Suffering for science : reason and sacrifice in modern America

207 Pages·2005·0.6 MB·English

by  Herzig

Suffering for Science

Suffering for Science
Reason and Sacrifice
in Modern America
REBECCA M. HERZIG
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Herzig, Rebecca M.
Suffering for science : reason and sacrifice in modern America / Rebecca M. Herzig.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Science—Social aspects—United States—History—19th century. 2. United
States—History—19th century. 3. Body, Human—Social aspects—United States—
History—19th century. 4. Self—History—19th century. I. Title.
Q127.U6H396 2005
509(cid:2).73(cid:2)09034—dc22
2005002577
British Cataloging-in-Publication information for this book is available
from the British Library.
Copyright © 2005 by Rebecca M. Herzig
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100
Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this
prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
Manufactured in the United States of America
For
Sidney J. Herzig
(1937–2004)
and
Norman O. Brown
(1913–2002)

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Introduction: Truth at Any Price 1
1
Willing Captives 17
2
The Bonds of Science 37
3
Purists 47
4
Explorers 64
5
Martyrs 85
6
Barbarians 100
Epilogue: The Ends of Sacrifice 116
Acknowledgments 121
Notes 125
Bibliography 161
Index 187
vii

PREFACE
F
rom chemists poisoned by mercury spills to geologists caught in the path of
active volcanoes, countless stories of contemporary scientific practice propose
that a life in science may be uncommonly painful, if not downright lethal.1Most
remarkable about these tales of pain is that so many focus not on unwitting ac-
cident or misfortune (the primatologist who contracts a rare disease, the
oceanographer who boards a doomed research vessel) but on individuals’ will-
ingembrace of suffering, a deliberate surrender of safety and comfort. To study
avalanches, for instance, two civil engineers in Montana repeatedly bury them-
selves in the rushing tons of snow. “There is a science to all this,” one of the re-
searchers tells an incredulous reporter. “I swear.”2A group of AIDS researchers,
declaring that they are not simply suicidal, offer themselves as the first human
subjects for an experimental vaccine based on the human immuno-deficiency
virus.3A molecular biologist insists that even mundane laboratory work neces-
sarily entails the “sacrifice” of “community, family, and self.”4The author of a re-
cent children’s book condenses these themes to a single, stark sentence:
“Science is horrible, and just as you suffer in science lessons, so scientists suffer
for science.” Scientists endure pain and suffering, the book concludes, not “to
make life more comfortable for the rest of us” but for one overarching reason:
“because they think that science is fascinating.”5
Notice that in these stories, science—that standard of all things judicious
and disinterested—relies on a curious counterpart: the enthralled investigator
willing to endure almost any manner of pain. Science proceeds in no small mea-
sure due to scientists’ devotion—devotion at once reasonable and compulsive,
voluntary and involuntary. Something about science “gets under your skin,” ex-
plains physicist Alan Lightman in a recent edition of the New York Times,“keeps
you working days and nights at the sacrifice of your sleeping and eating and at-
tention to your family and friends.” Scientists “do what they do because they
love it, and because they cannot imagine doing anything else. In a sense, this is
the real reason a scientist does science. Because the scientist must.”6
This book is an effort to understand the recurrence of such themes of will,
compulsion, and sacrifice in science—a domain of life often depicted as the
ix
x PREFACE
epitome of secular reason and liberal political thought. While I hope that the
book’s ruminations on voluntary suffering will hold some relevance for contem-
porary scientific practitioners (as I reconsider briefly in the epilogue), ulti-
mately this is a study of the past rather than the present. For the question I wish
to pose is not “Why does science demand sacrifice?” but “Why do we saythat sci-
ence demands sacrifice?” From where did we get the idea that one must suffer
in order to “do” science or be a scientist?
In presenting a history of the presumed link between science and suffering,
I offer an alternative to those who portray science as a timeless, inhuman force
to which we are haplessly subjected. While studying this history surely won’t
free anyone from the tendency to couple knowledge and pain, it might help
arouse further conversation about aspects of daily life generally left unex-
amined. Rather than insisting that science requires our sacrifice or compels us
to suffer, perhaps we lovers of knowledge will begin to hold one another ac-
countable for the arrangements of social life we create and maintain. Of course,
some of us may well continue to subject ourselves to suffering, but at least we
might begin to reckon with the forms of pleasure we take in doing so.