In the Name of Science: A History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation [Hardcover]
Author: Andrew Goliszek | Language: English | ISBN: 0312303564 | Format: PDF, EPUB
In the Name of Science: A History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation
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Science, as Andrew Goliszek proves in this compendious, chilling, and eye-opening book, has always had its dark side. Behind the bright promise of life-saving vaccines and life-enhancing technologies lies the true cost of the efforts to develop them. Knowledge has a price; often that price has been human suffering. The ethical limits governing use of the human body in experimentation have been breached, redefined, and breached again---from the moment the first plague-ridden corpse was heaved over the fortifications of a besieged medieval city to the use of cutting-edge gene therapy today.
Those limits are in constant need of redefinition, for the goals and the techniques have become both more refined and more secretive. The German and Japanese human experiments of the 1930s and 1940s horrified the world when they came to light. These barbaric exercises in pseudoscience grew out of assumptions of racial superiority. The subjects were deemed subhuman; ordinary guidelines could therefore be suspended. What has happened in the decades since World War II has differed only in degree. Explicitly or implicitly, any organization or government that undertakes or sponsors scientific research applies some measure of human worth. Experimentation rests upon an equation that balances suffering against gain, the good of the collective against the rights of the individual, and the risk of unknown consequences against the rewards of scientific discovery.
Everything depends upon who makes that equation. The sobering and gripping accumulation of evidence in this book proves exactly what has been justified in the name of science. The science of "eugenics" justified enforced sterilization. The need to gain an upper hand in the Cold War justified CIA experiments involving mind control and drugs. The desperate race to control nuclear proliferation was used to justify radiation experiments whose effects are still being felt today. Chemical warfare, gene therapy, molecular medicine: These subjects dominate headlines and even direct our government's foreign policy, yet the whole truth about the experimentation behind them has never been made public.
Though not a cheering book, In the Name of Science is a crucially important one, and it deserves a wide audience. A biologist by training, Goliszek presents each topic clearly and explains fully its significance and implications. Connecting the history of scientific experimentation through time with the topics that are likely to dominate the future, he has performed an invaluable service. No other book on the market provides the research included here, or presents it with such persuasive force.
Those limits are in constant need of redefinition, for the goals and the techniques have become both more refined and more secretive. The German and Japanese human experiments of the 1930s and 1940s horrified the world when they came to light. These barbaric exercises in pseudoscience grew out of assumptions of racial superiority. The subjects were deemed subhuman; ordinary guidelines could therefore be suspended. What has happened in the decades since World War II has differed only in degree. Explicitly or implicitly, any organization or government that undertakes or sponsors scientific research applies some measure of human worth. Experimentation rests upon an equation that balances suffering against gain, the good of the collective against the rights of the individual, and the risk of unknown consequences against the rewards of scientific discovery.
Everything depends upon who makes that equation. The sobering and gripping accumulation of evidence in this book proves exactly what has been justified in the name of science. The science of "eugenics" justified enforced sterilization. The need to gain an upper hand in the Cold War justified CIA experiments involving mind control and drugs. The desperate race to control nuclear proliferation was used to justify radiation experiments whose effects are still being felt today. Chemical warfare, gene therapy, molecular medicine: These subjects dominate headlines and even direct our government's foreign policy, yet the whole truth about the experimentation behind them has never been made public.
Though not a cheering book, In the Name of Science is a crucially important one, and it deserves a wide audience. A biologist by training, Goliszek presents each topic clearly and explains fully its significance and implications. Connecting the history of scientific experimentation through time with the topics that are likely to dominate the future, he has performed an invaluable service. No other book on the market provides the research included here, or presents it with such persuasive force.
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (November 15, 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312303564
- ISBN-13: 978-0312303563
- Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #564,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is a book that is truly terrifying some of the time, but ultimately it's marred by unsupported conjecture and scare tactics. Goliszek shows us that there is indeed a long and shameful history of medical experimentation on humans, dating as far back as medicine itself. In modern times there is still much unethical and often illegal experimentation on humans taking place by the government and corporations. And you guessed it - the human subjects are usually minorities, the handicapped, coerced military personnel, and uninformed volunteers. Strangely, these days lab animals have more rights than human subjects. Much of this book builds a deserved sense of outrage about these ongoing atrocities.
Unfortunately, the entire book doesn't hold up, becoming a repetitive tirade of unsupported opinions and scare tactics from Goliszek, attempting to force the reader's sense of outrage to the point of absurdity. A major issue is Goliszek's lack of notes and citations, regardless of a very extensive bibliography, because the reader cannot tell documented facts from the author's opinions. In the text Goliszek often adds extensive background to many tales of experimentation, sometimes down to the level of government document numbers. But strangely, in other narratives there is no information given whatsoever, so you have no way of knowing how much the story is embellished by the author. One example among many is a horror story in chapter 4 about radioactive iodine being injected into healthy infants, with no times, locations, or names given.
Meanwhile, conjecture and opinionating sinks much of the book. For example, in chapter 3 Goliszek brands Planned Parenthood as a eugenics organization, merely because the group's founder was involved in that movement almost a century ago.
Goliszek is among the crowd of authors racing to become the next Preston. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, few become that type of author. There is a huge difference between writing to educate, writing to expose illegal practices or bad practices on a journalistic basis, and writing to scare-monger. As one of the other reviewers indicate, this book is loaded to the gills not only with bad science, but bad writing and bad research.
As someone who has spent the last few years reading everything and then some on eugenics, I have gotten a bit fuddy-duddy about my expectations from authors. Either they write so well that previous information gains my attention again, or they research so well that they find something else that other authors did not. Anything else tends to get yawns from me, and the book gets relegated to the scrap heap.
Also, as someone who spent four years working on HIV in a lab and researching/studying it, it is not HELPFUL in disease awareness and education, when others, who know absolutely nothing about the disease and epidemiology of that disease offer their two cents worth based on conjecture, hearsay, and private opinion! This might be the only book that someone reads on this particular disease, and it provides the wrong information? Oh, great.
Writers who have no background in science should not race to write about science without doing the research first. Scientists, who have no background in writing for the public, should not race to write without doing the research first. And scientists who write for science journals are not necessarily good writers. And scientists in one area, should never presume to know everything else about any other science! I would think that would be the first thing hammered into the heads of graduate students in science.
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