Oliver Sacks put himself into his case studies. What was the cost?

Posted by talonx 2 days ago

Comments

Comment by rendall 2 days ago

> When [Sacks] woke up in the middle of the night with an erection, he would cool his penis by putting it in orange jello.

This is a remarkable sentence, and it appears suddenly in the article without context or explanation.

Naturally, there are questions. Was it necessarily orange jello? Does orange refer to the flavor or the color? What property of this particular jello made it preferable to other flavors and colors of jello? Did he prepare the jello for this particular purpose, or did he have other uses for the orange jello? What were they? Did he reuse jello or discard it after one use? Most important though: why would he do this??

The article does not say.

Comment by c-c-c-c-c 2 days ago

It is a great article.

Comment by rendall 2 days ago

It is. I might sound critical, but my criticism is not of the article. Nor of Sacks and his jello, really.

Comment by Akasazh 2 days ago

I think the title doesn't really give a good impression of the contents of the article.

The article spends most time on evolution Sacks' homosexual identity and struggle with sexuality and repression.

His uncertainty and melancholical bouts maar him question his own work and make the author conclude him 'putting himself in his work'.

However very little evidence is presented. Most insinuated about is 'awakenings' yet even in that case it's hard to reach conclusions.

The author plays of his perennial self-doubt as aan admission, but there's very scant evidence about him actually making up stories.

I'm not saying his method is our isn't flawed, it's just that the title belies the story. The struggle with his sexuality is the main subject and only small bits are about his uncertainty of his work.

Comment by RachelF 2 days ago

Or more recently Dan Kahneman, Dan Arielly or Stephen Jay Gould have also been caught fabricating details or whole results.

Comment by regularization 1 day ago

I don't know of any thimble recent (or non-recent) where Gould was "caught fabricating details or whole results".

In 1981 Gould accused Morton of fabricating details. Gould died 20 years after that. Nine years after Gould died, some said Morton had not fabricated details.

I should add Morton was a phrenologist who did not believe in common descent.

Comment by unmole 2 days ago

> Dan Kahneman

I know the underpowered studies cited in Thinking Fast and Slow didn't replicate but I don't think there was any fabrication?

Comment by eviks 1 day ago

The famously ironic case of honesty in a study about honesty

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/09/14/highly-criticized-pap...

Comment by webwielder2 2 days ago

I actually set that book down while reading it and said, “this sounds made up.” Ahh the quiet satisfaction of witnessless vindication.

Comment by throwaway81523 2 hours ago

Yeah the thing about the twins calling out 20 digit prime numbers did it for me. Even allowing for the twins having some ridiculous magical ability to think up such primes, Sacks iirc claimed to confirm the numbers' primality by looking them up in a table of primes. Nuh uh.

Added: ok, found a more careful description. https://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/articles/oliver-sackss-twins-and...

Comment by cainxinth 2 days ago

Already posted:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204853

Comment by readthenotes1 2 days ago

Not shocked.

"Science" of the 1900s was heavily influenced by people willing to do whatever it took to achieve fame or fortune.

The replication crisis is the result.

Comment by tjwebbnorfolk 2 days ago

Humans are not magically better now just because the calendar reads 2025 instead of 1900. Much of what academics do today is not science either.

Journals are filled with supposedly scientific publications, but actually producing new scientific knowledge is really difficult and rare.

There's a lot of garbage in there.

Comment by shrubble 2 days ago

Sacks wrote from 1970 through to 2015; so more recent than just the fusty old 1900s…

Comment by Aurornis 2 days ago

> "Science" of the 1900s was heavily influenced by people willing to do whatever it took to achieve fame or fortune.

Scientific research of the 1900s made incredible improvements in medicine and technology. Most of the researchers and scientists weren't trying to be famous or extraordinarily wealthy.

The people you see pursuing fame and fortune, writing books, doing podcast tours, and all of the other fame and fortune tricks are a very small minority. Yes, people in that minority have often been discovered as writing stories that sound good to readers instead of the much more boring truth. However, most people doing science and research aren't even operating in this world of selling stories, books, and narratives to the general public. Typecasting all of "science" based on the few people you see chasing fame and fortune would be a mistake

Comment by B1FF_PSUVM 2 days ago

> "Science" of the 1900s

Science of any kind, looked at dispassionately, is more of a cult than we're prepared to admit. Not a discussion we're going to have any time soon, not until the miracles run out.

Comment by rixed 2 days ago

Could you leave us some hints about what you are alluding to ?

Or even better, clearly and honestly spell out what you actually think?

Comment by christoph 2 days ago

I can’t speak for the author, but I attended a science conference earlier this year that was almost half science, half healing/meditation workshops. I’m not going to name names, but there were some pretty big academic names there who also have clearly woken up to modern science being more than a bit cult like. Research a couple of areas of science that are currently verboten and see who & what you find there maybe?

It’s just quiet whispers in small conferences at the moment, but this is how the breaking of all spells begins. The momentum is & will continue to build, and probably quicker than many imagine (or will like!).

Comment by rixed 2 days ago

Would you mind naming the exact field or the topic of the conference?

Because of course "science" is a term that's been quite often usurped by all kind of snake oil sellers, but that's nothing new is it?

Comment by karmakurtisaani 2 days ago

This sounds vaguely terrifying!

Comment by cafard 2 days ago

Capitalize "Sacks", please.

Comment by 512 2 days ago

Maybe a better source, linked in the article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/15/oliver-sacks-p...

Comment by minitech 2 days ago

Weirdly, what’s currently linked in the article is https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/16/oliver-sacks-c..., which doesn’t exist.

Unrelated(?) classiness:

> In his own journals, Sacks admitted he had given his patients "powers (starting with powers of speech) which they do not have." Some details, he acknowledged, were "pure fabrications."

— post

> But, in his journal, Sacks wrote that “a sense of hideous criminality remains (psychologically) attached” to his work: he had given his patients “powers (starting with powers of speech) which they do not have.” Some details, he recognized, were “pure fabrications.”