The Fly in the Ointment: 70 Fascinating Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Life

Alan Belk is a sessional instructor in the Philosophy Department at the
University of Guelph.

If product X increases your risk of brain cancer by 50 percent, should
you buy product X? Maybe not. One message from Dr. Schwarcz is that
comparative information is useless unless you know what it’s being
compared with. If your risk changes from 1 in 10 million to 1.5 in 10
million, then perhaps yes; if it changes from 1 in a hundred to 1.5 in a
hundred, maybe not. We are risk-conscious, but we need to be educated in
risk evaluation. On a less serious note, did you know that lithium, once
commonly used as an antidepressant, was an ingredient of the beverage
that is an ancestor of 7Up? That baloney is unlikely to strip the paint
from your car?

The Fly in the Ointment is a book about the wonders, coincidences, and
mysteries of science. Dr. Schwarcz gives us lots of factoids, broadens
our understanding of the history of science, and suggests that we should
be, if not cynical, at least circumspect about some of the
“scientific” claims made by scientists or advertisers, particularly
if they are presented on popular television shows or in mass-market
books.

A book such as this is vitally important. Not because it “demystifies
science” or because it’s “educational,” but because it is part
of the complex process through which scientific knowledge becomes public
knowledge. In order for that to happen, the science has to be
transformed from the arcanum of scientific journal-speak into the
intelligibility of the mass media. This process also polices science and
reminds us that there is nothing sacred in the pronouncements of
science. Dr. Schwarcz writes engagingly, clearly, and with easy
authority.