Lost and The Two Cultures

Lost and The Two Cultures: Science and Scientists as “Other(s)” Kristine Larsen Central Connecticut State University [[email protected]] “Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death.” – William Blake, Laocoön “The physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer, Arthur D. Little Memorial Lecture Note: This essay was written in 2007, during the middle of the series § Introduction The television series Lost has, at its very core, an exploration of the dynamic tension between self and other. The definition of “otherness” varies throughout the still-unfolding text of the series, including geographical, cultural, temporal, and racial senses, among others. This inherent dichotomy of “us” and “them”, “self” and “other”, is central to the show’s message and mythology. For example, within the first episode of the series we witness the separation of characters into living and dead, families and singles, survivors and the outside world, survivors and the island (including those Danielle Rousseau later identifies as “The Others”), and English-speakers and non-English speakers. In addition, throughout the series, classical (and often cartoonish) stereotypical caricatures of often marginalized groups are thrust into our faces, including Arabs, Asians, obese persons, the physically-challenged, and Americans of southern heritage (aka “hillbillies”). The result of this accentuation of differences among groups of people and between individuals has predictably been tension, mistrust, and open hostility. These antagonistic relationships reflect the “gulf of mutual incomprehension, … hostility and dislike, but most of all a lack of understanding… [and] curious distorted image of each other” between different human cultures. In the case of this quote, C.P. Snow was particularly describing the gulf between the scientific and non-scientific cultures, as described in his famous 1959 Rede lecture and essay The Two Cultures (1963, 12). Snow warned that “the intellectual life of the whole western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups” from which the essay draws its name, the two cultures of sciences and the humanities (Ibid, 11-12). He explained that this polarization is sheer loss to us all. To us as people, and to our society. It is at the same time practical and intellectual and creative loss, and I repeat that it is false to imagine that those three considerations are clearly separable. (Ibid, 17) A letter to the editor printed in the January 31, edition of the London Evening Standard clearly articulated the widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of science and scientists by the nonscientific majority culture: When I was a child the mad scientist was a figure of derision and contempt, a fictional joke. How times have changed. The world is now full of mad scientists – mad doctors tampering with embryos, mad physicists and chemists working out more refined methods of termination…. What can be done about these loonies? (Silver 1998, 481). Famed popularizer of science Carl Sagan understood well that the source of this deep-rooted stereotype is the destructive as well as controversial byproducts and applications of science and technology such as nuclear weapons, CFCs, and global warming. As he noted, “There’s a reason people are nervous about science and technology. And so the image of the mad scientist haunts our world – down to the white-coated loonies of Saturday morning children’s TV” (1997, 11). But this stereotype goes further still, leading the non-scientist to picture the average scientists as “moral cripples driven by a lust for power or endowed with a spectacular insensitivity to the feelings of others” (Ibid, 373). Coupled with the famous stereotype of the science “geek” – the fashion-challenged, socially inept and disaffected nerd – these deeply-ingrained depictions of scientists further the disconnect between the “Two Cultures” and exaggerate the sense of “otherness” projected by the average person upon science and its practitioners. It is in this vein that this paper will consider another important delineation of “otherness” as portrayed in Lost, namely that of science and scientists. This dichotomy is most obvious among the “Losties” in the juxtaposition of Jack Shephard, a “man of science,” and John Locke, the “man of faith”, and between the Hanso Foundation/Dharma Initiative/“The Others” (the exact relationship between the latter two being still unclear in the show canon) and the “Losties.” § “Do No Harm” As a work of science fiction, Lost must make at least some connection to the world of science and scientists. The producers of the show, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and creator J.J. Abrams, have embraced this tradition, and have assured viewers that despite the fantastical appearance of certain aspects of the show, in the end the island and its mysteries will be found to have an explanation in rational science and classic science fiction speculations (O’Conner and Stewart 2006, 223; Porter and Lavery 2006, 177) This promise was clearly