Episode 85: Science Criminals!

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb, in 1957

True crime is a giant pop culture obsession ... but what about true science crime? In this episode, we look at the long history of scientists who were called criminals, going back to Galileo. And we discuss crimes committed in the name of science, whose bloody legacies are still with us today.

Notes, citations, etc.

The original science true crime story is Galileo and heliocentrism. He spent the final years of his life, almost a decade, under house arrest for defending heliocentrism.

The creation and use of the atomic bomb was considered a crime against humanity. J. Robert Oppenheimer regretted creating the atomic bomb and opposed the development of the H-Bomb.

The federal government has been prosecuting pollutors since the 1970s, but such prosecutions slowed down dramatically under President Trump. Meanwhile, environmentalists often face legal jeopardy.

Health-related crimes in the United States include the infamous Tuskegee experiment, in which Black men with syphilis were deliberately not treated. This was part of a larger pattern in which white doctors experimented on Black people.

Similarly, during World War II, the Nazis performed inhuman medical experiments, and in some cases were prosecuted for later.

There is increasing discontent with the very notion of progress — and a sense that we're in a race against time to innovate our way out of the problems we've caused.

Mad scientists are a huge staple of science fiction — but also true stories of extreme science.

Popular semi-fictional TV shows about extreme science include Manhattan and Chernobyl.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot details experiments on cells harvested from a Black woman without her knowledge or consent, and was later made into a movie.

Larger-than-life mad scientists in fiction include Walter Bishop in Fringe and Henry Frankenstein in Frankenstein.

Real-life psychological experiments that went to dark places include the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. As a result, universities now have institutional review boards to make sure experiments with human subjects follow ethical guidelines.

Then there are actual scammers, who allegedly include Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, "Dr. Death," and various people selling literal snake oil.

WeWork's business model has been accused of being "one of the greatest scams of the twenty-first century." Hulu has a documentary called "wework, or the making and breaking of a $47 billion unicorn." WeWork co-founder Rebekah Newman is the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow, founder of Goop, which has also been accused of making misleading claims.

The new book Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade by Nathaniel Rich talks about environmental destruction in the style of a true-crime book.

A famous short story by Chinese satirist Lao She called "开市大吉" ("The Good Luck of Opening a Business") deals with a group of rogues who open a scam clinic that sells a fake cure for syphilis.

The covid-19 crisis has led to widespread disinformation, including the use of hydroxychloriquine as a treatment and President Trump's idea that you could shine light inside the body to eliminate this disease. People insist that vitamins prevent infection, or that vaccines cause infertility.

The podcast Scam Goddess recently covered an alleged covid vaccine scam in Philadelphia.

Many people refused to believe that HIV causes AIDS, even into the 1990s.

There are valid reasons for skepticism. Real scientific results are sometimes overhyped and inconclusive results are portrayed as overwhelmingly probative. And there's a widely reported "replication crisis" in research.