Science in Culture in Fact, the Miracle Is That Isogenic Ani- Mals Are As Similar As They Are

book reviews

know, the precise lineage details may signifi- cantly affect each individual’s prospects. Science in culture In fact, the miracle is that isogenic animals are as similar as they are. Developmen- Wozzeck, an opera by Alban Berg tal canalization is a very powerful force, based on the prophetic play by which becomes apparent when normal Georg Büchner development is perturbed by experiment or John Carmody mutation. A clone of animals carrying the Science is not the only aspect of human creativity same single deleterious mutation will some- that seeks to be experimental and prescient. This times exhibit startling variability in pheno- ought to be an enduring aspiration of art, too. type, while the parental line remains And opera — notwithstanding Dr Johnson’s conspicuously uniform. This uniformity is denigration of it as “an exotic and irrational the result of canalization: developmental entertainment” — has that capacity in full processes use many error-correcting devices, measure. Mostly, though, opera has neglected operating at every level from enzymes to science and trivialized medicine. But there is one whole organ systems, in order to create high- chilling exception, that twentieth-century ly invariant final structures. The book touch- masterpiece, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. It was based es on error-correcting mechanisms, but does on Georg Büchner’s prophetic play of 1835–37, a not treat them extensively, nor adequately work that was the more telling because it was consider what factors may limit their opera- loosely based on real events. tion. In some situations, as in the immune Büchner, the son of a Darmstadt doctor, system, chance may even be retained as a graduated in medicine in 1834 but was as selectively advantageous factor. dedicated to social and literary reform as to Conversely, there are all kinds of possible medicine: had he not died of typhus in 1837, epigenetic mechanisms that can turn an while a young lecturer in comparative anatomy in initial fluctuation into a long-lasting and Zürich, he may well have outstripped Goethe in even permanent change in the life of a cell or literary achievement. His Wozzeck (or Woyzeck, in an organism. Finch and Kirkwood refer the manuscript of the play) is the model of the briefly to the possible role of mitochondrial anti-hero we know so well in modern literature, variation as an epigenetic mechanism, but do the archetype of the hapless, poverty-stricken through weaponry and technology, but face to not explore other possibilities. Their timing is common man; in particular, he is exploited by face with people — the betrayal of medical and unfortunate, as they discuss the famous medical science. There is, therefore, a timeliness scientific trust in the horrible experiments of the cloned sheep Dolly without referring to the in the new production, under the illuminating Nazi era; the complicity of doctors in torture and recent demonstration that she has a different direction of Barrie Kosky, which has been at the murder (and not only in Germany, as Neil set of mitochondria from the udder cell that Sydney Opera House — we have, again, a vantage Bolton’s recent biography, The Good Listener — contributed her nuclear genome. point for reflection on the role of science and Helen Bamber: A Life Against Cruelty The book ends with various recommen- medicine in this century, our retrospect to [Weidenfeld & Nicolson], reminded us); the dations. One of these is that the familiar complement Büchner’s prospect. perfidy of medicine in the abuse of psychiatry for partitioning of phenotypic variance into one “We poor people,” Wozzeck laments to his so many years in the Soviet Union. It is no part attributed to genotype and one part to regimental captain. “If I had a hat, a watch and an exaggeration to say that they are all presaged in environment should be extended to include eyeglass ... I would be virtuous, too. Folk like us Büchner’s play; he was describing inhumanity to a third part attributed to chance. However, it are always unfortunate in this world.” come, abuse of hapless Everyman and will be a tall order to separate the contribu- Unfortunate, indeed for Wozzeck, forced by the Everywoman on an unprecedented scale. tions of environment and chance. Most biol- need to support his bastard child to participate in The extra twist in Wozzeck — and Berg’s ogists will be content simply to remember the town doctor’s bizarre dietetic experiments, to colourful, controlled music makes it more telling that ‘environment’ will always include some be the victim of a parvenu scientist who likens — is that the doctor’s parasitic indifference to the uncontrolled variables. Wozzeck to a lizard. The doctor is irritated that human values that ought to underpin science Much of the book’s remaining agenda this benighted Everyman — a mere experimental and medicine applies to the higher levels of his concerns general current research on devel- subject — is not strictly adhering to his unvaried society no less than to the common soldiers and opment and ageing. Perhaps their most diet of beans and, worse, urinates in the street their women. The doctor almost gloats at the salient point is to emphasize the importance rather than into the doctor’s collection flasks. prospect when he warns his friend, the captain, of very early developmental events, some of The doctor is hostile to the notion of an “You might well have an apoplexia cerebri them probably due to chance, in determin- individual nature. “Mere superstition. Have I not someday ... I can assure you that it will be a most ing the life-history traits of long-lived proved that the diaphragm is subject to the Will? interesting case. If God wills it, your tongue will animals such as humans. To this end, the Individuality is sublimated into freedom.” Have be partially paralysed and we’ll be able to do authors are keen to see the development of there been repeated echoes (from scientists and immortal experiments.” technologies for assessing variation in doctors) of that philosophy in our century? The In such a society — in our society, which organs such as ovary and prostate at birth, doctor, obsessed with his own importance — Büchner foresaw — every stratum exploits since these seem to have significant long- “Oh, my hypothesis! Oh, my fame!” — glibly whatever lies beneath it. If art — opera most term consequences for fertility and lifespan. redefines Wozzeck’s yearning to express his potently — seeks to “hold the mirror up to Overall, Chance, Development and Aging humanity as a psychiatric disorder, “an excellent nature”, Wozzeck should compel all of us contains much interesting material, but it aberratio mentalis partialis, second species”, and scientists to look deeply into that reflection of could have been distinctly better. I later he reveals himself to be equally callous with our true souls. I Jonathan Hodgkin is at the MRC Laboratory his patients. John Carmody is in the Faculty of Medicine, of Molecular Biology, MRC Centre, University Here we have an allegory of what science University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Medical School, Hills Road, Cambridge would do to our world, not in a detached way, Australia. CB2 2QH, UK.