Do You like book Happy Accidents: Serendipity In Madern Medical Breakthroughs (2007)?
Many of today's best-known drugs were actually discovered accidentally or were originally targeted for a completely different disease. And a surprising number of medical procedures came about through unrelated research, often found by scientists in other fields. This book is full of surprising examples of serendipity, the accidental discovery of something unexpected. However, it's much more than just a compendium of such examples; Meyers makes some very good points about today's "medical-industrial complex" that treats research like an assembly line. With much of the grant money controlled by the National Institute of Health (NIH), where senior scientists decide who and which projects are funded, there's little room for general "fishing expedition" research, and almost no chance to follow up when unexpected results appear. Meanwhile, Big Medicine spends enormous amounts of money on advertising (how many "ask your doctor" ads do Americans see each day?) and research dedicated to tweaking existing drugs to preserve patent protection. These two facts, along with the regimented, rote-based medical education system, have made serendipitous discoveries much rarer.
—Shawn Dvorak
Got this because Taleb mentioned it in one of his posts and it sounded interesting. The main message is that many medical breakthroughs owe their existence to serendipity and bottom-up tinkering. Fine, I buy that, but the actual meat of the book - various stories of scientists and professionals making their (accidental) discoveries is incredibly dry and shockingly lackluster. I don't expect a non-fiction book to be an epitome of good compelling writing, but c'mon - give your words and sentences some love. In full disclosure I didn't make it past first 100 pages but I have full confidence that things don't change farther in.For a much better book on a similar subject check out LeFanuhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
—Alex Zakharov
