Science in a Humbler State
At the end of 2000, science was swollen with the self-importance of a century that ended with the remarkable mapping of the chemical codes that make up human DNA. Old scourges such as cancer suddenly seemed conquerable.
By contrast, 2003 is likely to be remembered as the year when science came back to earth.
To be sure, last year saw plenty of good research and discovery. Look no further than a paper published today in the British journal Nature. It offers tantalizing evidence that a human skull and jawbones recently found in China -- the oldest well-preserved primate fossil ever discovered -- may mean that remote human ancestors originated not in Africa but in Asia.
However, the year was inarguably framed more by setbacks than achievements. The disappointments were symbolized by the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia in February and by the swooning of a reproduction of the Wright brothers’ first airplane into a mud puddle in December. Americans may have set foot on the moon more than three decades earlier, but they had not yet mastered safe and cost-effective ways of leaving Earth.
Most of the year’s discoveries were not mind-bending new revelations but rather modest, incremental bits of progress.
For instance, the second most important discovery listed for the year by Science magazine was the announcement by scientists in Melbourne, Australia, that a particular genetic variation can increase people’s risk of depression under certain types of stress. It became clear in 2003 that merely possessing a map of the chemical sequences in human DNA was not magically empowering. Without knowledge of how those genes interact with their environments, scientists are left struggling for their bearings, much like an ancient mariner with a treasure map of an island in a sea that had not yet been discovered.
As Science magazine Editor Donald Kennedy recently admitted, 2003 was also “a vintage year for scientific fluffs.” He added, “We shared in one: Some vials containing the drug Ecstasy got switched with vials containing methamphetamine, and we wound up publishing a paper we wish we hadn’t” on the supposed effects of Ecstasy.
A series by Times reporter David Willman forced at least some legislators to confront the depressing fact that U.S. scientific research was plagued by problems deeper than the screw-ups of a single lab technician. Willman showed how the National Institutes of Health had become an arm of commerce, a place where objective science was being trampled by a stampede to cut lucrative deals with drug companies.
Equally profound problems afflicted technology in 2003, the worst year ever for computer worms and viruses. When the SoBig worm in August became the fastest-spreading PC germ in history, for instance, reports initially pinned the blame on technological terrorists. The real culprits turned out to be more mundane but perhaps more alarming: spammers. SoBig had been engineered by junk e-mailers hoping to make a buck by turning infected computers into portals for sending out advertisements.
Even what the editors of Science, as well as most other science journalists, identified as the year’s single most significant discovery serves as a reminder of how little we know about the cosmos we live in. Cleverly discovered new evidence indicates that 96% of the universe is composed of “dark matter” and “dark energy” that we cannot see and do not understand.
Finally, 2003 saw a welcome acknowledgment of widespread public concern that not only the space shuttle but the conduct of science itself might be careening out of control. That troubling possibility was broached in an eloquent report released in October by the White House. Written principally by Leon Kass, the chairman of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, the report posed a series of provocative questions.
Describing new techniques to test early human embryos for the presence or absence of many genes, it asks, “Shall we use these techniques only to prevent disease or also to try to get us ‘better’ children?” Noting that psychiatric drugs are increasingly used to alter mental life, it wonders, “Should we use them only to prevent or treat mental illness or also to blunt painful memories of shameful behavior, transform a melancholic temperament or ease the sorrows of mourning?”
Kass doesn’t answer these questions. That’s wise, because quick resolutions to the thorny ethical dilemmas posed by science tend to be more hindrance than help. Take, for example, the bill reintroduced last year by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), which would ban not only morally reprehensible technology (cloning for human reproduction) but also the use of embryonic stem cells to cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Complex as those dilemmas may be, there’s no ignoring them. In the end, what 2003 teaches is that science needs not only brilliant discoveries but skilled, subtle social direction too.
