The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean: When Science Loses Its Ethics
Sam Kean’s The Icepick Surgeon is a collection of stories from the history of science, focusing on people whose work sits somewhere between ambition, moral blindness and outright harm. In tone and structure, it recalls books such as John Gribbin’s Science: A History and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything , although Kean’s scope is narrower and his approach more closely resembles true crime. Gribbin and Bryson use scientists and their personalities to explain the development of knowledge. Kean begins with the personalities—and with what they were willing to do. Cover images: The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean, published by Little, Brown and Company; A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, pictured in a Black Swan edition; and Science: A History by John Gribbin, published by Penguin Books. Used here for purposes of review and commentary. The Mad Scientist the Book Does Not Quite De...