violated in the ending of the series.. Indeed, the possibility that the Losties might be rescued by scientists has been raised at least twice. At the end of the second season (“Live Together, Die Alone”), an unidentified scientific outpost (seemingly Arctic or Antarctic in nature) successfully picked up the electromagnetic anomaly it had been searching for, the result of Desmond’s implosion of the Swan Station on the island (commonly referred to as “the hatch”). In the third season’s “Par Avion,” Claire recognizes the identification tags on a flock of migrating seabirds, and attaches a message to one of the birds so that the scientists studying the creatures will know of the Losties’ plight. But despite these positive appeals to science, the overall depiction of science and its practitioners in the series is a mixed message at best, and massive stereotype at worse. This unfortunate typecasting is applied to medical personal, biological researchers, science teachers, and psychologists, among others. The first character to which the viewers of Lost were introduced was spinal surgeon Jack Shephard. From the first moments of his awakening in the jungle and realization of the dire circumstances that brought him there – namely the catastrophic plane crash – Jack became a symbol of strength, control, and normalcy for the survivors of Oceanic 815. In the first few minutes of the pilot episode, Jack epitomizes a common stereotyping of the modern physician – calm, competent, and in always in charge in the face of chaos, especially of his own emotions. He begins barking orders at the nearly hysterical survivors, directing them to move away from the burning wreckage, at the same time instinctively following his medical training in assessing the medical needs of each potential patient with detached logic. He rebukes Boone’s well-intentioned attempt to help revive Rose, and with palpable exasperation encourages him to run off on a wild goose chase to find a pen for an unnecessary tracheotomy. But at the end of Jack’s heroic first deeds, we see the depth of Jack’s obsessive need for control. He secludes himself from the rest of the survivors in order to stitch up a wound on his back and is frustrated that he cannot reach it. In an uncharacteristic move, Jack is forced to relinquish control to someone else, and he talks a squeamish Kate through the process. It is in this moment of vulnerability that we learn the depth of Jack’s self-control. During his first surgery, he “allowed” fear only five seconds to overcome him, before completing the procedure with the artistic finesse his colleagues and patients have come to expect. Later in the same episode, this “man of science” attempts to methodically and scientifically recreate, rationalize, and explain the breakup and crash of the plane, complete with altitude estimates, but utterly devoid of emotions. This contrast between Jack and the other survivors (always thinking rationally about the seemingly irrational events on the island) continues throughout season one. For example, although he can offer no rational explanation for the dangerous phenomenon known as “the monster,” Jack is quick to rebuke Hurley’s suggestion that it is a dinosaur, “because they’re extinct” (“Tabula Rasa”). Jack’s questionable bedside manner (fortunately not as hopeless and abrasive as that of fellow TV physician House) is highlighted throughout the series. In the third episode, “Tabula Rasa,” Jack describes to a mortified Hurley in detached, clinical language exactly what will happen to the mortally wounded U.S. marshal Edward Mars if the antibiotics don’t work. In a flashback to his meeting his ex-wife, Sarah, we see Jack explaining to the terrified accident victim her prognosis of permanent paralysis with scientific bluntness. His surgeon father, ironically named Christian, criticizes Jack, telling him to “hand out some hope.” Jack bristles, calling it “vain hope.” “But it’s still hope,” his father reminds him. After operating on Sarah, Jack finds that he has achieved the impossible, a veritable miracle, as Sarah not only regains feeling in her lower limbs, but regains total use of her legs. Afterwards, Sarah and Jack become romantically involved and eventually marry. At their wedding rehearsal dinner, Sarah toasts her fiancée, “my hero” who was able to “fix” her (“Do No Harm”). This ability to “fix” people’s bodies becomes both a blessing and a curse for the surgeon. In “The Hunting Party,” a desperate father and daughter visit the Shephards searching for a cure for the father’s spinal tumor. Christian sagely refuses to attempt the risky and seemingly futile operation, realizing that what the man “is looking for is not a surgical procedure. What he is looking for is a miracle.” Upon hearing this, the daughter rebuffs Christian’s skeptic presumption, announcing that they came to see Jack, because he had already performed a miracle in curing Sarah. When the father dies on the operating table of heart failure, Jack is devastated by his inability to “fix” this situation, and succumbs momentarily to the hero worship of the man’s