The "Mad Scientist" frame and the stem cell vote

by emptypockets

This is Kate. She is the niece of dailykos user noweasels (who gave me permission to share her story and photo here). Kate has juvenile diabetes, and hopes stem cell research will someday fix that.

What I think is great about Kate is, here's this teenager who understands science is a force for good. That's clear to her, because she knows she would have died as an infant without it. She comes skin-to-needle with science every day.

Unfortunately most adults don't get that. In particular, 174 Representatives in the U.S. House showed yesterday that they still don't get what Kate has understood for years. They've been duped by a pernicious frame: that "Mad Scientists" are running amok.

I'll have more to say on the stem cell vote in a later post. For now, I'll just note that its function was to see where we stand in the new Congress, and we find we're about where I thought we'd be: a handful of votes have flipped, but we need another 24 or so. In the coming Senate debate, keep an eye on whether Bob Casey can lead the anti-abortionists out of the woods.

The reason we haven't won yet on stem cells is the same reason we're still struggling on global warming, on evolution teaching, and on funding the NIH. A large chunk of the public simply doesn't trust scientists. They see them as something like evil wizards, meddling with nature.

What are we going to do about it? Well, first, let's take a quick trip back to about 1975 -- back before Kate could have gotten human insulin. Scientists had just begun to figure out how to isolate certain kinds of DNA and transfer them to bacteria. One key experiment that was planned was to transfer DNA sequences from a monkey virus into bacteria. Suddenly an alarm was raised: Was this really such a good idea? Might it be dangerous?

Following letters to the major journals and scientific symposia devoted to the new technology, the leading researcher Paul Berg summarized the sense of the community in a letter to the National Academy of Sciences:

Paul Berg: Concerned people raised a big heckle about whether I was doing an experiment that was radically dangerous and jeopardizing the safety and health of people around me. That was the first experiment with recombinant DNA. Right away, I was on the offensive because I had never perceived that the experiment had any great risk. In the end, I got very much involved in trying to respond to that. Some of the experiments we wanted to do were the ones that people objected to. We decided to just defer them for the moment.

How things have changed. No longer do scientists get to decide for themselves when to raise an alarm. Now, alarms are sounded by political groups bent on pushing an ideological agenda and skilled at using the media as their megaphone. No longer are the concerns focused on legitimate affairs like safety. Now, the accusations are that scientists play God, cross religious boundaries. That scientists deny the Biblical account of creation. That they "murder" a bundle of 32 cells the President thinks has a soul. That they are evil wizards. "Mad scientists."

This frame is cunningly deployed by extremist anti-research groups. Their standard procedure is to find some research the public is unlikely to understand, lie about its purpose and possible effects, hire their own "experts" to warn of its dangers, and spread this story in the traditional media. Often they attack basic research, which is easier to lie about because it is not aimed at curing a major disease but at understanding fundamental principles in biology -- like the work on how the ends of chromosomes are copied in pond scum or how impurities in a lab reaction can turn off specific genes that were awarded last year's Lasker award and Nobel prize, respectively. Who wouldn't think a scientist was crazy who was peering into pond scum? Who wouldn't think a scientist was dangerous who could flip any gene -- perhaps your genes, or your baby's genes! -- on and off like a switch?

We saw this in action just the other week. An article was run in the UK's Sunday Times reporting that a scientist in Oregon had cured homosexuality by cutting open the brains of sheep and attaching electronic sensors and injecting their brains with hormones -- and he was now going to cure gayness in humans. As I debunked at length, this research has not altered sexuality in sheep, does not involve cutting open their brains or giving hormone injections, and most importantly has nothing to do with curing gayness in humans. It is basic research designed to understand how hormones control brain development and behavior -- something Kate would understand, since she knows how strongly insulin affects her mood and metabolism.

Nevertheless, the frame was set and readers on blogs across the world swallowed it whole: "mad scientists" are trying to cure gayness. Within a week, conservative columnist Mark Steyn was writing in the Chicago Sun-Times that scientists had developed a skin patch that would "straighten" gay sheep and were set to use it in humans -- not to mention that they could detect gayness in the womb, and we would soon see thousands of gay abortions. And the most amazing thing is, people believed it.

Those people now had a frame in their heads, and when they hear "research" they don't think of Kate's insulin -- they think "mad scientist." A mad scientist who might clone humans with stem cells, who would not hesitate to destroy human life. Who would lie about global warming, who would lie about evolution. A scientist as just another player in a big political game. All of which is just what PETA wanted them to think when they planted the "gay sheep" lie to begin with.

