Original | Linjiang, Part 13, 2623 words.
01. Introduction
On August 11, 1897, one of the three classic drugs in the history of medicine, the world's most used painkiller, acetylsalicylic acid, the predecessor of aspirin, was synthesized by Felix Hoffmann in the laboratory of Bayer;
On August 22, 1897, just 11 days apart, diacetylmorphine, the precursor of heroin, known as the "King of World Drugs," was synthesized in the laboratory by Felix Hoffman.
The same scientist, the same scientific ends (all for medical purposes), the same scientific means, but lead to completely polar results: one is an angel and the other is a devil. Science can produce both angels and demons. So how do we objectively understand the two sides of science?
02、What is science?
What is science? The explanation given by Baidu Encyclopedia is:
Science is an ordered system of knowledge based on testable explanations and predictions about the form, organization, etc. of objective things, and is systematic and formulaic knowledge.
Wu Jun believes in "Attitude":
"Broadly speaking, any self-consistent body of human knowledge can be regarded as science. According to this definition, mathematics and history can be regarded as science. In a narrow sense, science refers to a complete system that originated in ancient Greece, was based on strict logical reasoning, and was later developed on the basis of modern Western scientific methods, which can be confirmed and falsified. According to this definition, mathematics is not science because it is based on hypothetical premises, and neither is history because it cannot be falsified."
But whether it is science in the broad sense or science in the narrow sense, they all focus on one point, that is, they value methods and processes, rather than conclusions.
03, aspirin and heroin: Science does not mean right
Our first misconception about science is that we equate science with correctness and correctness with usefulness. Obviously, being right doesn't mean being useful, and sometimes it can be harmful.
Hoffman's motivation for inventing aspirin was simple: to eliminate the pain of his father's rheumatism. Before Hoffman, salicylic acid was known to relieve pain, but the side effects were too great. On August 11, 1897, in the laboratory of the famous German company Bayer, the young chemist Felix Hoffmann completed the synthetic synthesis of acetylsalicylic acid under the guidance of the head of the department, Eichen green. This drug has much smaller side effects than salicylic acid, which is aspirin. Later, it was found that in addition to analgesia, aspirin can also inhibit platelet aggregation and reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases such as acute myocardial infarction. Today, it consumes as much as 40,000 tons a year.
Just 11 days after inventing aspirin, Felix Hoffman synthesized diacetylmorphine in the lab. At that time, Western society was under fire, and the amount of painkillers on the front line was extremely large and in short supply, but the traditional morphine commonly used was very easy to lead to addiction, and it was based on this side effect that Felix Hoffman wanted to invent a more effective but less addictive drug.
Bayer also did animal experiments, and did not find any problems, and according to the results of the experiment at that time, it was confirmed that its efficacy was 4 to 8 times that of morphine, that is, high efficiency and low toxicity. When heroin was first developed, everyone did not know much about its side effects, and patients only had some insignificant adverse reactions such as drowsiness and dizziness. At the same time, because it is used as an oral preparation, the effect is slow and long-lasting, and the user does not have a strong sense of pleasure, but only feels that the whole body is relaxed, so heroin does not cause serious addiction events in the early stages
Soon, Bayer sold heroin as a substitute for morphine, making a prescription cough drug. Of course, it was later discovered that heroin is a more lethal drug than morphine because it is more paralyzing to the nerves, more addictive, and once addicted, there is almost no possibility of withdrawal, which can also cause great harm to the body. What is even more frightening is that heroin addicts in Germany cover all ages, and the elderly, young people, and children have all become prisoners of heroin, and many people have lost their wealth, health, families, and even their most precious lives. Heroin soon went from being a "miracle drug" to a "poison" and was even called the "king of the world's drugs."
Many people call Hoffman "the left hand creates the angel, the right hand casts the devil", but in fact, Hoffman has always stood in the position of scientific research in drug development. Sometimes, good intentions don't necessarily lead to good results, and science doesn't mean right.
04, pesticide DDT - good medicine for malaria and environmental pollution: science is constantly evolving
We know that Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize because a team of scientists led by her discovered that artemisinin can be used to treat malaria and save millions of lives. As of 2015, 200 million people in the world were still infected with malaria, and almost 500,000 people died from malaria, of which 90% occurred in Africa.
Malaria has long been discovered to be transmitted by mosquitoes, and DDT is an effective organic insecticide that can effectively kill mosquitoes, eliminating the terrible disease of malaria in many areas, and contributing greatly to the increase in food production around the world. Mill, who studied DDT, also won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
It was not until 1962 that Silent Spring was published. In the book, author Rachel Carson describes the various hazards that DDT (bis-p-chlorophenyl trichloroethane) poses to the world's environment.
The book describes a world—a world of abuse of DDT," where spring still comes, but the birds are dead, so they become incomparably silent: spring sleep is unaware, and there are no birds everywhere.
The beautiful and bleak words of this book have touched the softest and smoothest sympathy of many people, and they have also ignited the flame of fear in the hearts of the melon-eating masses in minutes. What melon-eating masses would like to live in a world where there are no birds that?
I'd rather not eat melon than pull DDT off the horse! The world turns black on DDT powder in minutes.
In 1969, the World Health Organization stopped the DDT eradication of malaria-related projects, in 1972 the United States officially banned DTT, and then most countries in the world have banned the use of DDT.
Spring is no longer silent, and malaria is the first to make noise. After DDT was discontinued, mosquitoes began to multiply rapidly, and malaria resurged.
India: Malaria cases decreased by 99.94% because of the use of DDT, from 100 million in 1952 to 60,000 in 1962, but because of the cessation of DDT use, malaria cases increased 100 times in the late 1970s to six million;
Sri Lanka: Before DDT was used, there were 2.8 million cases of malaria in the country, and when DDT was stopped in 1964, only 17 cases could be found in the country; just a few years after DDT was stopped, the number of malaria cases returned to 1 million.
So how many birds were saved?
The National Audubon Society, an environmental protection organization in the United States, organizes a "Christmas Bird Counting" event every year around Christmas (December 14 to January 5) to assess the number of birds. This campaign has been going on for 118 consecutive years this year.
According to the statistics of this number of bird activities, in the era of widespread use of DDT (1941-1960), none of the 26 different birds counted were decreasing, all of them were increasing!
Mosquitoes don't just spread disease to humans, they also spread disease to birds. Kill mosquitoes and birds are healthier!
As a result, some scholars have begun to re-examine the role of DDT. In 2006, the World Health Organization re-allowed some countries in Africa to use DDT to fight malaria.
From this process, it can be seen that scientific conclusions are not necessarily correct, because people's understanding is constantly evolving and deepening.
05, treat science: be a rational skeptic
Regarding how to treat science, I agree with Dr. Wu Jun's view in the book "Attitudes" and be a rational skeptic.
The first is not blindly following scientific conclusions.
The second is not to think that you are engaged in science and look down on others.
Third, do not easily believe the dogmas in books and the conclusions given by authoritative figures.
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