daughter as they kiss. Upon returning home to Sarah, Jack admits his peccadillo, apologizing for the declined state of their marriage. “I’m going to fix this,” he announces earnestly, but in saying that he further illuminates his own emotional problems. Sarah is leaving him, in part because “You will always need something to fix.” This accusation is echoed by Sawyer in season one’s “Confidence Man.” As Jack tries to fix Sawyer’s sliced arm artery, Sawyer accuses the surgeon of “waiting for this…. You get to be the hero again. Cause that’s what you do. Fix everything up all nice.” Bound by his Hippocratic oath, and personal need to “fix” broken bodies, Jack undertakes the seemingly impossible once more, and tries to save the life of Edward Mars, who was impaled in the abdomen by a piece of metal in the crash. Sawyer chides Jack for wasting medication on a man who is apparently past the point of saving. Jack counters that he will use as many antibiotics as it takes to save the injured man’s life. Sawyer understands that they are in a triage situation, and calls Jack on his apparent delusion that he is still “back in civilization” while Sawyer has adapted to their present circumstances in the “wild.” Jack’s need as a surgeon to cheat death is further demonstrated in both the past and present in episode 11, “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.” In a flashback, Jack is unable to save a patient in his operating room yet is unwilling to allow the person to die. He continues CPR well past the normal point of return, until his father tells him to “call it.” With palpable frustration, Jack continues in vain to revive the patient. “It’s over, Jack. Call it,” Christian Shephard firmly urges. Like a petulant child, Jack retorts “You call it” and storms out. In the present day, Jack refuses to stop CPR on fellow Lostie Charlie, who has been hung from a tree by the nefarious Ethan. When Kate tries to get Jack to stop, he becomes more determined and frustrated, finally resorting to a desperate beating on Charlie’s chest. Unlike in the operating room, this time Jack’s refusal to lose a patient is rewarded, and Charlie gasps a breath. The depth of Jack’s obsessive need to be in control and fix things, on a personal as well as professional level, is further reflected in episode 20, “Do No Harm.” Christian warns his son that “commitment is what makes you tick, Jack. The problem is, you’re not good at letting go.” This is reflected in Jack’s personal life during several flashbacks to his divorce, when we see the surgeon become utterly irrational, accusing his father of being the “other man,” and offering to give up all rights in the divorce if Sarah will just tell him the identity of his rival. Jack has become a parody of a man of science, obsessed with controlling both his own actions and the physical universe, and becoming utterly frustrated and irrational in the face of other human’s and Mother Nature’s refusal to acknowledge what he perceives as the natural order of things. Frustrating Jack’s ability to “fix” things is the increasing lack of modern medical technology. Any inkling of a romantic notion of being lost in “paradise” is quickly erased, with the residents of the island now faced with a less than idyllic existence sans the benefits of technology, as Silver predicted: We would return not to a Technicolor, William Morris land of pink-cheeked folk dancing farmers but to a world in which the majority of men… would live “short brutish lives,” hounded by disease, killed off by infections that are now controllable…. (1998, 483) When Shannon loses her inhaler and suffers an asthma attack, Jack is temporarily able to deal with the situation by rationally recognizing the panic attack component of the episode and talking Shannon through relaxation techniques, which Hurley later describes as a “Jedi moment” (“Confidence Man”). It is Sun’s knowledge of ancient herbal remedies which threatens to supplant modern medicine (and Jack), in this case eucalyptus leaves. In season three’s “Every Man for Himself,” Jack tries in vain to save Colleen from a gunshot injury to the abdomen, but is unable to when she goes into cardiac arrest on the operating table and is told that the “Others”’ crash cart hasn’t been operational for some time. The lesson is that technology is as fragile as the thread of human life, and when one is reliant on the other, this web is more tenuous still. This is foreshadowed in the previous episode “Further Instructions,” when John Locke finds human remains and a rusted Tonka dump truck in the polar bear’s cave lair, the scene hauntingly similar to the doll scene in The Planet of the Apes (original version). While Jack may intellectually understand that technology will eventually fail him on the island, he still desperately clings to it in attempt after attempt to “play God” and cheat death. As Marshal Edward Mars’s condition worsens, he begs to be put out of his misery with his own gun. Instead, Jack prolongs the dying man’s suffering and wastes more valuable medical resources. Acknowledging that Jack could not be expected to