Bad Bugs Bookclub Meeting Report: Intuition by Allegra Goodman
The aim of the Bad Bugs Book Club is to get people interested in science,
specifically microbiology, by reading books (novels) in which infectious disease
forms some part of the story. We also try to associate books, where possible, with
some other activity or event, to widen interest, and to broaden impact.
We have established a fairly fluid membership of our bookclub through our website
In The Looput we hope to encourage others
to join, to set up their own bookclub, suggest books and accompanying activities to
us, and give feedback about the books that they have read, using our website as the
Our bookclub comprises both microbiologists and members of the general public.
We felt that this would encourage some discussion on the science – accuracy,
impact etc – as well as about the book.
In Intuition (2006), the story only touches upon microbiology in terms of the virus that
is the subject of research in a high-powered laboratory that focuses on cancer (the
Chinese approved adenovirus therapy for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
in 2004, two years before the book came out:
researchers isolates a strain of the virus that appears to eradicate tumours in
experimental mice, and the book describes the subsequent behaviour of the
research group and the research community. The book addresses issues of
ownership of data, experimental design, reliability of results, commercialisation,
scientific integrity, intellectual property and other topics that impact on the functioning
Our meeting
Several characters are described in the novel - postdoctoral researchers, heads of
department/project leaders (clinicians and researchers) and technicians, that are
familiar to anyone who has worked in a research laboratory. Our group felt that the
individual characters were very well drawn. The flaws in some of the characters
were credible, and the narrative really captured the work and play atmosphere in a
research-intensive laboratory well. We were less happy with the developments later
in the book, where congressional hearings seemed to be unlikely and excessive,
Several events in the novel describe activities out of the laboratory, and appear to be
used to illustrate the thinking and behaviour of characters.perhaps a little clumsily.
The creativity of scientists, the role of women in scientific research (p74), the
relationship between researchers and their project leaders (p210, 218), teaching and
research (p30, 104), the preparation of posters for conference presentations (p177),
the importance of accurate and real-time documentation of work, the advent of open
access journals (public funding for research), reliance of publication on limited data
(eg Wakefield’s research on MMR), freedom to publish (H5N1 genome research,
2011), omission of publication of negative data in clinical trials (an issue addressed
recently by Simon Singh, and easily searched on the internet), double-blind studies,
variability in methods affecting results, are some of the topics that the novel brings
out, all of which form an excellent focus for discussion. Retraction of published data
is a common occurrence, but accessing the information requires an active effort on
the part of the interested individual (retraction watch.wordpress.com).
The inability of other individuals in the same laboratory, and other laboratories, to
repeat the experiments is not particularly uncommon – the term ‘tacit knowledge’
describes the acquisition of experience of techniques that can’t be explicitly learned
(Changing order by Harry Collins). Many researchers are aware that it may take
some time to get a technique working – and this expertise cannot be easily
We felt that the book proves a range of really stimulating points for discussion, and
that postgraduate researchers – indeed, an entire research group – ought to find
plenty to talk about after having read the book. For undergraduates, and indeed for
non-scientists, we thought that it would be essential to have research scientists in
any book club discussion group, to defend/discuss/explain some of the work and
behaviour that was described. Non-scientists in our bookclub enjoyed the description
of characters, but yearned for a little more excitement – a murder or two for example!
Bad Bugs Bookclub Meeting Report: Intuition by Allegra Goodman