Reflections from an Interior World but in Breaking an Ideological Lock That Stephen Jay Gould Had Subtly Led Scientists to a Belief That Such Things Could Not Be Done

NATURE VOL. 320 17 APRIL 19c:..86=-----------SPRING BOOKS---------------------'64-' seded both conceptually and practically), Reflections from an interior world but in breaking an ideological lock that Stephen Jay Gould had subtly led scientists to a belief that such things could not be done. Many pre decessors had not tackled the subject of Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography. By Peter Medawar. organ and tissue transplantation because a Oxford University Press:1986. Pp.209. £12.50, $17.95. prevailing view of genetic inexorability (stronger in more class-conscious Britain WITH the honesty and irreverence that kindly to one "of Arabic extraction" than elsewhere) had implied that a per have long been his trademarks, Peter (Medawar's father was Lebanese, his son's intrinsic construction could not be so Medawar begins his autobiography with mother English; he quotes a friend of simi compromised by accepting foreign bits three quotations, one his own, explaining lar "extraction" who said: "I can't bear into a working machinery. Medawar why the lives of scientists make such that expression, it makes you sound like writes: "Some people had maintained that dreadful reading. Choosing his own ver some kind of gum".) In this section on his this was in principle impossible, since sub sion from Pluto's Republic: early life, Medawar first gives vent to a stances that provoke the normal rejection central theme ofthis book (so identified in reaction are part of the genetic make-up, The lives of scientists, considered as Lives, his introduction): that Britain's greatness something that could no more be changed almost always make dull reading .... It could hardly be otherwise. Academics can only sel has been sapped not by loss of empire or than one's blood group". And he con- dom lead lives that are spacious or exciting in a worldly sense .... Their work is in no way made deeper or more cogent by privation, distress, or worldly buffetings .... Academics lie outside the devastation area of the literary convention according to which the lives of artists and men of letters are intrinsically interesting, a source of cultural insight in themselves. If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility. Medawar's brave attempt in the light of his own strictures does, as he would readi ly admit, encounter these intrinsic prob lems of the genre. His life, as he describes Three generations of Oxford teachers - members of the Theoretical Biology Club at Magdalen it, has the continual interior excitement College in 1946. (From left to right) Francis Huxley, l.H. Woodger, Hans Motz, Karl Popper, that is God's greatest gift to productive 1.Z. Young, Peter MedawarandAvrion Mitchison. intellectuals, but not the exterior oomph other worldly things, but by the internal cludes, "the ultimate importance of the that provides the stuff of good cinema. intolerance and petty narrow-mindedness discovery of tolerance turned out to be not Moreover, where he has learned or ex of its ruling elites, a condition that he calls practical, but moral. It put new heart into perienced (as we all have) private items of "snobismus", or simply "the English dis the many biologists and surgeons who greater import or taller tales, he has the ease". were working to make it possible to graft, unfailing decency to maintain both the We then follow Medawar's career from for example, kidneys from one person to trust and privacy of these knowledges. Oxford, where he showed brilliance and another". The central problem of autobiography is general commitment to matters intellec Medawar has managed to transcend the not confined to scientists: no person of tual, but only found his specific path with limitations of autobiography by lacing his integrity can possibly write with full dis in science by probing, and trial and error; ordinary and largely anecdotal account closure, particularly for what we know of to years of fruitful research and stew with three saving graces. others (no matter how open we choose to ardship of several academic and medical First, he has provided practical exam be about ourselves). institutes (I had known of Medawar's ples from his career to illustrate the impor Thus, one might say, at a superficial seminal contributions to biological think tant themes that he has emphasized in his reading, that Medawar is hoist by his own ing, but not of his skills at, indeed strong famous essays (see Pluto's Republic, The petard. (1 confess that I haven't the slight fondness for, tasks of administration that I Uniqueness of the Individual, Advice to a est idea what a petard is, but the phrase would find onerous or soul-destroying, Young Scientist). Medawar has shown, in has such a nice ring. Update: I just