Life is what happens when you're planning something else. -Lenon

Botulism!
Caused by eating food containing Clostridium Botulinum, botulism affects the central nervous system and interrupts nerve impulses. A nasty organism, it leads to difficulty in walking and swallowing and impaired vision and speech. From there it leads to convulsions and paralysis of the respiratory muscles then suffocation and death.

With such a reputation, it's amazing that many folks especially in the entertainment industry have embraced the botulism toxin or botox for short as a beauty aid. For a substantial price tag, these people willingly subject themselves to a number of injections with this deadly poison to relax or more correctly paralyze, the muscles around their eyes and in their forehead thereby reducing wrinkles.

Surpisingly, this fad has led to the discovery of a significant new treatment for people who suffer from migraines. Since migraines can be very debilitating for that unfortunate portion of the population prone to them, this is good news indeed. It seems that a substantial number of persons who were using botox to make their wrinkles disappear found their migraines disappeared as well.

This kind of happy accident or serendipity happens more often in Science. A few years back Arthur Kornberg, a Nobel laureate and Professor of Biochemistry in an article appearing in the Stanford Medicine magazine, raised this very issue. To paraphrase Dr. Kornberg, medical research is a game of pool. In other words a "crapshoot". To support this notion he makes reference to a number of examples.

He cites the case of Harold Varmus who carried out extensive research on human breast cancer to the point of garnering a Nobel Prize for his efforts. In spite of this, Dr Varmus' work contributed virtually nothing new to breast cancer research but did provide an important advance in understanding brain development.

Dr. Kornburg goes on to say "At the same time, a research program headed by Robert Weinberg at MIT, directed toward a rat brain tumor, did make a major contribution to understanding human breast cancer. Of the several genes now known to be involved in human breast cancer, all but one were discovered by researchers working on something other than breast cancer."

The role of serendipity in Science raises a number of important issues. Some of these are touched on in the Kornburg essay. Most significant discoveries in science whether biology, physics or whatever, are often totally unexpected and frequently have little to do with the object of the research. This suggests that we should perhaps take a closer look at the way we as a society fund and carry out research projects.

The typical approach goes something like this. Society or their government decides to "wage war" on some scourge such as AIDS or Cancer. The word goes out that the battle will be joined and copious funding will be made available to appropriate agencies to carry on the "fight". What happens next explains where the money goes.

Ultimately, the battle boils down to "research". To this end laboratory space is created, equipment is procured and installed, supplies are purchased and most importantly, researchers of the highest caliber are engaged. Money flows like a river. The war has begun. Now we wait. Weeks turn into months, months turn into years and still we wait.

Meanwhile from some unexpected quarter a little news item briefly shows up on the radar screen. It involves perhaps some small breakthrough that will wither because the people involved don't have the resources to pursue the matter further. (Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television, is quoted as saying "We must not lose track of the fact that inventions as such, important inventions, are made by individuals and almost invariably by individuals with very limited means.") So we continue to wait for the big breakthrough that may never come.

Dr. Kornberg's solution to this dilemma is to provide more money for basic research so we can encourage curous minds to pursue those fleeting and elusive ideas that often lead to the great breakthroughs in Science. Kornberg includes an impressive list in his article. Great Science is the product of the human imagination kindled and nurtured.

Kornberg calls this approach "counter-intuitive" and I suppose in the current scientific climate it is. It would help us to understand this better with a little historical perspective. The middle of the 17th century seems like a pretty good place to start. We'll begin with an English philosopher.

His name was John Locke and he is credited with the founding of the "school" of scientific empiricism. Locke was born in the village of Wrington, Somerset, England on August 29, 1632. Empiricism emphasizes the importance in science of the experience of the senses rather than intuitive speculation. Locke didn't invent the concept and early versions of the idea had floated around since the thirteenth century, but he turned it into a formal concept.

Locke was a fascinating and influential thinker whose many ideas still guide much of our lives today. Because of this the man and his philosophies will be the subject of a separate article. For instance, one of his many ideas, that people come into this world as a blank slate without any preconceptions is central to the "Nature versus Nurture" debate that is still very much alive.

Locke's position on empiricism is understandable in the context of his time. It was customary to obtain all your scientific insights from the theologically inspired thoughts of the Church. Since her main concern was salvation, anything one might discover from observation that did not fully support this thrust, was automatically suspect.

Empiricism was supposed to counter this by making observed phenomena the ultimate arbiter of valid science. In this context that wasn't such a bad idea. After all science is supposed to be a no-nonsense fact based enterprise where careful observation and repeatable experiments will lead us to the truth.

Frankly we wouldn't want to change that approach but it can be taken to extremes. If we get into the rut of believing that scientific truth can only come about from the endless sifting of data we will end up with a lot counter productive and expensive research.

Kornberg was right in suggesting his ideas were counter-intuitive because in truth there is in scientific circles a subtle bias against fully formed insights springing solely from the imagination. And that's a shame because sometimes it is necessary to stand back and look at the world in a whole new light.

Who knows where the next cure will come from. Maybe from another "botox" craze...

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