How would those people react today if they heard scientists were going to put DNA sequences from a monkey virus into bacteria? (I'll give you a hint: "GMO" is the modern industrial term for the "recombinant DNA" that Berg helped invent.) And whatever happened to Berg's original recombinant DNA, the ability to put human DNA sequences into bacteria? It's still being used today. It's how Kate gets her insulin.

Today, a scientist doing basic research like Berg's, like Roselli's, can easily be framed as a "mad scientist." The public loves the evil wizard fable, and it sells newspapers, as the Sunday Times knew. The research, from recombinant DNA to stem cell therapy to Roselli's hormone work, is too complicated to easily explain to the public, and thus is difficult to defend. The frame sticks. And when it comes time to vote on whether the President should be able to unilaterally block a major and potentially powerful field of research, 174 U.S. Representatives say it's all right to block it. Someone's got to stop those "mad scientists," after all.

The stem cell issue has gotten a lot of play lately. It's proven a great political wedge for separating the religious Right from the American mainstream. And many of you have worked hard to get stem cell bills passed and to elect pro-research candidates. You've done it because it's politically effective and because you want to help people like Kate whose lives may be changed by stem cell research.

I'm going to ask you now to start doing something else. Something that may seem unimportant but that I think is critical to winning in our struggle for stem cells, for global warming protection, for good science teaching. I'm going to ask you to actively watch the media for "mad scientist" stories and to actively debunk them. Here's what you do:

1. Read news reports on science with skepticism. Ask yourself, "When was this research published and was it in a major journal (Science, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association)?" If a story is making a bigger splash in the popular press than it made in the scientific community, something is fishy.

2. Learn about the science yourself by using google, by looking at the scientists' homepage, by emailing their university's Department of Public Affairs, or by emailing me for help at [email protected]

3. If something is wrong, post a diary on it. Hold the media to account. And, most importantly, use tools like Blogsearch to find blogs that are echoing the distortion, and use the comments to set them straight.

That's it. Three steps. It's almost too easy.

It doesn't have the glamour or buzz of fighting for stem cell research on the front lines. But this is 50-state-style politics. This is investing in infrastructure. Because even if we win on stem cells, we will still have to fight on global warming. And evolution. And NIH funding. And tomorrow's research battle, that is still being worked out in a lab somewhere today. We can fight each of these one at a time, on its own terms -- but our path will be easier if we defeat the "mad scientist" frame from the get-go. And that's something any blogger can do.

I'm asking you to actively join in this campaign. I'll be keeping an eye on new appearances of the frame -- I really encourage you to follow the links to the "gay sheep" story, which is very much still unfolding as I write, with more new blog postings than I can keep up with -- and I hope some of you will take the side of defending not only stem cells but science (and scientists) in general. So that scientists can do good for people like Kate.

Comments

[oldtree]

I have a child this age with type 1 as well. I personally am at the point of moral war with the idiots that prevent science from trying to help her. Anyone that tries to prevent things from happening because of their religious beliefs is a moron and my mortal enemy. An absolute detriment to the life on this planet. We have 90% of the people on this planet that are unable to grasp that life is about living, that it has some other fantasy that accompanies it. The ones that need to go are those that put their idiotic religion first and science second.
I appeal to you that don't believe in science. Please, do away with yourselves. If you are religious, test your theory! Enjoy life without telling others how to live theirs, or go. Your beliefs have caused enough people to die needlessly all ready. You support the roadblock to human evolution, for you are it.
sorry, but this post allows me to vent a bit over something that I have had to explain to my child. It is very difficult to explain anything to anyone that denies reason. When someone uses religion to make such an explanation, they are causing harm beyond their knowledge. Their knowledge is clearly lacking to begin with, but why do they deny people that want to help? Why is our government asking people to reproduce without end or reason, but won't allow us to help those alive

no, we are a race that is doomed to fail, for our values are distorted beyond all belief. we hear talk about values, and those values are words not actions. To those of you that have values, use them. For when we can have intelligence and science valued, religion will disappear. It has no place in a world without fear.

[Sally]

I think it's more than the naysayers' stupidity. Cures for diabetes, cancer, and such would cut off the huge flow of money that goes to the people who profit from treating such illnesses.

[emptypockets]

The anti-corporate ethos on the left often bleeds over into this kind of conspiracy theory. It's wrong.

