My quick English review on Cantor's dilemma--for the sake of English :-)



所有跟贴·加跟贴·新语丝读书论坛http://www.xys.org/cgi-bin/mainpage.pl

送交者: xj 于 2005-1-11, 19:13:36:

This little book (Cantor’s dilemma) came to my attention ironically not because of its well celebrated English version, but because of the new Chinese translation, which bore a new name (The prisoner of the Nobel Prize). Anyway, I spent a whole evening enthusiastically perusing it (the English version), but was left with more or less joy.

Many people in Amazon.com have praised this little book presumably without any reservation. I would also first congratulate the author’s great effort to write a novel on scientific ethics, and in particular for the psychoanalysis of scientists. However, in terms of literature and scientific settings, I would say this book is not worth much attentions.

The plot in this novel is too simple. A serious professor had a brilliant idea (which is flawed based on biology, by the way), two worked experiments (probably), and the Nobel prize, but suffered by unverified experiments due to suspecious manipulations of his postdoc. It surprised me that he won the prize within a year. This oversimplified the reality. If the professor didn’t publish his experiment details and furthermore the experiments couldn’t be replicated in other labs (officially), it is impossible to get the Nobel prize, let along within a year. It would be better that the professor didn’t get the Nobel prize and was suffered from unverified experiments, rumors of data fabrication, and science politics. The deft handling of these crisis is more interesting for future academic seekers.

Although the book spent quite some length talking about trust, responsibility, authorship , lab rules, and in particular the peer pressure and jealousness, advisor seeking, tenure system, and gender discrimination, the author barely scratched the surface of the publishing process, grant application and management, and other important research activities. It is possible that the author thought his intended readers are most likely undergraduates or beginning graduates. However, beginning graduates are eager to know how these research activities are like so that they can decide whether they want to seek academic jobs or not. Most time advisors are reluctant to talk about these issues with new graduate students.

The author also devoted some pages on sex, especially on teacher-student type of sex. I am not sure why he blended sex in this book but it did add some vintages in it. The depicting of female scholars in this novel is too optimistic. A fresh female chemistry PhD can get an assistant professorship in Harvard, Cal tech, and Wisconsin is amazing, if not shocking.

In terms of writing skills, the author seemed to have adapted a film making style. However, sometimes background events cut into flow of story too abruptly. Furthermore, the author lacks the ability to write juicy words when he was describing romantic events. His view of sex and romance was also old fashioned.

I think the ending is the worst part of this novel. As we all know, academic people are good at insinuating things. A famous professor will never write a blunt insulting letter to another professor. I guess the author tried to give solutions to all prblems left in the novel instead of giving some hints. This reflects his lack of confidence to his readers, which are at least college students ( I don't think a high school student can understand many concepts discussed in his book).

In summary, if you don’t know much about scientist, this book will give you a good kick start. If you are a graduate student who talked with your advisors very often, this book is not interesting to you. If you are a seasoned researcher, it is probably wiser to use your time on other amusements.



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所有跟贴·加跟贴·新语丝读书论坛http://www.xys.org/cgi-bin/mainpage.pl