break his Hippocratic Oath and knowingly take a life, Sawyer attempts to honor the marshal’s request, but due to his lack of understanding of human anatomy, shoots the man in the lungs instead of the heart, and causes even more agony. Now faced with the choice of prolonging his patient’s suffering, Jack is finally able to rationalize euthanasia, which occurs silently and off camera, and as is evident from Jack’s later expression, brings him little comfort. As the series continues to unfold, Jack Shephard is increasingly faced with choices of life and death and playing god. He actively chose to save Boone from drowning, allowing Joanna (whom Boone was trying to rescue) to be swept away by the current (“White Rabbit”). When Boone is mortally wounded in “Do No Harm,” Jack instinctively tries to treat the young man as if they were in a modern hospital and is rudely awakened by the dire consequences of the medieval conditions under which he has become forced to work. Using the sea urchin spines provided by Sun, Jack is able to perform some parody of modern medicine, giving Boone a transfusion of his blood to the point where Jack’s own health suffers. Jack plans to amputate Boone’s injured leg, but when Boone spits up blood, it is Sun, like Sawyer before her, who understands the triage nature of the situation, and tries to convince Jack that Boone’s internal injuries are fatal, and that Jack cannot save him. Jack retorts with a furious “Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” and continues with his seemingly barbaric plan to try to amputate the limb using a metal cabinet door. Fortunately, Jack has apparently learned a lesson from the death of the marshal, and when Boone absolves Jack from his responsibility to save him, the doctor allows his patient to die intact and with dignity. In a supreme twist of irony, it is revealed in the season three episode “Par Avion” that Claire is Jack’s half-sister, and when her mother suffered irreversible brain damage in a car crash in which Claire was driving, Christian tried to convince Claire that he could help her ease the mother’s suffering. Although disconnecting the machines keeping her alive was “illegal,” he knew “other ways to achieve the same effect.” Like her half-brother, Claire was unable to fathom euthanasia, and instead kept her mother connected to the machines indefinitely. In season two’s “?”, Jack accepts (rather uneasily) that on the island he cannot save everyone, regardless of his expertise and intentions, and takes a chapter from Boone’s dignified demise. When Libby is fatally shot by Michael, Jack injects heroin into his patient to ease her significant and obvious suffering, and perhaps hasten her inevitable death. As Jack begins to face his inability to save lives on the island, he also rationalizes rather significant twists in his Hippocratic Oath. In an apparent violation of his medical vows, Jack threatens Sawyer that he will withhold vital antibiotic treatment unless Sawyer gives Jack the marshal’s case. Since it contains guns, Jack is able to rationalize this as preventing future deaths (the good of the many outweighing the good of the one). In “I Do,” Jack knowingly sabotages Ben’s spinal surgery by cutting his kidney sac, a wound that would become fatal in an hour if not fixed, blackmailing the “Others” into allowing his prisoner friends Sawyer and Kate to escape. In this instance we see that Jack utilizes his knowledge of the human body to harm rather than help, but can again rationalize it as a necessary means to a nobler end. § “Man of Science, Man of Faith” In modern society, science and religion frequently come into conflict. From discussions of the origin of the universe to medical advances such as stem cell research, scientists and religious practitioners have more often than not taken a rather intolerant view of each other’s perspectives. Lost exploits this schizophrenic nature of modern society in a variety of ways. For example, faith healers, psychics, and priests figure among the recurring characters. In episode four, “Walkabout,” Sayid, a practicing Muslim, and Jack, the atheist scientist, argue about how to dispose of the corpses in the plane fuselage. In his usual pragmatic and less than sensitive style, Jack argues for a mass burning of the fuselage with the bodies inside in order to prevent any diseases from developing. As he notes, “They’re gone, and we’re not.” Sayid counters that they can’t just be burned with “no regard for their wishes, their religions.” Jack is characteristically unsympathetic – “We don’t have time to sort out everybody’s god.” In direct opposition to Jack Shephard’s inflexibly scientific worldview, the writers of Lost have developed the complex character of John Locke. Named for the 17th century philosopher, Lost’s Locke also struggles with the concepts of freewill, rationalism, and religion. Confined to a wheelchair due to a tragic accident, Locke awakens from the plane crash to find he has regained the use of his legs, a secret known only to a handful of fellow Losties. He is therefore open to the seemingly supernatural