Cantor's Dilemma

by Carl Djerassi

When Professor Isidore Cantor reveals his latest breakthrough in cancer research, the scientific community is galvanized. Cantor's most promising research fellow, Dr. Jeremiah Stafford, has only to conduct the experiment that will prove the brilliant hypothesis and win cantor the Nobel Prize. But how far will the young assistant go to guarantee the results?

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Novels, Research, Biology, Contemporary, Academia

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely effective look at the culture of science in the context of academia; many of these intangibles ring very true today even though the book was written almost thirty years ago. I imagine this book would be very educational for the lay public and those who have family and close friends in science. However, the writing was underwhelming, and I thought the erotic bits sprinkled throughout the book were unnecessary and weird.

[Mazzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gut und spannend geschrieben, nicht gerade sympathische Figuren.

[Michaella · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh my god! djerassi delves into the intricacies and subtleties of academia, or rather, the politics of it, and I loved it! I was gripped from the first page to the last, just dying to see what the characters would do next. it felt so real, and that's what made it so intriguing. my biggest critique has to do with the female characters. while initially written as well-rounded and independent (surprising!), the women in the story are eventually reduced to support staff for the two main men (disappointing). and the random erotic scenes felt unnecessary and voyeuristic in a story like this one. otherwise, I was so entertained. and so shocked that I was! I'm not sure how interesting this book would be to those who are not in the science/medical fields, but for me, it almosttttt made me miss being in the lab...😳

[Trina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dreadful - didn't enjoy it much. Dull. Couldn't put it down fast enough.

[Tori Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read for my capstone class. It was okay. Better than “If I Understood You Would I Have This Look On My Face?” but not as good as Napoleons.

Hate Cantor and Krauss, unpopular opinion but I liked Stanford and rlly don’t think he did anything wrong.

Anyway kinda boring but kinda cool bc it reminded me a lot of just like what we as students have learned and seen doing research at school.

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many years ago I read in an article in the New York Review of Books that some unlucky person's shelf contained 'the kind of books you would find in a middle class beach house.' At the time, I had no idea what it meant and was merely taken aback by the socioeconomic and environmental blowback contained in this deceptively simple phrase. Now I know what that guy meant. It's this kind of a thing.

Cantor's Dilemma will probably be of no interest to anyone who doesn't care about academic politics. It's not about science, it's about academics, which are so vicious precisely "because the stakes are so small." It's a short read, it won't take you long, but it's thought-provoking and laid out to make an interesting moral vista. Recommended for fans of Stoner, Margaret Drabble and the like.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book that accurately captures the nuances of scientific, academic, and especially laboratory culture. Clearly written by a lab scientist, which I (a lab scientist) appreciated very much. A fun thought experiment in honesty and integrity.

[Valérie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,25/5

Had to read this for a class. The book was quite nice, but I did not get as invested as I had hoped until halfway through. The book highlights different aspects of research and science within the science community, and shows how 'following the rules' is not as black and white as it would seem from the outside. Great read for anyone who is a student within a similar field as mentioned in the book, but otherwise it might not be your cup of tea.

[Christian M · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book paints a humorous yet realistic picture of what it was like to conduct biochemical research in the 1980s and 1990s. The quirks and peculiarities of academic researchers, their intrinsic conflict between high ethical standards and personal ambition, are timeless and well described. The book calls attention to the ethical issues that arise in a highly competitive, fast-moving research environment, ranging from a lack of sufficient quality control and stringent verification of experiments to biased data selection and outright data fabrication. The author should have made it clearer, however, that the system is well set up to eventually correct itself. The concept of a single outside repetition to verify or dismiss a new hypothesis, as described in the novel, is overly simplistic. In the real world, any cutting-edge new scientific theory will prompt multiple experiments by many other experts in the field that will eventually prove or disprove its validity.
The story is enthralling, but at the same time, the portrayal of the relationships among the main protagonists is cliché and off-putting. This includes professional, social, and intimate relationships, which are presented in terms of a blunt contrast of patriarchy versus feminism. Perhaps this was progressive in the 1980s. It comes across rather cringeworthy nowadays.

