Falsehood flies and the truth comes lingering after, so that
when men come to be undeceived the jest is over and the tale has had its
effect. — Jonathan Swift
In a classic example of life imitating art, Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk
fraudulently claimed that he had successfully cloned human embryos and
developed lines of stem cells from those embryos. Was it the social and
financial pressure to produce results that led him to make this series of
career-ending compromises? How did he succeed in his deception for as long
as he did? Where was the scientific community to enforce accountability? And
what should the legal ramifications be for misusing limited public funding
for one’s own potential glory?
Jewish American novelist Allegra Goodman was already delving deep into such
issues before this scandal broke in January 2006. In her most recent novel
Intuition, Goodman offers an unflinching look at the strengths and
weaknesses of a diverse cast of characters as they confront the real-life
pressures inherent in scientific research today. Goodman weaves a host of
themes throughout the progression of her narrative, including the role of
perception in defining reality; competing epistemologies; and the place of
individual recognition and achievement in a collective atmosphere.
Setting the story in Cambridge, MA, Goodman employs rich details as only a
native could. Her deliberate imagery choices and ability to show through
precise detail, rather than tell through abstractions, reveals her
effectiveness as a writer. Goodman’s wry observations and understated humor
throughout are reminiscent of Jane Austen (indeed the one-word title was a
nod to Austen’s novel Persuasion). Although her third-person omniscient
narration occasionally borders on the heavy-handed, overall Goodman’s
dialogue and characters ring true. If her large vocabulary and numerous
literary references sometimes seem pretentious, perhaps the effect is
understandable given the somewhat rarefied and elitist setting of the story.
The Story Begins
With the same characteristic conservatism and Jewish background as her
namesake, lab director Marion Mendelssohn is responsible for overseeing her
post-doc researchers with fellow director “Sandy” Glass at the financially
challenged Philpott Institute, located literally and figuratively in the
shadow of Harvard (Dr. Glass was originally Sam Glazeroff after his Eastern
European Jewish grandparents, but as appearances were of “substantive
importance to him,” he jettisoned such unwieldy heritage).
As they face dwindling grant monies and ongoing failures in the lab, the
directors and post-docs all long for success. Bright and talented Cliff, his
patient girlfriend Robin, pessimistic but knowledgeable Feng, and their
colleagues Aidan, Prithwish, and Natalya, could all stand to benefit from
more promising results. So when Feng discovers that Cliff’s R-7 virus
appears to be shrinking cancerous tumors in the lab mice, a rapid chain of
events is set off.
The somewhat unscrupulous Sandy Glass seizes upon the apparent effectiveness
of the R-7 virus as the means to escape likely financial ruin, and he
persuades Marion against her better judgment to use Cliff’s preliminary
results in a grant proposal to the National Institute of Health (NIH). The
rush to duplicate Cliff’s successful experiments begins in earnest, and
Sandy capitalizes on the power of the press to spread the good word.
Meanwhile, back at the lab, Robin finds that none of her R-7 experiments are
working; diligent though she is, the cancer tumors are not disappearing.
Enter Jacob Mendelssohn, Marion’s loyal child-prodigy husband. As Robin
confesses her difficulties to him and internalizes her unsuccessful
experiments as personal failures, Jacob insinuates that perhaps the trouble
is with Cliff’s seemingly too-good-to-be-true results, rather than any fault
of hers. Thus begins Robin’s painful quest for the truth.
Perception and Reality
Permeating the novel is the haunting question, “Under what circumstances can
we and should we trust our intuition?”
Initially Robin wrestles about whether or not to contact the Office of
Research Integrity in Science, or ORIS, but eventually she realizes that
“her intuition told her Cliff had cheated.” The courage to rely upon her
intuition, however, is significant, given that in the lab, intuition was
considered “a restricted substance” because “like imagination and emotion,
intuition mislead researchers, leading to willful interpretations.”
After gathering sufficient evidence that Cliff was not entirely honest in
his data reporting, events begin to move beyond Robin’s control as she
enlists the help of investigators at ORIS. While Robin only meant to accuse
Cliff, she is soon confronted with a barrage of questions: “Was one small
set of untruths really so telling? Did the fault lines in Cliff’s work
really extend so far? She did not want to think that way. But then how else
could scientific liars prosper, except with the tacit consent of the
community around them—a heedless will to believe, on the part of peers,
collaborators and mentors alike?”