aspects of the island and does not seek scientific explanations for phenomena. It is enough that the island seems to have a plan for him and the other survivors, similar to God’s plan for his people. Over the first season of the series, Locke becomes “a disciple of the island… the voice of faith and the ever-changing counterpoint to Jack’s equally unfailing argument for the ‘absolutes of science’” (DiLullo 2006, 14). Interestingly, actor Terry O’Quinn refers to the tension between Locke’s and Shephard’s views of the island as between two faiths, Locke’s “faith in some mystical power that he believes the island represented” while “Jack’s faith is what he could see and hold and read in books” (DiLullo 2006,15). The increasing tension between Locke and Shephard reached a crescendo during the end of season one and beginning of season two, with the opening of the mysterious “hatch” (later known by the proper name the Swan Station). On the way to bring dynamite to the hatch in order to open it, Locke is dragged through the jungle by the “monster,” and is pulled into a hole in the ground. Locke is puzzlingly calm, while Jack insists on saving Locke from being pulled into the hole. Afterwards, Locke tells an incredulous Jack that the island (like a deity) was only “testing him,” a concept that Jack cannot cognize, as illustrated in the following conversation: Locke: I think that’s why you and I don’t see eye to eye sometimes, Jack. Because you’re a man of science. Jack: Yeah. And what does that make you? Locke: Me, well I’m a man of faith. Do you really think all of this is an accident?... We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.” Jack: “Brought here. And who brought us here, John?” Locke: “The island, the island brought us here.” (“Exodus, Part 2”) As Stafford (2006, 153-4) analyzes, this “conversation about fate, destiny, belief, and science defines these two characters, and shows the essential belief-system split of the show.” Locke’s deification of the island is further reflected in his belief that Boone died because he was “the sacrifice the island demanded,” similar to the rationalization sometimes made when a child dies that it was “God’s will” or “part of God’s plan.” Similarly, Locke’s single-minded obsession to open the hatch, to fulfill his destiny, nearly results in Hurley’s being injured or worse. Upon seeing the ill-fated numbers engraved on the side of the hatch, Hurley runs toward Locke, trying to prevent him from lighting the dynamite. In “Man of Science, Man of Faith,” Hurley asks Locke why he lit the fuse while Hurley was trying to get him to stop. Locke explains that he “was just excited to get inside, I mean that’s why we came here, isn’t it? That’s why we went all the way out to the Black Rock, and why we got the dynamite to blow the hatch, so that we would get inside, Hugo.” Jack reminds Locke that the rational reason (and the reason that had motivated Jack to become involved) was to open the hatch to provide a safe hiding place for the Losties in case the “Others” invaded (as Rousseau had warned). Inside the hatch, the viewers were introduced to Desmond David Hume, and the mysterious computer into which Hurley’s lottery-winning numbers had to be entered every 108 minutes. No rational reason for the tedious task could be offered by Desmond, except that Kelvin, the man who had pushed the button before him, claimed it was “saving the world.” Locke blindly accepts this as another test, another demand by the island, and sets to work making sure the computer (which has been damaged in the initial confrontation between Desmond and the Losties) is fixed by Sayid and that the button is pushed on schedule. Jack “has shown little patience with Locke’s faith, but he has absolutely no time for Desmond’s” (Stafford 2006, 179). Jack chastises Desmond for pushing the button on “faith alone,” and when Desmond runs out of the hatch in seeming irrational fear when the computer remains broken near the end of the countdown, Jack admonishes “You don’t even know what you’re running from!” The computer is finally fixed with time rapidly running out, and Locke, forcing the issue, demands that Jack the doubting Thomas push the button (at least once) as a “leap of faith” (“Orientation”). Despite his deep-rooted skepticism, Jack relents and pushes the button at the last minute. But faith can be a delicate thing, and Locke’s is shaken when Benjamin Linus (masquerading as deceased balloonist Henry Gale) convinces Locke that the button wasn’t pushed during the lockdown in the hatch, with no adverse result (“SOS”). As fervent as he was a believer, Locke now becomes an equally fundamentalist doubter, and tries to prevent Mr. Eko, himself a man of questionable faith in his life before the island, from pushing the button. Locke tries to argue that the button is making them both a slave, similar to the argument sometimes used against organized religion (especially by atheist scientists, such as Richard Dawkins in his The God Delusion). As Eko evicts Locke from the hatch, Locke tries to convince the true believer that “It’s not real, we’re only