Smackdown
From the letters to the editor of The New York Times Book Review.
(Travis, please read)
To the Editor:
Pamela Paul’s riveting, ribald and sophisticated review of Mary Roach’s “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex†(March 30) is accompanied by an intriguing pink portrait of a hypothetical organic molecular entity. Perhaps this molecular banner was meant to represent the pheromonic chemical science behind sex research. If so, with its dozen brazen errors, among them dangling, flaccid atoms, the flagrant partnering of carbons with a harem of five bonds and a menage a trois of oxygens and hydrogens, it was a lesson in aberration. Could it be that this molecule was so captivated by its inclusion in Paul’s review that it wantonly chose to form new, revealing bonding relationships, ones that are simply unheard of in our more staid prudish chemistry?
Alan M Rosan
Madison, J.J.
The writer is a professor of chemistry at Drew University.
To the Editor:
The figure accompanying the review of “Bonk†made me cringe. I’m not sure what its use is, other than to give the article a “scientific†feel. It is the chemical equivalent of stinging together a bunch of English words in random order. Sure, it may look like a paragraph to someone who doesn’t speak English, but for those who do, it is nothing short of atrocious. Please, in the future, have someone with at least a semester of undergraduate chemistry take a look at such figures – any of my students would be able to identify at least two dozen errors in this figure.
Dan Willenbring
Davis, CA.
The writer is a graduate student in the chemistry department at the University of California, Davis.
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I added the editor’s reply to the comments section so you all could have time to ponder what these erudite folks are complaining about.
The editors reply:
Our correspondents’ knowledge of chemistry may have kept them from noticing the molecular entity in Jonn Mo Kang’s drawing spells out a familiar three-letter word.
Comment by michael — April 9, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
😉
Comment by rakkity — April 9, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
Touche, mon amis! Those, alas, are exactly the sorts of puffed-up responses I myself might make (may — ahem — have even recently made … ) without first pausing to ponder the purpose actually pursued by otherwise apparently nonsensical artifice. Too funny.
rakkity put all that much more succinctly, BTW …
Comment by el Kib — April 9, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
The author was interviewed at length today on the radio. She was having fun talking about the sexual effect of dressing mice in polyester. Michael, stop buying those cheap ass clothes at K-mart.
Comment by dadad — April 9, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
I would if I could. There must be saturated in pheromones.
Comment by michael — April 10, 2008 @ 7:17 am
The editor’s response is bullshit as one easily could draw a nearly identical molecule without the errors that make chemists cringe. It’s a petty justification for being incorrect.
I know Dan and unfortunately I have a pretty good idea of the knowledge of the average UC Davis student taking a chemistry class. “Would” is hyperbole. “Should” is likely more accurate.
Comment by t. ruth — April 10, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
The editor’s response would have been valid for something like The Test.
Comment by t. ruth — April 10, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
Thanks, Trav, I figured you knew Dan, and I knew you’d have a different take, which happened to be mine that the molecule could have been accurate, but that doesn’t give Dan and the prof a pass because they missed the forest. I’m thinking it’s time they do something other than read about sex.
And, no, I didn’t see the bear. Now, if he’d bicycled through that crowd … .
Comment by michael — April 10, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
If you were going to draw an actual molecule to illustrate the article, what would you choose?
I’m with T.r on part of this, but not on The Test. I think it would only make sense to tease you for failing the test if they said, “See what you notice” and then put up something fascinating (a great juggler, or something) and then tested. But to give you an instruction that you’re actually supposed to ignore … I thought the test was excellent evidence of what it claimed–you tend to see what you’re looking for.
Did anyone see the article a few weeks ago about Asians tending to notice the background/the whole, while USers tended to see details of the main subject? I thought that was pretty interesting too.
Comment by jennifer — April 10, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
Maybe that Curious Coupling article, which supposedly came out on Mar 30, was intended for Apr 1?
Comment by rakkity — April 10, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
You could use the molecule they used, but follow some simple fundamentally flawed rules about drawing molecular structures. All one would have to do is make sure each carbon has four bonds, each oxygen two and each hydrogen 1. Then, even though you’ve drawn a molecule that likely doesn’t exist, you’ve drawn one that could.
If one were going to pick a molecule based on the article, the obvious choice would be a pheromone. I think the fake sex molecules probably a better idea because outside of a few structures of drugs even the majority of chemists wouldn’t recognize the structure of a pheromone.
Finally, a cursory glance yields 25 errors, 5 of which are debatable. I’ll give a special prize to the first person who can tell me which five and why they should or should not be counted as errors.
Comment by t. ruth — April 10, 2008 @ 10:57 pm