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Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

af Paul A. Offit

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History. Science. Nonfiction. HTML:

What happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction? History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores the most fascinating??and significant??missteps.

Pandora's Lab takes us from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the United States; from the rise of trans fats as the golden ingredient for tastier, cheaper food to the heart disease epidemic that followed; and from the cries to ban DDT for the sake of the environment to an epidemic-level rise in world malaria.

These are today's sins of science??as deplorable as mistaken ideas from the past such as advocating racial purity or using lobotomies as a cure for mental illness. These unwitting errors add up to seven lessons both cautionary and profound, explained by renowned author and speaker Paul A. Offit. Offit uses these lessons to investigate how we can separate good science from bad, using as case studies some of today's most controversial creations: e-cigarettes, GMOs, and drug treatments for ADHD.

For every "Aha!" moment that should have been an "Oh no," this book is an engrossing account of how science has been misused disastrously??and how we can learn to use its power fo… (mere)

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Viser 1-5 af 12 (næste | vis alle)
This book is well worth a read. The author takes you on a journey with seven tales of science gone wrong. The book is thought-provoking and quite disturbing. After reading the first chapter I realized I missed an awful lot in history class or simply was never taught the material such as why did Britain have control of Hong Kong. I found all the tales had a lot of good in them and then you saw how that got twisted, generally with the best of intentions, for the worse. The chapter on opium was the most interesting for me and the chapter on Rachel Carson was the most surprising. ( )
  ladyoflorien | Aug 11, 2023 |
Offit is a poor writer and suffers from the Dawkins delusion[1]. Nonetheless, this book is informative and interesting. The subjects that he chose are: addictive pain killers, lobotomies, avoidance of saturated fats, megadoses of vitamins advocated primarily by Linus Pauling[2], the banning of DDT, and, I think, the Haber-Bosch process. He also does discuss eugenics, but so poorly that his discussion is barely worth mentioning. With all its flaws, the book is a useful introduction to a disturbing subject.

[1] He believes that everybody who disagrees with him is stupid, because sometimes stupid people disagree with him. Named after Richard Dawkins.
[2] Pauling also suffered from the Dawkins delusion. ( )
  themulhern | Mar 14, 2023 |
This book relates seven primary examples of where scientific discoveries were either deliberately or accidentally misinterpreted, leading to disasters. The title is a bit of a misnomer. It is not so much “science gone wrong” as people misunderstanding science or using it in inappropriate ways.

The author combines scientific information and history, providing examples of where science was used as a justification for doing some horrible things (e.g., eugenics, used in Hitler’s genocidal policies) or instances of acting on anecdotal evidence rather than going through the scientific process (e.g., lobotomies, which were never tested for safety). Often times, the people “leading the charge” were out to enhance their own image or were completely unqualified.

The final chapter cites important lessons we can learn from our historic mistakes. There are relevant lessons for today’s world, especially as we continue to battle the pandemic, and this chapter alone is worth reading. Those interested in the intersection of history and science will find this book engrossing.

“Science stands on two pillars: one more reliable than the other. The first pillar is peer review; before a paper is published, experts in the field review it. The process, unfortunately, is flawed. Not all experts are equal and sometimes bad data slip through. The second pillar saves the day: reproducibility…. Truths emerge when studies performed by different scientists working in different environments using different methods find similar results. Ignoring these truths can have disastrous consequences.”
( )
  Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 |
It's a book about bad science. It is a must-read for everyone on how to exercise a healthy level of skepticism and differentiate bad science from good - especially actual in these times of the pandemic and conspiracies surrounding it.

It's America-centric and not all issues are equally loaded in other parts of the world. Many things were completely new to me and interesting discoveries. I learned a lot of unknown history and it also altered my opinions about a few things. ( )
  dacejav | May 16, 2022 |
This was an excellent book and not much to argue against or surprise, who's not against poison gas, heroin or lobotomy. But for me the most surprising chapter was on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. I don't believe going into this book that anyone could convince me, a vegetarian, organic crop lover that DDT might be a good thing, but Offit actually did and that alone makes the book worth reading. ( )
  kevn57 | Dec 8, 2021 |
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History. Science. Nonfiction. HTML:

What happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction? History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores the most fascinating??and significant??missteps.

Pandora's Lab takes us from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the United States; from the rise of trans fats as the golden ingredient for tastier, cheaper food to the heart disease epidemic that followed; and from the cries to ban DDT for the sake of the environment to an epidemic-level rise in world malaria.

These are today's sins of science??as deplorable as mistaken ideas from the past such as advocating racial purity or using lobotomies as a cure for mental illness. These unwitting errors add up to seven lessons both cautionary and profound, explained by renowned author and speaker Paul A. Offit. Offit uses these lessons to investigate how we can separate good science from bad, using as case studies some of today's most controversial creations: e-cigarettes, GMOs, and drug treatments for ADHD.

For every "Aha!" moment that should have been an "Oh no," this book is an engrossing account of how science has been misused disastrously??and how we can learn to use its power fo

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