The Icepick Surgeon

In Icepick surgeon Sam Kean looks for scientists who did bad things in the name of science. In doing so, he mostly tries to avoid the easy ways out: most of the chapters are about sincere scientists, who at least start out meaning well, not cartoon villains. And on the flip side, Kean makes clear that there is no justification for the sorts of harm inflicted by these scientists – he reminds us again and again that this is not how science advances.

Reading it, I was stunned at how many of the tales were tales about scientists who did bad things in the name of MONEY, not science: taking to piracy, slave-trading, even murder with the goal of raising enough money to continue doing science. I complain bitterly about the NIH and the silly hoops for grant-funding, but at least science is funded. So much of historical science was only for people who were already gentry and could self-fund.