(Opinion column in Whitehead
Institute’s Paradigm magazine, Fall 2007)
Surprise!
That’s the promise of Freakonomics,
which appeared on the bestsellers list in 2005 and can still be found there.
The book’s subtitle is “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of
Everything.” Aside from “everything,” it delivers on its promise.
The book covers the work of
Steven Levitt, who takes a clear-headed look at what actually correlates among
certain demographic and economic data. For instance, he and his colleagues find
that Head Start participation doesn’t seem to affect school performance, baby
names trickle down from higher- to lower-income families, and gang members live
with their mothers because most of them are making almost nothing.
You can also find other such
books by economic theorists on bestseller lists, all with their own neatly
packaged surprises. One of the best is The Black Swan, which explores
“The Impact of the Highly Improbable” on decision-making. The title example is
from biology: European biologists confidently predicted that all swans must be
white … until Australia was explored.
But you don’t see bestseller
books about basic biomedical research, although we’re awash in its surprises.
Why is that?
Clearly everyone expects
surprises in biology. That’s one aspect that’s constant, whether you’re a
toddler at a zoo, an elementary school child gazing through a microscope at an amoeba,
a high schooler joking over praying mantises and their distressing
sex-with-a-snack practices, or an adult marveling at the epic journeys of the
tundra swan. But molecular biology and its closest buddies in the life sciences
can be a hard sell for the public.
One issue is that the molecular
scale of the research is hard to grasp. We’re talking about molecules that
might be about 100-millionth the size of a swan.
Another is the sheer complexity
of the processes under study. How dramatic is it to find one more player in a
molecular pathway that already has more players than the New England
Patriots—even if that pathway makes you prone to a certain genetic disease or
the proud possessor of beautiful brown eyes?
Well, there’s a shortcut to
seeing what’s really surprising: watch for the advances that take aback the
scientists themselves.
There’s a big one in this
issue’s cover story.
Last year, Shinya Yamanaka of
Kyoto University reported stunning work in creating embryonic stem cell-like
cells from the cells of adult mice. “This is at least as startling as Dolly,”
the cloned sheep, comments Whitehead Member Rudolf
Jaenisch.
This year, Jaenisch’s lab was
among three that confirmed and advanced those findings. By activating a mere
four genes, you can turn a mouse skin cell back into a state that seems
indistinguishable from an embryonic stem cell.
Who knew?
As always, it’s anyone’s guess as
to which biomedical discoveries may trickle down to the clinic and when. But
for all of us, scientists and especially nonscientists, the surprises are just
beginning. We may see some results in clinics, and maybe even bookstores,
sooner than we expect.