by Andrew Goliszek
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| List Price: | $27.95 |
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| Lowest New Price: | $23.99 |
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Product Description
Science, as Andrew Goliszek proves in this compendious, chilling, and eye-opening book, has always had its dark side. Behind the bright promise of life-saving vaccines and life-enhancing technologies lies the true cost of the efforts to develop them. Knowledge has a price; often that price has been human suffering. The ethical limits governing use of the human body in experimentation have been breached, redefined, and breached again---from the moment the first plague-ridden corpse was heaved over the fortifications of a besieged medieval city to the use of cutting-edge gene therapy today.
Those limits are in constant need of redefinition, for the goals and the techniques have become both more refined and more secretive. The German and Japanese human experiments of the 1930s and 1940s horrified the world when they came to light. These barbaric exercises in pseudoscience grew out of assumptions of racial superiority. The subjects were deemed subhuman; ordinary guidelines could therefore be suspended. What has happened in the decades since World War II has differed only in degree. Explicitly or implicitly, any organization or government that undertakes or sponsors scientific research applies some measure of human worth. Experimentation rests upon an equation that balances suffering against gain, the good of the collective against the rights of the individual, and the risk of unknown consequences against the rewards of scientific discovery.
Everything depends upon who makes that equation. The sobering and gripping accumulation of evidence in this book proves exactly what has been justified in the name of science. The science of "eugenics" justified enforced sterilization. The need to gain an upper hand in the Cold War justified CIA experiments involving mind control and drugs. The desperate race to control nuclear proliferation was used to justify radiation experiments whose effects are still being felt today. Chemical warfare, gene therapy, molecular medicine: These subjects dominate headlines and even direct our government's foreign policy, yet the whole truth about the experimentation behind them has never been made public.
Though not a cheering book, In the Name of Science is a crucially important one, and it deserves a wide audience. A biologist by training, Goliszek presents each topic clearly and explains fully its significance and implications. Connecting the history of scientific experimentation through time with the topics that are likely to dominate the future, he has performed an invaluable service. No other book on the market provides the research included here, or presents it with such persuasive force.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
forbidden knowledge, 2005-12-17
From K-12 and onward and throughout popular media, science and technology are falsely equated with Progress, without consideration of their consequences. Another dilemma in these times is popular media and consumption of sensationalism. How then does one point out the horrors carried out in the name of science in such a situation? I think Goliszek determined sensationalism was the only way he could draw a reader in. Of COURSE it would be better to read the 20++ source texts, but then of course it would be nice to be rich enough and interested enough to have the time. Goliszek opens the door to the possibility of a critical engagement with the ethics of science - and draws in an audience that might not otherwise care. There are caveats in the book - but name me one that doesn't suffer from them. Unsurprisingly, the scientist (Goliszek) isn't the best author, as he probably hasn't spent much time studying composition. Some of the research I found to be problematic, but to reiterate, name me an author who isn't flawed when trying to cover all that is hidden, excluded and forbidden from public discourse. Given the ambitious nature of the book, it succeeds - we take the limits with the strengths and if we find something interesting great. If it sparks interest, good. If it sparks doubt, better for doubt and skepticism is the source of excellent intellectual inquiry.
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
 Rehash of few sources:a real injustice to real investigators, 2004-05-30
This is an extremely superficial book on medical experimentation. Most of his material could come
from Jay Katz's massive book on human experimentation that was published in 1972 or from summaries; anything since Katz are from selected other sources that are treated briefly. There is no original research here, very little analysis of human experiments, and the stealing and summarizing of
other peoples work. He ignores completely the four year long hearings of the Kennedy Sub-committee that led to the 1974-1979 examination of medical experiments. He also ignores completely much of the work of the Nationaol Commission of the 1990's. The Commission was primarily a whitewash of human experiments, but an analysis of the flaws, in light of reality, would have helped move this book a little way from the superficial treatment Goliszek gives us. Let me give a couple of examples. Goliszek talks about radiation experiments on humans by way of a summary of Eileen Welsome's book, The Plutonium Files; Welsome's book is a comprehensive treatment of parts of radiation experiments; the author ignores completely, however, the very detailed work of Martha Stephens, The Treatment, about radiation treatments in Cincinnati, Ohio
that is, like Welsome's, a model of how research should be carried out. Goliszek's treatment is a superficial treatment that is misleading because he presents material that has been known about, and analyzed rather than summarized as Goliszek does in his work, for 60 years or so. To really know what is happening, and has happened, in medical research, read the original researchs and analysis. Skip Goliszek altogether as a waste of time, and an impediment to a real understanding of medical experiments. One other point: Amazon oftens hypes a book such as Goliszek's to promote sales. This seems to be one of those cases.Thomas Patterson
Deming New Mexico
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Covers scientific side effects from early to modern times, 2004-05-03
Science has always had its dark side, always having a cost to the development of life-saving technologies and solutions to human problems. In The Name Of Science covers scientific side effects from early to modern times, covering everything from Medieval disease treatment to modern gene therapy. Ethics and social issues are considered in light of these revelations about discovery, experimentation, and science's side effects.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Controversial, Scary, Entertaining, and Enlightening, 2004-04-13
I can understand why people will either praise this book as a landmark work that everyone ought to read or criticize it because it includes a lot of information that makes us pretty darn uncomfortable with what we have done. Not surprisingly, the critics seem to not want to know or to not want to believe that we are still capable of such things. Very narrowminded. For those of us who truly want to know, In The Name of Science is a well-documented book that will send a chill up your spine. As one leading authority on Gulf War Syndrome and government activity has said, "It is the book I wish I had written . . . everyone in this country needs to read this book." I absolutely agree. Despite some naysayers who may find it too dark or too cynical, it should be required reading for anyone wishing to be enlightened as well as entertained.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
 I should have read the reviews on this one first!!!, 2004-04-07
Goliszek is among the crowd of authors racing to become the next Preston. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, few become that type of author. There is a huge difference between writing to educate, writing to expose illegal practices or bad practices on a journalistic basis, and writing to scare-monger. As one of the other reviewers indicate, this book is loaded to the gills not only with bad science, but bad writing and bad research. As someone who has spent the last few years reading everything and then some on eugenics, I have gotten a bit fuddy-duddy about my expectations from authors. Either they write so well that previous information gains my attention again, or they research so well that they find something else that other authors did not. Anything else tends to get yawns from me, and the book gets relegated to the scrap heap. Also, as someone who spent four years working on HIV in a lab and researching/studying it, it is not HELPFUL in disease awareness and education, when others, who know absolutely nothing about the disease and epidemiology of that disease offer their two cents worth based on conjecture, hearsay, and private opinion! This might be the only book that someone reads on this particular disease, and it provides the wrong information? Oh, great. Writers who have no background in science should not race to write about science without doing the research first. Scientists, who have no background in writing for the public, should not race to write without doing the research first. And scientists who write for science journals are not necessarily good writers. And scientists in one area, should never presume to know everything else about any other science! I would think that would be the first thing hammered into the heads of graduate students in science. There are very, very few Stephen Goulds, Robert Liftons, Stephen Pinker, and Prestons out there...those who try to join this elite group should get their facts straight, and take a few writing classes. The research was shoddy, even the chapter sequences made no sense. Ugh... Karen Sadler
Science Education/Bioethics & Disability
University of Pittsburgh
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