Suspicious Minds: Allegra Goodman’s Intuition

Allegra Goodman’s novel Intuition (2006/2010) is set in the fictitious Philpott Institute in Boston, more precisely in a laboratory for biomedical research (run by Marion Mendelssohn and Sandy Glass) where a post-doc (Cliff Banneker) suddenly produces promising results, using a cancer-fighting virus named R-7. Preliminary outcomes lead to a publication in Nature, generating a lot of media attention and opening up new options for funding. The entire laboratory will from now on focus on follow-up research, but one of the other post-docs (Robin Decker, Cliff’s former girlfriend) is unable to replicate the results and soon develops the “intuition” that the data may have been manipulated, although she does not have sufficient evidence to prove that she is right. The only evidence are some sloppy lab notes made by Cliff containing figures which seem to back up her suspicion that something is wrong. She opts for (or is manoeuvred into) the role of whistle-blower, however, and the Office for Research Integrity in Science (ORIS, an acronym/signifier which adds an S to ORI, the Office of Research Integrity) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) concludes that there is indeed evidence of scientific misconduct, although this verdict is later annulled on procedural grounds. Meanwhile, a U.S. Senator uses the case to further his crusade against science, resulting in a media circus and a formal hearing. To make matters worse, the tumour recurs in some of the mice, while other labs also have problems replicating Cliff’s results. As Lex Bouter (2015, p. 149) phrases it: “even on the last page, the reader is still not able to get to the bottom of what really happened”, so that the novel “shows that there are many shades of grey along the spectrum that runs from complete integrity to research misconduct”. On the individual level, the result is a struggle for survival, but most of the people involved seem able to find a way out, while manager Sandy Glass even manages to significantly improve his position.