The Cult of Pharmacology

I just finished The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World's Most Troubled Drug Culture by Richard DeGrandpre, and I have to say that it was one fantastic book. I already thought that our differential prohibition and cultural attitude toward drugs was insane, but this book convinced me of it even more, and I don't know how anyone who read it could come away thinking otherwise.

He makes some fantastic claims, but everything is backed up by research, cited in the copious notes. One of the most interesting, I thought, is the similarity between Ritalin and cocaine. Amazingly, the drugs behave in almost identical ways after being ingested (when ingested in the same way, eg snorted or swallowed). Another is how the pharmaceutical industry glossed over the dangers of SSRIs, which their own studies showed early on to encourage anxious, self-mutilating, and even suicidal behavior in large numbers of patients.

He goes on to show how very little in our world has changed, we just trade natural, "evil" drugs for "wholesome" man-made ones, then when we realize that those are dangerous we replace them with yet another new, "wholesome" one that will once and for all alleviate the aches and pains of our modern life (examples include Miltown, barbituates, amphetamines, and many others). The problem is that the ones we started with weren't all that bad (cocaine's not even addictive, at least not in a good environment).

My favorite part of the book is when he describes the "placebo text", which is the cultural attitude toward the drug. This "placebo text" can drastically alter the effects of a drug, even powerful ones, making it benign or malevolent. It might seem like a radical claim, but it's a ridiculously well documented phenomenon.

The book is also quite well-written, and although at times it seems to lack cohesion, it's more than made up for by the compelling material and masterful writing. If you have any interest in the insanity that is our policy toward drugs, or especially if you don't, buy this book. You will not regret it.

The Canon

A few science bloggers (PZ Myers and Chad Orzel) have reviewed The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier. I also recently read it, and would like to offer a review.

I thought it was a fantastic book. I really like her style of writing, which Chad aptly describes as breezy. She tries to throw fun references in, and sometimes has some wordplay that made me laugh (but I'm a sucker for wordplay). The chapter on probability alone is worth the cost of the book, because no one really understands probability, and everyone should. It matters much more than most people seem to think.

The rest of the book is a basic overview of science (as well as why science is important), and if you're anything like me you'll know pretty much everything in it. But it's still a great read, and it never hurts to cover the basics of topics that you're not all that familiar with. She covers Physics, Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology, Chemistry, and Astrophysics, doing a good overview of each as well as explaining why each is important (which is a crucial thing to do).

Chad said that it would make a good gift for a humanities type family member, but I think that it's the kind of book anyone who isn't interested in science but hasn't given it a shot should read, or for anyone who likes science and wants a well-written, charming, and enjoyable book to enjoy for a few days (I finished it in one, but I didn't put it down). In short, I'd call this one a must-read.

The Universe in a Single Atom

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, by the Dalai Lama is a book about the spiritual leader from Tibet’s journey into science from a boyhood fascination with mechanical devices to leaders in the field giving him lectures on Quantum Mechanics. He frequently discusses Buddhist philosophy (and the often tenuous connections between said philosophy and modern scientific ideas), and pontificates on the ethical ramifications of scientific discoveries (mainly genetic engineering).

That’s the gist of the book. If you like Buddhist philosophy and science, then go ahead and read it, it will be worth your time. That being said, do not read this book if you’re looking to learn more about science.

I almost had to stop reading when he said that Evolution does not explain the origin of life. Of course it doesn’t! It’s not supposed to! That’s an entirely separate field. He also says, “I feel this inability or unwillingness to engage the question of altruism is perhaps the most important drawback of Darwinian evolutionary theory.” Again, this is entirely mistaken. Altruism is an active area of research, and there are many popular-level books dedicated to it (one of these is The Selfish Gene, which I will get to later).

He did better with quantum mechanics, and even better with consciousness. Buddhist meditation has always fascinated researchers, and many interesting and useful studies are done on meditating monks. However, I am more skeptical about his approach of using Buddhist meditative techniques, such as introspection, to probe ones own conscious scientifically. Because this is an entirely personal process, it’s hard to imagine getting rigorous results out of it. But the Dalai Lama knows a bit more about it than I do, so maybe he’s on to something.

One of my biggest problems with the book was his constant lambasting of reductionism. Granted, that’s a popular position, but reductionism is very useful in many circumstances, and when studying something as vastly complex as the brain we have little choice but to look at it piece by piece and try to build a coherent picture out of that, and as our understanding increases move back a bit and start looking at the whole.

Another misconception he perpetuates is that the scientific process necessitates materialism. Science operates on what is called “methodological naturalism”, which says that the only the we can study is nature. It makes absolutely no claim about there being anything supernatural, it only says that, by definition, we can’t study it. Many people (myself included) take this the step further and say, “I can see no evidence of anything supernatural, therefore I’m confident it doesn’t exist.” When the Dalai Lama says, “Throughout this book, I hope I have made the case that one can take science seriously and accept the validity of its empirical findings without subscribing to scientific materialism,” it’s just silly. There are plenty of professional scientists who don’t subscribe to materialism, for crying out loud. It’s just a tired untruth that science mandates materialism, it simply doesn’t.

This book started with a true gem, one that I’ve quoted before, and something that I truly wish every religious leader would say. I was hopeful that would set the tone for the rest of the book, but as I explained above, there were many errors and misconceptions sprinkled throughout. That being said, this is still a worthwhile read for anyone interested in Buddhism and its philosophies as they apply to science.