Of Science, Golden Fleeces, and the Sex Drives of Starbucks Rats
I observe that there are a few William Proxmire fans populating this party. Since I am a working scientist, perhaps I might be permitted a few words in defense of my profession.
I'll get to Proxmire in a paragraph or three. But firstly, about those rats. If you missed the original post, it was a chuckle about a study, reported in some media outlet, I guess, about how female rats got hornier when given caffeine - and how is it that we can spend money on this stuff. Now, if you're interested, you can, for free, look up almost any scientific paper published in the last twenty years or so (when these things began to be put online) through Google Scholar or PubMed, a search engine provided by the National Library of Medicine.
A PubMed search on "caffeine female rats" turned up the study in question (Guarraci FA, Benson A. 2005. "Coffee, Tea and Me": Moderate doses of caffeine affect sexual behavior in female rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 82: 522-530.) Admittedly, the authors did not help their cause by quoting, in their title, a 1970s soft-core book and TV movie. I read through the summary ("abstract") describing their work, and noticed a word that, I guess, didn't make it to the media. The rats were "ovariectomized". Guys, begging your pardon, that's the female equivalent of having your balls cut off. The study is part of a larger effort to understand how the sex drive works in mammals (humans included), and how it might be restored to women after radical surgery, such as is required in cases of cervical or ovarian cancer. These cancers (and radical surgeries) are not rare. And in case you haven't noticed, the pharmaceutical companies made a Microsoft-load of money off restoring sexual function to males - or maybe your email isn't infected with 48 spams a day pushing ViiaqGRRRaa. Since I refused to pay $30 to a broker to read about work that I may have already paid for through my taxes, I didn't get to see who funded the study. But I wouldn't be surprised to see an acknowledgement to the likes of Pfizer.
Most science is like this; a lot of little pieces that, when one is taken out and stared at on its own - especially when you don't get to see all of it - looks incomprehensible, even stupid. The more complex and "mature" the science, the worse this gets. The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote, in the '60s, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Because, for all except those who make their professions at it, the steps needed to understand what you're doing are too many and too complicated. So most of us (me included) use the computer and hope for the best - and when the worst happens, we curse in helpless frustration and call Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs) a useless nerd. See what Isaac Asimov had to say about "tech-men" of the Galactic Empire in his early novel Foundation and Empire. Same principle holds for medical research, indeed for scientific research in all fields - dare I include "evolution"? :)
Proxmire (I told you we'd get to him eventually) proved to be very good at taking individual pieces of scientific research and holding them up on their own for scrutiny - and ridicule. His Golden Fleece awards, handed out monthly from 1975 to 1988, found obscure and meaningless-sounding research studies (not restricted to the sciences), often with "Coffee, Tea or Me" titles, and gave them a good public pounding. He was almost as bad for - and unfair to - science as his predecessor in the U. S. Senate, Joseph McCarthy, was with communists. To be fair, Proxmire was active at a time when the U. S. Government was in the habit of buying $160 hammers on government contracts, and he did much to shut this sort of nonsense down. But he also did much to ensure that the centers of scientific achievement in many fields are now in Europe and Asia, not America. See TRADE DEFICIT.
-O Ceallaigh
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Thanks for the update
Hey! Thanks for the heads up on the caffeine story. The article I read was very brief and did not go into to the intention of the study and how it was meant to help people. Anyway, I have no problem with scientists. I am an editor for a technical magazine where we publish the work of chemists in the rubber and plastics industries. I know that there is a lot of good research being done, but from the outside looking in, some of these studies seem a bit odd and even useless at times. At least the way it's presented makes it seem that way.
re: [of science] thanks for update
No worries, glad for the opportunity to spread the word. Maybe for my next blog on this topic, I'll write about how this stuff gets (mostly not) funded ...
from the outside looking in, some of these studies seem a bit odd and even useless at times.
Well, from my experience, the principal purpose of a science story (or any other) in the mass media is to make you laugh, cry, or get mad, because then you're more likely to keep using that media outlet, which then can sell more advertising. Hence the famous line: "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story." It's worse when the journalist doesn't understand the science - which is pretty close to "normal".
Not that I wasnt aware
I do understand that science is more big picture than small pieces. However, the bat genitalia story loses some of its humor, not unlike the horny female rat story here, when you just accept it as valuable.
Good post, though, Im glad you linked me over to it.
Later
re: not aware
Glad to have your comments. I hope I'm not being a killjoy, not my intention. However, there is a lot of "stupid science", "mad scientist" stuff out there these days, from the White House on down, science funding has taken big hits at least partly on account of it, and I am, er, professionally interested in counteracting all that, to the best of my ability.
Cheers.
As well you should be...
Actually I have a big problem with those who complain about something (I mean REALLY complain) and have no idea what they are talking about. Frankly, it makes me insane.
Killjoying (is that a word?...probably not, I don't think killjoy can be a verb, much less a gerund) aside, keep it up! I would much rather be reading your blog than doing my work (freelance writer) or my class work (back to school)
Later