WHERE PROGRESS MEANS MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HYSTERIA:

Trials, and a series of errors, in the brain lab: Gary Lynch's UC Irvine brain research lab struggles to map the elusive molecular underpinning of retention and recall. (Terry McDermott, August 20, 2007, Los Angeles Times)

The myth of modern science, that it proceeds carefully, rationally, incrementally, building bit by bit from rock-solid foundations to impregnable fortresses of fact, comes unraveled in contemporary neuroscience. Fortresses, entire kingdoms of neuroscience have been built on what turn out to be frail premises that get swept away entirely when the next new thing comes along.

A few years ago, a huge amount of effort was spent researching the then-thought marvelous qualities of a humble molecule called nitric oxide. This molecule, better-known in the broader world as the key element in laughing gas, was celebrated as a vital actor in human memory and cognition.

Science Magazine, as if honoring a rock star or president, put the thing on its cover and declared it Molecule of the Year.

By the end of the next year, nitric oxide had fallen off the end of the Earth. Little of what had been claimed on its behalf turned out to be true. This was but one example in a long, sad tradition of a science, as if gripped by mass hysteria, going off the deep end and pretending it knew how to swim.