puppets, puppets on strings. As long as you push it we’ll never be free” (“Live Together, Die Alone”). As the viewers, and Locke, learn when the countdown is eventually allowed to run down, Locke’s initial faith in the button was well-founded, and his lapse in faith nearly led to everyone’s death. Following his nearly-fatal flirtation with trying to rationalize the island, Locke resumes his role as acolyte, and becomes a religious zealot, an enemy of any technology that could be theoretically used to contact the outside world (and remove him from the island, which had saved him from his paralysis). Just as he had destroyed Sayid’s radio transceiver in season one, in season three Locke caused the explosion of The Flame, a communication station, and apparently destroyed a submarine used by the “Others” to travel between the island and the “outside world” (“The Man From Tallahassee”). If Locke and Shephard represent the polarities of science and faith, dentist Bernard Nadler and his wife Rose represent a more centralist viewpoint of the relationship between these two aspects of the human experience. Like Jack, Bernard is inherently stubborn and instinctively takes charge of a situation. When he proposes to Rose only five months after their initial meeting, Rose informs him that she is dying, from a cancer whose remission has ended. To her surprise, he countered her devastating confession with the unflappable statement, “You didn’t answer my question” (“SOS”). On the island, Bernard tries to organize an effort to trace out a large SOS sign on the beach out of black rocks, but finds Rose is among the greatest doubters in his plan. “I’m just trying to do something,” he offers in exasperation. “That’s exactly right. You’re always trying to do. Why can’t you just let things be,” his wife counters. Bernard tries to get Charlie and Eko to aid in the sign building, but they explain that they are building a church. “I’m trying to get us saved”, Bernard tries unsuccessfully to argue, to which Eko counters, “People are saved in different ways, Bernard.” But lest we consider their relationship to be a mirror image of Jack and John, in the episode’s flashback the viewer learns that the lines between science and faith are rather blurred in their relationship. Bernard had taken Rose to Australia for their honeymoon under false pretenses, in order for her to see a faith healer. Skeptical, Rose relents, and when the faith healer admits that he cannot help her, she pretends to be cured in order to put Bernard’s mind at ease, an outcome Bernard accepts without evidence. However, like John Locke, Rose’s disease appears to be mysteriously cured by whatever energy permeates the island, and when Rose explains this to Bernard, he accepts the gift without demanding an explanation, and determines that he will cease all efforts to be rescued, because “If you can’t leave the island, then neither can I.” § “Dude, you got a little Arzt on you” Two other scientists inhabit the Losties’ side of the island, one a survivor of Oceanic 815, the other the sole survivor of an earlier scientific expedition. Dr. Leslie Arzt, ninth grade science teacher, is among the most comical, egotistical, and smugly annoying of the Losties. As Stafford (2006, 152) explains, Arzt (whose name means “doctor” in German) “is very funny talking to the others like they’re schoolchildren…. The writers have made him so unbearably annoying that as viewers we almost hope something horrible will happen to him.” Near the end of season one, the know-it-all Arzt acts as a wet blanket for Michael’s plan to escape the island with a hand-made raft by bringing up the seasonal changes in the trade winds. Sawyer is skeptical and shows the teacher no respect: Sawyer: “C’mon, even a weatherman on tv don’t know what’s gonna happen. And why are we listening to Arzt?” Arzt: “Because I’m a doctor, and you’re a hillbilly.” Sawyer: “You’re a damned high school science teacher!” (“Born to Run”) In a parody of the Socratic method routinely used by teachers (and immortalized by straight-faced comedian Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), we enjoy the following exchange: Arzt: Can anyone tell me what’s the only piece of land south of us?” Jack: “Antarctica.” Arzt: “That’s right, Jack, Antarctica.” The viewer is nearly led to a flashback of their own, and their own experiences with little-liked science teachers. In the season one finale, “Exodus,” Arzt continues in this role as insufferable self-appointed expert, when he demands that he be part of Jack’s plan to fetch the old and unstable dynamite from the abandoned slave ship, the Black Rock, in order to blast open the hatch door. Ever the rational scientist, Arzt tries to find a reasonable explanation for the ship’s position in the middle of the jungle, settling upon a tsunami as the most likely explanation. Insisting that his role was expert consultant and not hands-on workman, Arzt refuses to enter the ship and collect the dynamite himself, instead remaining safely outside with Hurley while Locke, Kate, and Jack enter the ship to collect the dangerous