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this book at a used book store in San Francisco; I acted in one of Djerassi's plays about the 1700's discovery of oxygen after college and I have always appreciated his work in science writing and communication.

Since the setting is the near past rather than the far past, the 80's-ness of this book, particularly the heaviness of the male gaze at the beginning, turned me off, but I think that might be true of a lot of writing from the era, and I just haven't read much semi-old stuff lately. The female characters are pretty well-drawn, in fact, and I enjoyed the Oberlin-educated semiotics grad student roommate. It's all a little over-academic (like Zadie Smith's "On Beauty") and the dilemma itself makes science seem way more solitary than it is, but I enjoyed it and the parts I thought were stuffy remind me to think about how I might come across to non-scientists, although I think I'm not too bad, really.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars) This book provides a look into the murkier side of science. Professor Cantor comes up with a brilliant theory about cancer; the challenge is to design an experiment to confirm the theory. He works with his postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Jeremiah Stafford to design a complex experiment. The work places them in line for a Nobel prize, but verification of the experiment in another lab proves difficult. Can Cantor trust the work performed by Stafford? He develops another way to test the theory and performs the experiment himself. The novel explores the challenges of reproducibility, scientific integrity, power, and influence. While it suffers from datedness, it does provide an interesting take on the world of science from a real scientist and professor; for those unfamiliar with the author, he was a chemist and was a key player in the development of the oral contraceptive.

[Richard Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by an eminent scientist, this novel deals with misconduct in research and makes very clear that science is not an objective but a human activity, with all the passion, deficiencies, and failures that implies--including blackmail. It shows how a comparatively minor departure from integrity can have serious consequences, although the misconduct remains hidden from the outside world, as is so often the case. Incidentally the novel explains the mechanics of the Nobel prize, and just as Macbeth murdered to become king of Scotland so scientists can be tempted to extreme actions to win the Nobel prize.

The book is worth reading for its insights into science, but it's mediocre as a novel.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Handelt gar nicht von dem Cantor. Aber so möchte man gerne reingelegt werden. Ein Roman aus dem Wissenschaftsmilieu. Cantor ist Zellbiologe und hat eine Idee zur Krebsentstehung, die ihm dem Nobelpreis bringt - und seinem Assistenten, der das entscheidende Experiment durchführte. Aber ging alles mit rechten Dingen zu? Das Dilemma. Sehr gut wie Djerassi seine Figuren führt, den Professor wie den Assistenten und die Freundinnen der beiden, sowie Freundin der Freundin, die die Stimme der Geisteswissenschaften ist. Und Djerassi behandelt alle Figuren fair, liebenswert. Genial.

[A Mig · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great thriller about lab experiments, networking, and trickery in science. When scientists want a Nobel, it can get ugly. I loved that book but maybe because I am a scientist. I unfortunately found the plot very realistic.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely dull. Djerassi goes out of his way to attempt to blow your mind with intense scientific and academic terminology. It misses the mark massively with uninteresting characters and little development. Also what was that ending!?!

[Francisco Plou-Gasca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro muy original que muestra los entresijos de la investigación científica. La historia se enmarca en la élite de la investigación: las grandes universidades americanas, los temas frontera, los premios Nobel, etc. Hay una investigación más modesta que no tiene cabida en esta novela.

[Charlotte M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this as a present at my PhD defense (biological sciences), and though my research topic is not related to the one presented in the book - the views and perception of the academic environment was on point.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written by Carl Djerassi, the creator of the first oral contraceptive, Cantor's Dilemma takes readers into the mind of an aging and respected professor, Dr. Cantor, as he is on the verge of cementing a discovery which will surely net him the Nobel Prize. Cantor asks his new researcher to investigate his theories, and after prematurely publishing a scientific paper, the confirmation performed by the new researcher comes into question. After seeing the paper, the Nobel Prize committee quickly scoops up the new researcher and the established professor to award them for their contributions to science. But is professor's hypothesis as true as they claim?