looked but that he managed to invest with creativ these essays, how the conventional style of it up - 1 always supposed it was a kind of ity); to his current life , after a serious scientific writing misconstrues, even falsi tie; but it's an instrument of war, an explo stroke made hench-top laboratory work fies, the actual doing of science - a vital sive battering ram.) So hoist he is, but for impossible, as a writer and director of re point for public communication since it is one transcendent matter: Peter Medawar search (and, in my view, as the biological the procedures and methodology of scien is so fine a writer (the world's best among guru of our age) . ce, much more than its content, that non scientists), so full of wisdom and insight, 1 particularly appreciated his candid de scientists so desperately misunderstand. that he has been able to compose the very scriptions and thoughtful generalizations The epitomized logic of inductivist best example of what may be, by his own about his primary work in immunology, accounts - from introduction, to mate admission, a deeply flawed genre. especially his discovery of acquired im rials and methods, results and conclusions His Memoir of a Thinking Radish pro munological tolerance (the practical basis - omits the basic human dimensions of ceeds conventionally. (His odd , quintes for techniques of grafting and transplant hypothesis, confusion, error and collegial sentially Medawarian title, is a deliciously that have saved and extended so many ity. The false starts are in the wastebasket, oxymoronic cut-and-paste job of Falstaff's human lives), and for which he and Mac not the Science Citation Index. By focus and Pascal's epitomes for the human con farlane Burnet shared the Nobel Prize for ing his text on the frustrations, the errors dition .) We learn of his misery tempered Medicine and Physiology in 1960. Meda and the bullheaded approaches, until with good humour as a lonely boy at snob war emphasizes that the importance of kicked in the pants by data or good advice by public school (prep for American read these studies lay not so much in the speci from colleagues with other perspectives, ers), where well-bred boys did not take fics (for much of the work has been super- Medawar has illustrated his favourite © 1986 Nature Publishing Group 64::..:.:8=-------------------SPRINGBOOKS NATURE VOL. 320 17 APRIL 1986 themes by honestly discussing his own ent species of Drosophila may be greater work. Resonance through than that between the genome of human Second, no one can match Medawar for beings and the chimpanzee, shake their verbal wit and dexterity; the bon mot on the editions heads in disbelief at the prospect that the every second page compensates for any fohn Maddox process of differentiation will ever be uninspired conventionality elsewhere. understood, assert (accurately, no doubt, Where else can we learn so well about the but pointlessly) that there is no prospect dangers of Bible-reading for young chil A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of of a "mechanistic" explanation of para dren, the insipidity of American football Formative Causation (A New Edition). psychology - and plump instead for a or problems of defecation in a public By Rupert Sheldrake. Anthony Blond, theory which can account for everything, school that instilled fortitude (and prob London: 1985. Pp. 278. Pbk £8. 95. but at the cost of explaining nothing. So ably thought it inhibited homosexuality) long as these morphogenetic fields have by refusing to install doors in the lavator THOSE who review books are often faced not been measured or otherwise de ies: "This circumstance so offended the with the task of dealing with books with scribed, their all-pervasive utility in the out merit; wise review editors advise that communication of form is merely a way of the appropriate treatment for them is no making accidents so generally repro treatment at all, for even a scornful review ducible that they become the rule. of a second-rate work may seem like an This is elementary textbook stuff. advertisement for it. But what should be Sheldrake's thesis as it stands is merely a done about books that are worse than simulacrum of a theory in the sense of an that, those that are perverse? Such docu explanation, but for which Sheldrake ments are often designed to captivate claims support from Thomas Kuhn's opinion, and there is a case for denounc innocent observation (in his valuable ing them. But one should tread carefully. book On Scientific Revolutions) that That, at least, is this journal's experience people tend to resist the overthrowing of with Dr Rupert Sheldrake's book A New old "paradigms". Sheldrake takes this to Science of Life, first published in 1981 and be a licence for discarding any paradigm discussed in a leading article on 24 Sep that comes to hand.

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