This predisposition to “see what we want to see” is highlighted brilliantly
in the initial academic hearing in which Robin makes her case and Cliff
defends himself in front of a panel of scholars. After Robin steadily builds
a convincing argument, using scientific methods to prove her intuitive
assertions, Cliff is given the floor: “And Robin watched the meeting slip
away. Her graphs lay forgotten on the table. She had spoken well, but Cliff
spoke better. He had the more compelling argument, because his results were
beautiful.” Cliff’s presentation is described as “a scientific argument so
natural, so compelling and intuitive, that everyone in the room seemed to
relax” (emphasis mine).
Clearly what constitutes “intuitive” depends upon what the intuition is
based. Previous experience, present circumstances, and one’s ideals and
underlying motives are critical in determining what strikes one as
intuitive.
As Clark and Poortenga note in The Story of Ethics, “Copernicus, the
intellectual prime mover of the scientific revolution, cautioned that
appearance is not always reality, and also that common sense and sense
reality are not always reliable guides to comprehending the world.”
The powerful role of perception in determining reality is dramatically
highlighted as the investigation continues. Marion begins to question
herself and wonders if “circumstances were distorting her perspective.” She
suggests to Feng that perhaps Cliff’s early work was rushed. When the
generally trustworthy Feng does little to confirm her suspicions, Marion
interprets his silence as proof of Cliff’s integrity (as if to underscore
the unreliability of interpretation, several scenes later Marion misreads
another of Feng’s silences). A strong bias towards belief, motivated by the
desire to gain public recognition, save the lab, and avoid the public shame
of a retraction, overwhelms Marion’s rationality—a post-modern reminder that
human scientists are incapable of complete objectivity.
When Marion finally confronts Cliff about his record-keeping procedures, the
power of his self-delusion is evident: “Perhaps his work with R-7 had been
more about ideas than concrete facts; perhaps his finds had been intuitive
rather than entirely empirical . . .”
Ways of Knowing
In fact, fundamental epistemological approaches compete throughout the
novel. The characters often champion the rational scientific “masculine”
approach above the more emotional humanistic “feminine” ways of knowing.
When Robin first presents her case about Cliff to Marion, Robin is dismissed
because she has allowed her emotions to come to the fore. Marion sees her as
hysterical, obsessed, and unreasonable, although Robin has just asked a
series of entirely valid probing questions.
Clearly partial to the power of literature, Cliff timidly asks Sandy and
Marion if he might add the Shakespearean epigraph “What’s your dark meaning,
mouse?” to the journal article on R-7, just as a professor he admired used
to do. Sandy first laughs at Cliff’s suggestion, but he softens a bit when
Cliff mentions that it was Sandy’s daughter Kate who found the epigraph for
him. Ultimately, however, Sandy declares, “We never use epigraphs.”
Why should literature and science be construed as mutually exclusive? Why is
literature so often perceived as a second-class citizen? Are we such a
pragmatic, Enlightenment-based efficiency-worshipping culture that we would
so boldly deny our capacity and longing for mystery and wonder?
Being Known in a Collective World
One longing that drives all the main characters of Intuition is a desire for
individual recognition and a sense of individual accomplishment. Within the
collective mindset of the laboratory, each person is expected to contribute
to the greater whole without looking for personal affirmation.
Yet all of us long for our lives to mean something, to count, and Sandy,
Marion, Cliff, Robin and Feng are no exception. Perhaps the rigid emphasis
on collective achievement in the lab to the exclusion of personal
acknowledgement is what predisposes the characters to problems, whether it
be entering into unhealthy relationships, obsessing Captain Ahab-like over
the white whale of success, or rushing headlong into a pursuit for glory
despite well-founded misgivings.
Conclusion
At the conclusion of the novel, readers are left with a realistic but less
than encouraging picture of the ability of the legal system to mediate
justice in scientific investigations.
While this may strike some as unsatisfactory, another view might suggest
that perhaps what’s important is not so much how the bioethical issues have
been resolved, but rather how those issues have affected the growth of each
of the principal characters.
Similarly, as we engage with the challenging and complex ethical dilemmas
before us, we open ourselves up to the possibility not only of being used as
agents of transformation, but of ourselves being similarly
transformed. CBHD
Copyright 2006 by The Center for Bioethics and Human
Dignity
The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
CBHD, its staff, board or supporters. Permission to reprint granted as long as The Center for Bioethics and
Human Dignity and the web address for this article is referenced.
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