Undignified science: well-intentioned research often takes unseemly turns

Science News, Dec 20, 2003 by Bruce Bower

There's an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. Here's a related bit of sadomasochistic wisdom: No research finding, good or not, goes public without eventually yielding unforeseen consequences that leave researchers either shaking their heads or spinning in their graves. This investigational-degenerative process has a long, colorful history. Alexander Graham Bell would have rung up his lawyer in 1876 if told that his cherished telephone would morph into a portable device for pestering innocent bystanders with the owner's private reports on what subway station he or she is entering. As if that's not enough, consider two hellish words that never occurred to Pa Bell: dinnertime telemarketing.

Or take the sad case of Thomas Edison. After cranking up the first phonograph in 1877, the great inventor must have had goose bumps as he envisioned soul-enriching music wafting through the nation's parlors and salons. Well, you got conned, Edison. Make way for cars, decorated in painted flames and Playboy mud flaps, that cruise the streets playing Eminem CDs loud enough to drown out passing ambulances.

Then there are poor James Watson and Francis Crick. They identified the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 but forgot to patent it. These days, any competent scientist would try to corner the market on our genetic heritage. Well, it's too late. A gaggle of biotech entrepreneurs are grabbing the equivalent of the genome's Boardwalk and Park Place cards and preparing to collect what's owed them. Hey, Watson and Crick. Do not pass Go. Do not collect--oh, never mind.

The list of scientific advances later taken down a notch or two is longer than the faces of all those scientists unjustly passed over yet again by the Nobel prize committee. Rather than dwell on past misfortunes, though, let's look to the future. There's big fun in speculating about the unexpected affronts that will plague this year's research findings.

Remember, the following indignities are futuristic fantasies. They probably err on the conservative side.

FINDING: Tougher IQ tests are devised every 15 to 20 years to counteract the constant rise in average IQ scores, but in their first few years of use, the new tests pull many children from just above to just below the IQ-point cutoff for mental retardation. This effect wreaks havoc on public schools' special education programs.

INDIGNITY: Jennifer L. Slocumb, a struggling mother of three and freelance spot welder, sues Mensa in 2010 when the high-IQ society rejects her membership application after she scores only 148 on a revamped IQ test. "There's people in Mensa right now who'd score below me on the new test; Slocumb explains to a Court TV reporter. "Those effete brainiacs are gonna pay for their hubris. And hubris doesn't come cheap."

Marilyn Vos Savant, possessor of the world's highest IQ, counsels Slocumb to drop her suit and bide her time. "Mensa has to draw the line somewhere," Vos Savant remarks. "Jennifer just needs to retake the test in 12 or 13 years, when people of merely above-average intelligence can ace that bad boy."

FINDING: Monkeys learned to control a mechanical arm with their minds, thanks to wires implanted in their brains that transmit electrical signals to a computer. The discovery may lead to brain implants that enable paralyzed people to control artificial limbs.

INDIGNITY: After weathering a bitter baseball players' strike in 2015, baseball commissioner George Steinbrenner comes up with a marketing plan to reinvigorate the national pastime. Steinbrenner's scheme: Install robotic umpires at all ballparks and sell official Major League Baseball brain implants to season ticket holders. After each pitch, fans with electrical transmitters lodged in their frontal lobes mentally duke it out to control the umpire's arms and voice. Was that last pitch a strike? Was the runner out at home? A summation of brain responses from at least 1,000 onlookers yields a final call. Fearing that their home games will grind to a halt, team owners in Detroit and Florida immediately request a system that functions on the brain activity of no more than 500 people.

FINDING: Chinese scientists say that they are growing massive fruits and vegetables from seeds sent into space on rockets, retrieved when the rockets return to Earth, and then planted at a research facility. The superproduce includes tomatoes as big as softballs and volleyball-size eggplants. A Chinese company plans to market 280 varieties of space seeds.

INDIGNITY: Chinese food stockpiles grow at an unprecedented rate until, in 2041, giant mutant fruits and veggies block Beijing's streets and clog paths and rice fields in the countryside. The government decrees that families with fewer than 10 mouths to feed "will suffer the consequences." The United States and England agree to airlift Chinas enormous edibles to deserted parts of Siberia. "It's not like we're dumping rubbish in someone's backyard for perpetuity," says U.K. Royal Air Force Commander Reginald Skowcroft, director of the airlift. "This oversize space produce is thoroughly biodegradable."