Pandora’s Lab is one scary book. It includes seven times when so-called scientific advances led to disasters, most of which are still affecting the world today. There’s a chapter on opioids, of course, and one on lobotomies. He also discusses the DDT ban, trans fats, chemical fertilizers and mustard gas, eugenics, and vitamins and supplements.
All of these things seemed like great ideas at the time, but had far-reaching and, in many cases, terrifying consequences. The one that struck me the most was the chapter on DDT. I’ve never read Silent Spring, but I’m familiar with what it’s about and I’ve always thought of DDT as something terrifying and incredibly damaging to the earth. As it turns out, DDT was much less damaging to the environment and to animals than the pesticides which were created after it was banned. Not only that, but there’s nothing else that can touch it in terms of mosquito control. Millions and millions of people–many of them children–have died from malaria as a result.
It’s interesting to read a book like Pandora’s Lab in our current political climate, which is hostile to science. On the one hand, I’m a big fan of science and the uncountable ways it’s made our lives better. It worries me to live in a time when people disregard clear scientific findings and actual experts in favor of pseudoscience and celebrities. On the other hand, Pandora’s Lab makes it clear that not all “good” science ends actually doing the good it claims to do. It was definitely an interesting read, and a scary and thoughtful one.