cargo. While waiting for the trio’s return, Arzt tortures Hurley with details about his three failed marriages, until he realizes that his captive audience is less than attentive: Arzt: “You know what, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not cool enough to be part of your merry little band of adventurers.” Hurley: “What?” Arzt: I know a clique when I see one. I teach high school, pal-ee…. And it’s not just the teenagers, either, you know. The gym teachers, you think they let me sit with them in the cafeteria, no, they do not.” Hurley: “Dude, this is all in your head.” Arzt: “Really, then you explain to me why Kate gets the best pieces of wreckage to build her shelter?” The nerdy science teacher’s whiny soliloquy then continues to berate most of the main Losties until the trio returns with the dynamite. A horrified Arzt takes over the situation, berating his seemingly ignorant companions for their cavalier approach to the dynamite’s handling. While lecturing the others on the inherent scientific reasons for the instability of old dynamite (in a rather condescending tone), Arzt begins to wrap the dynamite in wet clothing, and summarily explodes in a shower of bloodied flesh when he fails to heed his own lesson. One can almost hear the writers chortling with glee as they act out some immature pubescent death fantasy against a widely disliked science teacher. In one of the most comical lines of the episode, Hurley later explains to one of his companions, “Dude, you got a little Arzt on you.” However, as the viewers discover two episodes later, Arzt’s prediction about the currents proved to be correct, as the pieces of the raft eventually float back to the island. Another of Arzt’s matter-of-fact scientific warnings is borne out in season three, with deadly effects. In a flashback in “Exposé,” a scantily clad, blonde Nikki plays the stereotype of the helpless female to the hilt, stroking Arzt’s nerdish ego as she feigns interest in his expertise (and zoological collection). Arzt proudly shares that he has discovered 20 new species while on the island, and that he’s “gonna be the next Charles Darwin.” One of the jars Nikki picks up contains a female Medusa spider, whose pheromones can attract countless numbers of males from long distances, not unlike Nikki herself, the science teacher lamely flirts. Capitalizing on her feminine charms, Nikki asks Arzt for help with “trajectories and stuff” to find her lost luggage, the blonde starlet somehow making a routine physical term sound strangely sexual. The resulting map allows Paolo to find the luggage with the diamonds, but not after he and Nikki have some verbal fun at Arzt’s expense: Paolo: “Are you sure we should be listening to a high school science teacher?” Nikki: “Junior high, and yes.” In a strange twist, Arzt is one again prophetic, and when Nikki uses the female Medusa spider to paralyze Paolo so she can steal the diamonds, males swarm on Nikki, paralyzing her, and the pair are mistakenly buried alive. In his insufferable smugness and certainty in the infallibility of science, Arzt has a parallel in another Lost character, Desmond’s physicist friend Donovan. Seen in flashback in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Donovan calls his friend “bloody insane” for questioning whether or not time travel is possible, and finally pronounces, with far more certainty than any true scientist should muster (and openly contradicting his earlier passing discussion with a student about unpredictability), that “there’s no such thing as time travel, Desmond.” Just as the unfolding of the episode seems to contradict Donovan’s blind certainty in the impossibility of time travel, recent research by Mallett, Deutsch, and others suggests that arguments by Hawking and others concerning the impossibility of time travel may be spurious (Larsen 2007). The other scientist to share the Losties’ side of the island is the reclusive Danielle Rousseau. The lone adult survivor of a group of shipwrecked scientists, her infant daughter Alex (born on the island) had been stolen by the “Others” not long after birth. Rousseau had been forced to kill her colleagues – including her husband, Robert -- when they contracted a mysterious virus, rationalizing that she was assuring that the outbreak would not reach the outside world (in the hopes that she would be eventually rescued) – “I had no choice. They were already lost” (“Solitary”). Resourceful and highly motivated, Rousseau was able to change the radio transmission from the island and turn it into a distress signal, playing on a continuous loop for over sixteen years. Although the nature of the scientific research conducted by Rousseau and her colleagues is unknown to viewers, she appears to have a mastery of both basic medical and physical principles, both of which she utilizes to assure her continued existence on the island. She tortures Sayid using electricity, and sets up elaborate gravity and momentum-powered traps, both to capture and kill those who strayed too close to her camp. It is Danielle who captures Ben (using the alias Henry Gale) and