Misplaced Nostalgia for a Bygone Era?

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Misplaced Nostalgia for a Bygone Era? book reviews improve their chances of being promiscuous federal government’s relationship with sci- and in response to adaptations in males. ence has shifted from benign and distant Some promiscuity is forced on females. delegation of authority to assertive micro- Competing bedbug males go as far as to management. Central to this change, he inject sperm through the female’s contends, was the erosion of a tacit ‘social abdominal wall in attempts to beat contract’ that had congenially bound the par- other males to her ova. Her ties since the Second World War. In the words response in the battle to gain con- of an unnamed government official, the con- trol is, it seems, to develop pads of tract provided that “the government will give tissue under the cuticle that look as scientists money to do what they want to do; if they absorb and kill the sperm. in return, scientists will try to work on things Finally, take the rove beetle, an otherwise that are going to be good for ... the people ordinary insect. The male inseminates the whose money they’re spending”. Mate now, female with a bag of sperm which, once However, “by the early 1980s”, says inside her body, extrudes a tube into her Guston, “the United States decided it could no meal later sperm store. The end of the tube expands into longer rely entirely on the scientific commu- Sex with a female preying mantis can end in a bulb, forcing out sperm from previous nity to have integrity and be productive all on death. From Food Chain: Encounters Between males. The bulb is then pierced by two ‘teeth’ its own. The political patrons found flaws in Mates, Predators, and Prey (Aperture, $29.95, that extrude from the female’s store, releasing the premises of the social contract for science.” £20), photographs by Catherine Chalmers. the new male’s sperm, a lovely story of co- Guston attributes the change to doubts adaptation between the sexes. that science was serving the nation’s econom- the egg, the reverse is not so clearly the case I have only two regrets about the book. ic needs, and to public revelations of scientific (although males can run out of sperm). One is that the index is so sparse, as seems to misconduct. The government responded Therefore, if a female mates with more than be the case for too many books nowadays. with measures to ensure scientific integrity one male, it will be to each male’s advantage The other is that, although human promis- and to encourage technology transfer from to inseminate more sperm than if the female cuity and its consequences are discussed, government-financed basic research. were monogamous. ‘human’ does not appear in the index, not Focusing on what he describes as a repre- The reason is simple. Fertilization is often even in the special index of animal species sentative segment of the science–govern- a lottery, and the males with the most tickets mentioned in the text. The omission is a pity. ment relationship, Guston observes that the (sperm) are most likely to win. Consequent- The book not only corrects some misappre- National Institutes of Health established an ly, in species in which females are especially hensions about human promiscuity, but is Office of Scientific Integrity and an Office of promiscuous, males have particularly large engagingly enough written for many readers Technology Transfer. Congress reserved a por- testes, which produce extremely high num- initially interested only in humans to carry tion of science budgets for the programme of bers of good-quality sperm: males of the on reading. Whole-animal biology needs Small Business Innovation Research. Other polyandrous chimpanzee have testes that are more appreciation than it receives, and measures provided money and incentives for 16 times the size of those of the far less where better a place to start than in an researchers to think commercially. promiscuous gorilla. expertly guided walk on the wilder side of Precursors of change, according to the And the story gets a lot more bizarre. The reproductive adaptations? I author, occurred in the early 1970s, when Con- copulating male redback spider places itself A. H. Harcourt is in the Department of gress and the Nixon White House actively sup- on the female’s jaws, and hence is eaten, Anthropology, University of California at Davis, ported applied research at the National Science apparently because, by becoming a meal, he Davis, California 95616, USA. Foundation. The big difference in the 1980s, prolongs copulation, extends the female’s Guston asserts, was a shift from macro- to delay in remating, and hence diminishes the micromanagement through the creation of chances of a rival mating with her. formal mechanisms at the boundary between Chemicals in fruitfly semen, some similar science and government, to ensure integrity to spider toxin, induce egg production in Misplaced