories are proven wrong in time", arguing that there exist degrees of wrongness.
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill is a 2002 book by medical journalist Robert Whitaker, in which the author examines and questions the efficacy, safety, and ethics of past and present psychiatric interventions for severe mental illnesses, particularly antipsychotics. The book is organized as a historical timeline of treatment development in the United States.
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Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science is a book by William Broad and Nicholas Wade, published in 1982 by Simon & Schuster in New York, and subsequently (1983) also by Century Publishing in London, and with a simplified subtitle as Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in Science by Oxford University Press in 1985. The book is a critique of some widely held beliefs about the nature of science and the scientific process.
Helena Cobban is a British-American writer and researcher on international relations, with special interests in the Middle East, the international system, and transitional justice. She is a non-resident Senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Center for International Policy. She is the founder and CEO of the book-publishing company, Just World Books and the Executive President of the small educational non-profit organization, Just World Educational. Having contributed throughout her career to numerous media outlets and authored seven books, she resumed her writing career in 2019.
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) by an external attacker, copying thousands of emails and computer files to various internet locations several weeks before the Copenhagen Summit on climate change.
Science of morality may refer to various forms of ethical naturalism grounding morality and ethics in rational, empirical consideration of the natural world. It is sometimes framed as using the scientific approach to determine what is right and wrong, in contrast to the widespread belief that "science has nothing to say on the subject of human values".
Sam Kean is an American writer. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, Psychology Today, and The New Scientist. He has also published six books which discuss scientific discoveries in a narrative style. His books received positive reviews in The Wall Street JournalLibrary Journal, and The New York Times. He was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and lives in Washington, D.C.
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, is a 2010 book by science reporter Sam Kean. The book was first published in hardback on July 12, 2010, through Little, Brown and Company and was released in paperback on June 6, 2011, through Little, Brown and Company's imprint Back Bay Books.
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