Cantor's Dilemma is a book that describes the inner thoughts and moral views of members in the scientific community, placing difficult scientific and relationship dilemmas before research professors and graduate students. The book gives insight into the inner workings of the scientific establishment, including the process for publishing scientific research. At the same time, the author builds an intricate web of relationships between the main characters, and occasionally describes the relationships with more extraneous detail than would be required to move the plot, and I believe to the detriment of the novel.

Although the novel is short as it is, it tends to wander too much in its storytelling, occasionally embarking on strange tangents into the many quirks the characters possess. Some of the problems the book contains are quite juicy, but they are marred by the rest of the novel, including poor pacing particularly in the beginning. The novel has a number of deliberately snobbish elements which also serve to erode the experience. The Double Helix is a similarly insightful novel but without many of the problems Cantor's Dilemma has.

[reherrma · Rating 5 out of 5]

In diesem SF-Hard Science Roman des "Vaters der Anti-Baby-Pille", Carl Djerassi, beschreibt er einen Zellbiologen, der eine neue Theorie über die Entstehung von Tumoren entwickelt hat. Schon vom ersten Moment an weiß er, dass diese Theorie Nobelpreisverdächtig ist, doch dazu darf sie keine Theorie bleiben - er braucht ein Experiment, das sie stützt. Er findet dies und lässt es seinen jungen, vielversprechenden Mitarbeiter Jerry Stafford durchführen, dem es im ihm vorgegebenen Zeitrahmen glückt. In einem großen Coup veröffentlichen die beiden ihr Ergebnis in "Nature", besonders will Cantor damit seinen Kollegen-Konkurrenten Kurt Krauss in Havard überraschen. Doch der kann das Experiment nicht wiederholen und als Cantor und Stafford es zusammen wiederholen, fällt ein böser Verdacht auf das Wissenschaftlerteam...
Eingeflochten sind noch zwei Liebesgeschichten: Jerry mit der aufstrebenden Chemikerin Celestine Price, Cantors mit deren Tante Paula Curry. Der Roman gewinnt dadurch menschliche Momente, die Charaktere werden von ihrem reinen Wissenschaftlertum zu Vollblutmenschen.
Das Buch bietet für Nichteingeweihte einen profunden Blick in die Welt der Wissenschaft, den Wissenschaftsbetrieb, in die Labore und in die Art und Weise, wie Wissenschaftler um Ruhm und Ehre kämpfen. Djerrassi schreibt flott und gut lesbar, mit dem Herzblut, den ein guter Wissenschaftler auszeichnet...

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cantor's Dilemma is one of those novels that is much more interesting in the conception than the execution. Written by a distinguished chemist best known for his contributions to the development of oral contraceptives, it centers on the infighting that takes place in the search for Nobel Prizes. The central characters represent diverse niches in the scientific ecosystem from the leaders of Harvard and Hopkins research teams to junior faculty and post-docs, as well as their "humanist" friends. The dilemma of the title involves irregularities in experimental protocol, and Djerassi does a nice job unveiling the complexities of personal and intellectual relationships. In literary terms, Cantor's Dilemma is pedestrian; the characters are interesting more for their symbolic significance than their psychological complexity.

I've taught the book off and on in "science and literature" or "two cultures" classes and I'll keep doing so, but it's primary function is to introduce some ideas that are much more fully developed in the work of Andrea Barrett and Richard Powers.