[P J Evans]

Lack of decent-quality science education.
Churches that preach that the Bible must be, can only be, taken literally.
And a government run by people who can't or won't think.

Q. What is the difference between a blastocyst being used for stem cell research and a blastocyst being 'disposed of'? A. The one being used for research will improve someone's life, even if indirectly.
Maybe putting it this way will get through a bit faster.

It migth also help if people who are against stem cell research are told, plainly and in public, that their opinions are pretty worthless if they aren't willing to adopt all those 'human beings' they keep talking about, and either keep them frozen (at their own cost) or have them implanted and brought to term (in a member of their own family, and at their own cost).

Yeah, I'm a bit unhappy with them.

[Mimikatz]

'Pockets: The Left has fed into this as well. Think Jeremy Rifkin. (Maybe you did; I just had time to skim.) Many environmental orgs play up threats to get more adherents and money; sometimes their science is dubious as well. OTOH, some scientists took a somewhat arrogant attitude in the past that people with the temerity to ask questions were yokels who didn;t deserve the time of day. And, of course, there were things like the A and H-bomb, crazy experiments in WWII and the Cold War, etc. Plenty to go around here.

I think we, as you say, all need to step back here in light of what we know now about the ignorance of a great swath of the public and the boomerang effect of much of the tactics of the past. Scentists really have to get patient and try to explain their work. Journalists have to stop being sensationalist. people of every stripe have to stop being so self-seeking and self-promoting. The stakes are really high here. Ignorance of all kinds is really dangerous.

[Sally]

Why in the world would anyone in this day and age have an anti-corporate ethos? Look at all the good being done by Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR, the pharmaceutical lobbyists, the energy barons, the financial institutions, etc.

[janinsanfran]

This seems a good spot to mention that I just got a press release saying that

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock" on January 17, 2007, the first such change to the Clock since February 2002. The major new step reflects growing concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats,...

Scientists gain credibility when they organize themselves to speak, in the public arena, about the, usually unintended, damaging consequences of basic research. The scientists who made the Bomb (because they believed their society needed it) and then spent much of their lives loosing prestige and position trying to control what science had wrought gave science a very good name.

As dangerous to public support of science as the "mad scientist" frame are the contemporary pictures of scientists as grant-grubbing academic whores for entities like tobacco companies or egotistical pitchmen. On the latter, have you all seen the drug commercial with Dr. Jarvik of artificial heart fame? This stuff undermines scentific credibility. There was a whole generation of lay folks who followed AIDS science because their lives depended on it and became quite knowledgable -- and who were violently turned off by the arrogant, stupid antics of researchers who wanted the title of discoverer of the virus that causes HIV.

Guess I am saying that scientists give their opponents a lot more ammunition than you may realize. And I say this while feeling hugely grateful for the standard of living I enjoy thanks to science.

[MarkC]

Waas up!

That is, new and suggestive article up at National Journal. Especially if you don't like Dick Cheney.

[Paul Lyon]

The anti-science types would get a lot less of a hearing if neither major political party was dependent on their votes.

[Sandbar]

Perhaps a piece of strategy in reframing/debunking the 'mad-scientist' swill and the 'killing souls' verbiage would be a heavy dose of history. While pointing out simpleminded conclusions we can also magnify the narrowmindedness of the arguement. All the Greats of the past were in their own time labeled as crazy, treasonous, and atheist. Galilleo, Newton- astronomy, physics, mathematics, all condenmed in their time principlly because the Church was the politics.
And to further the debate let us do a little yellow-submarineing. Imagine infiltrating the Pro-Life lobby and begin pushing for the criminalization of in-vitro based on their very own killing babies mantra. In-vitro as Premeditated murder, worse than the frightened 15 year old going to a clinic, these people who can afford to have the procedure could also afford to bring all the little created embryoes to maturity but refuse on purely Selfish reasons. I would love to hear this rebuttal to the weak 'snowflake baby' baloney that seems to aleviate any further attacks on these people who want designer families. Pushing scientists to find ways to determine the sex and other characteristics of the embryo is not a 'slippery slope'?
The whole idea is to get inside their own arguement and begin shaking it up from the inside, nailing them to a position. One thing that is clear about the Right is their lack of empathy, unless it happens to them personally they cannot/ will not care. So labelling the in-vitro parents essencially as Selfish Abortionists (yes, very distasteful and uncharacteristic for liberals) would hit home and highlight the one very strong weakness in opposition to using embroyonic stem cells otherwise tossed away. Wasted.