Science 'Gone Wrong' Can Teach Us

An Aug. 14, 1932, headline in the The New York Times read: "Eclipse to be best until August 21, 2017."

"Sometimes scientists get it so right."

"But not always. Sometimes science goes wrong, and with terrible consequences."

"This is the topic of Paul A. Offit's very important book Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong, just published in April."

"Consider this tale detailed in the book:"

"One of America's greatest conservationists, Madison Grant, was also one of our most virulent scientific, that is to say, pseudo scientific race theorists. In addition to saving the American bison and the bald eagle, protecting the Redwood tree, and founding the Bronx Zoo as well as the Wildlife Conversation Society, Grant wrote a "scientific treatise," The Passing of the Great Race, in which he advanced an account of the superiority of the nordic "race" and warned against the social and biological dangers of cross-breeding with other human races. Hitler would come to describe this book, which became a national and international bestseller, as his bible."