[Sheffy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Carl Djerassi, co-inventor of birth control, gave me his book, sort of. He was an invited speaker at Berkeley and his fee was that all grad students could have a copy of one of his books--I randomly selected this out of the stacks of his titles, and was surprised that his recent obituary singled this out as a highlight. At the time, I thought the writing seemed a bit amateur, or at least the characters didn’t seem authentic. A Nobel prize winning scientist has a great new theory for cancer, but the experiment needed to prove his theory requires intense technical skill. He entrusts the prodigy in his lab to secretly conduct the experiment, but the successful results are clouded because the author suggests (intentionally obfuscating) that there may have been scientific misconduct. Despite the writing, which I found disappointing, I appreciated the scientific ethical ideas Djerassi is trying to convey--does intellectual property convey to the execution or just the idea (conversely, does a theory require scientific proof before it is (Nobel prize) worthy. What ends justify the means?

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

mostly well-written snapshot of academic life for scientists mashed with a little intrigue and a kind of "whodunit" for researchers. the book takes off slowly and divulges its secrets slowly but i ended up being engaged by the politics surrounding the attempted assault on the Everest or K2 of scholarship: the Nobel Prize (all metaphors borrowed from the book).

i did find the treatment of the female characters a bit stilted and perhaps a little heavy-handedly portrayed as strong and independent women. one character in particular struck me as a very 2-dimensional depiction of a single adult female. this was Djerassi's first novel, however, and the training wheels show. even within the course of the book, the storytelling improves and yet never really seems to pull story threads together to weave a single whole. at the end, i wasn't sure what it wanted to be and there were several unanswered questions.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science is a human endeavor, with all the messiness that humanity entails. Cantor's Dilemma is fiction, but author Carl Djerassi is a noted scientist, and his depiction of research and the scientific community is dead accurate. More than a hundred science studies papers, this book put a human face on the complications of shared authorship, trust and betrayal between partners, battles of ego over prestige and priority, and why repeatability and personal integrity are absolutely central to good science.

One caveat, Cantor's Dilemma can get a little racy in sections, in ways that may help to accelerate the narrative, but which are ultimately distracting. This book is a product of a time and place (1989), were gender politics were a weighty issue in academia, and I want a second opinion on how the female characters have aged.

[joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a major idea about "science in art" and this is a fine example. The novel is set in in contemporary times (it was written in the 1980's, so the computing and telephony technologies are dated.) The story centers on two research scientists that collaborate on work that wins them the Nobel prize in medicine. One learns quite a bit about the prize and the ceremonies. Quite a bit of scientific thinking is involved, but the drama involves issues of honesty and trust between individuals of unequal authority and recognition. There are parallel plots involving the friends and lovers of the central pair. I learned quite a bit and was quite entertained, finishing the book quickly. I look forward to other writings by Djerasi.

[Marci · Rating 3 out of 5]

By Marci

Cantor, a university professor/researcher comes up with a hypothesis regarding the start of cancer - he then races to design an experiement that will prove the hypothesis correct. He turns to his most trusted post doc, Stafford, to run the experiment.

From the conversation:
Women roles were flat. Ardley show the sacrifices a woman makes... yet Cantor makes some of the same sacrifices.

[Moonriver · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for my class, and it seems the author described everything quite well, even though it was written in the 1900s. The book shows how fraud in science can happen and how ambition and pressure can affect researchers.

I didn’t like any of the men in this book, but the women were portrayed better. The women scientists really care about others and maintain their integrity more. Maybe it's because they see the inequality in the system and try not to get trapped in it.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

My PI made us read this for a group meeting. It's about a PI and student who win the Nobel Prize, but then their work isn't reproducible. Twists and turns are revealed throughout but ultimately, the validity of their work is never "proven". My PI intended to give an ethics talk based on it but eh, it sucked.

[Joanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about biochemistry, and it really is about biochemistry rather than about the characters supposedly engaging with the biochemistry. Skips through years of supposed protagonists' lives in order to get back to the biochemistry. Yawn.

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting science novel about trust. Super thought provoking.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story about the pressures on scientists at different stages of their careers. I completed it in a day - which is fast for me. I will probably look out for other books by the same author.