Book Review

How to Win the Nobel Prize: An Unexpected Life in Science

N Engl J Med 2003; 349:2472December 18, 2003

Article

How to Win the Nobel Prize: An Unexpected Life in Science
(The Jerusalem–Harvard Lectures.) By J. Michael Bishop. 271 pp. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2003. $27.95. ISBN: 0-674-00880-4

Neither the title nor the subtitle of this book adequately reflects its true aim. Michael Bishop (FigureJ. Michael Bishop), who with Harold Varmus received the Nobel prize in 1989 for their discovery of oncogenes, is convinced that current difficulties in relations between science and society — exemplified by the controversies over evolution and the use of embryonic stem cells for regenerative medicine — result from the public's ignorance of the nature of science and scientists. He feels that showing that scientists are “supremely human,” with both strengths and weaknesses, is the best way to reconcile science and society.

In his book, Bishop aims to achieve this goal by means of three approaches, corresponding to distinct chapters. First, he recaps major advances in the understanding and treatment of infectious disease and cancer. Second, he describes many instances over the past 20 years in which scientists and the lay public or politicians have found themselves in opposition, and he traces the origins of these misunderstandings. Finally, the book presents Bishop's personal testimony as a way to demonstrate the human side of science.

On the whole, the book is a success. It has a vivid tone and is stuffed with anecdotes embroidering the historical descriptions. Bishop's defense of teaching as a natural complement to research and discovery and the account of his personal contribution to “lobbying for science” with the establishment of relations between scientific leaders and the government are probably the most seductive elements of the book, particularly because some problems in the past resulted in part from the ignorance and disdain expressed by scientists for policymakers and politicians. Perhaps the best demonstration of the supremely human nature of scientists lies in Bishop's description of how difficult it is to be a Nobel Prize winner and to resist the temptation of seeing yourself as different and as “having risen over pedestrians” as a result of being awarded the prize.

General readers will appreciate this book, but scientists and specialists in the history of science are likely to be frustrated by its overly aseptic presentation, which is too consensual and does not tackle current scientific controversies. Why, for instance, does Bishop end the chapter on the fight against infectious diseases with penicillin? Events have moved on considerably since the discovery of antibiotics, and this book would have benefited from a description of emerging infectious diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Comments about the failure to develop vaccines against malaria or AIDS and the successful development of protease-inhibitor treatments for AIDS as emblematic of a new age of chemotherapy, in which drugs are designed on the basis of precise information about the structure of their targets, would have been welcome.

Paradoxically, the least satisfactory part of the book is the author's description of the discovery of oncogenes. All the technical, conceptual, and even personal difficulties encountered by the principals in this research are swept under the carpet. The joint direction of scientific research, though the pattern for Bishop and Varmus, is a rather uncommon experience and deserves more detailed consideration. The contributions of other groups to the “oncogene paradigm” are also dealt with too briefly. This book lacks the element of surprise and contains too few new perspectives about scientific discoveries and the obstacles overcome along the way that scientific autobiography generally affords.

Michel Morange, Ph.D.
Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris 75005, France
morange@wotan.ens.fr