nostalgia and technology transfer. The new environ- females, and delay subsequent mating with ment even “empowers whistle-blowers who another male. Probably as an unfortunate for a bygone era? can publicize information about the failures of side effect, they also reduce her lifespan. But Between Politics and Science: scientific integrity”. The government still trusts as long as she has bred by then, and she will Assuring the Productivity and the scientific community, Guston acknowl- have done, her shorter life is of no cost to the Integrity of Research edges, but the “boundary organizations” male. And in a lovely experiment to show by David H. Guston embody the principle of “trust but verify”. that the toxicity of the fruitfly’s semen is a Cambridge University Press: 2000. 213 pp. The tale as told is accurate, and the analysis competitive consequence of the female’s £35, $54.95 of the shifting relationship between patron and promiscuity, when females and males are Daniel S. Greenberg beneficiary persuasive. But, as a science-policy bred monogamously for a few generations, journalist who has continuously observed sci- the semen ceases to be toxic. Science in the United States has its own ence–government relations long before and It is a fruitfly that holds the record for legend of paradise lost, a descent from a long after the changes at the boundary two the longest sperm known. The fly itself halcyon era of political faith in the honesty decades ago, I find Guston imposes too much (Drosophila bifurca) is just 1.5 millimetres and productivity of science to a latter-day order on an amorphous landscape, that he con- long, a normal size for a fruitfly. But its sperm regime of distrustful oversight and utilitarian fuses congressional bombast and posturing is six centimetres long — yes, centimetres. demands. with tangible effects, and uncritically accepts The picture of the male fly surrounded by David Guston, assistant professor of pub- the mythology of a long-ago Eden in govern- several coils of its sperm is one of the more lic policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, ment dealings with science. memorable among a number of startling has produced a skilfully argued and provoca- In the context of an American economy pictures in the book. tive formulation of the American experience. that spends more than $225 billion a year on Females have evolved adaptations both to He postulates that, starting around 1980, the research and development, the few under- © 2000 Macmillan Magazines Ltd NATURE | VOL 406 | 6 JULY 2000 | www.nature.com 19 book reviews staffed, under-financed government outposts Sarah’s father, mathematics teacher set up to promote productivity and integrity David Flannery, plays the Henry Higgins to play scant roles in scientific affairs. Govern- Sarah’s Eliza Doolittle. The Flannery house- ment itself has receded to a junior partnership hold, rather ordinary by most standards, is in the research economy, providing about quite unusual in one way: the presence of a 25% of national R&D expenditures. large blackboard in the kitchen, on which The misconduct follies played out on Capi- Flannery senior would write challenging tol Hill in the 1980s — the so-called Baltimore mathematical puzzles for his children to case and the contention over Robert Gallo’s ponder. So, from the time she was a toddler, role in identifying the AIDS virus — were the Sarah was continually exposed to logical pet project of one powerful House member, thought processes and the thrill of discovery. John Dingell, and did not come from a ground- That’s one piece of the answer to her success, swell of political concern. Few other legislators a mathematically friendly home environ- Just follow the seemed interested in scientific misconduct. ment where the fact that she is a child and a After the Republicans took control of the Con- woman played no role in discouraging her instructions gress in 1995, misconduct disappeared from from developing a native talent for mathe- Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design the legislative agenda. It has reappeared with matical thinking. (Thames & Hudson/Stewart Tabori & Chang, the recent outbreak of concern over ethical As Sarah’s story continues, we find her £17.95/$29.95) by Paul Mijksenaar and Piet corner-cutting in gene-therapy trials. The taking educational enrichment courses Westendorp contains an assortment of visual Office of Research Integrity in the Depart- taught by her father at the local college. By instructions designed, with varying degrees of ment of Health and Human Services has been the account given in the book, these courses success, to help us get through the obstacle headed by an acting director since 1996 — are rather extraordinary in the way they chal- course that is everyday life. scarcely a sign of political approbation for its lenge the students to think through the logic work.
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