turns him over to the Losties. Rousseau’s motivations and actions throughout the series continue to isolate her, despite the fact that the Losties increasingly try to include her in their plans. After torturing Sayid, she accepts that he is not a threat, and he is the first Lostie whom she comes to trust. When the column of black smoke appears above the “Other’s” side of the island, she utilizes a rational albeit socially unacceptable logic to come to the conclusion that the “Others” are planning to capture one of the Losties’ children (as the same phenomenon had last been seen before the kidnapping of Rousseau’s infant daughter). She therefore kidnaps Aaron, Claire’s infant son (who had also been born on the island) and tries to offer him in “trade” for her own daughter. Unfortunately, while Rousseau’s logic of “cause and effect” was correct, she had made an erroneous assumption that it was Aaron the “Others” planned to capture, when in fact it was Walt, who was attempting to escape the island with his father Michael, Sawyer, and Jin, on a homemade raft (“Exodus, Part 2”). In season two, Rousseau and Claire overcome their past history, and become allies in trying to discover what actually happened to Claire when she had been kidnapped by Ethan in season one (and whether it had exposed Aaron to the mysterious virus). With her memory finally returned, Claire tries to ease Rousseau’s mind by assuring her that her daughter Alex was an unwilling participant in the “Others’” plans, and was “good.” Rather than respond in the expected, “human,” way, Rousseau offers a chillingly clinical charge: “If your baby is sick, I hope you know what must be done.” Is Rousseau’s apparent inability to behave in a socially acceptable manner due to her sixteen years on the island, or inherent in her personality as a scientist? The question remains uncertain at the present time, although it is not unreasonable to posit that it is a combination of the two. § What a tangled web we weave: Hanso, DHARMA, and the “Others” In the words of Winston Churchill, Lost is certainly a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Characters are connected to each other, and to the island, in an ever-increasing tangle of lies and lives. Besides the Losties (including the survivors of the tail section, or “Tailies”), there are at least three other groups with a vested interested in the island – the Hanso Foundation, DHARMA initiative, and the “Others.” The complex relationships between these three groups are not well defined in the series as revealed thus far, but appear at the very least to be seriously less than healthy. What information has been revealed has been accumulated not only through the series as aired, but in important ancillary “texts,” such as the novel Bad Twin, supposedly penned by Oceanic 815 passenger Gary Troup, and a plethora of official websites, many of which were interconnected in the intricate alternate reality game The Lost Experience. Scientists are depicted in Bad Twin in a negative, stereotypical light. Take, for example, the following description: The detective stepped forward and introduced himself, He hoped it was just the hideous lighting that made the coroner’s face look so pallid and translucent, that put such a strange glint in his big rimless glasses and an odd gleam on his massive crinkled forehead. Shaking hands, Artisan tried to forget that these same fingers had just been poking around the inside of a corpse’s skull. (Troup 2006, 88) The choice of “Artisan” for the detective’s last name is a rather obvious and heavy-handed nod to the same bifurcation of society which was the source of C.P. Snow’s despair in The Two Cultures. Further stereotypical descriptions of science and scientists appear later in the same novel, a female private investigator tellingly named Prudence answers Artisan’s query as to whether she is a scientist as follows: “Me, stuck in a lab all day? With artificial lighting and microscopes and little bits of gooey things on slides? No, I’d go berserk. I need sunshine and people” (Troup 2006, 181). Throughout the three aired seasons of the series, numerous references have been made to the mysterious DHARMA Initiative. Food is airdropped bearing the distinctive octagonal DHARMA logo, the “hatch” stations were laboratories for defunct DHARMA experiments, and corpses clad in functional rather than fashionable DHARMA uniforms pepper the island. The self-produced orientation video for the Swan Station explained that the DHARMA Initiative was founded in 1970 by doctoral students from the University of Michigan Gerald and Karen DeGroot. Based on the principles of “such visionaries as B.F. Skinner’” it was intended as a “large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free-thinkers from around the globe could pursue research in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and utopian social” projects. Such a facility was created on the infamous island through funding provided by the “reclusive Danish industrialist and munitions magnate, Alvar Hanso” (“Orientation”). According to Alvar Hanso’s narration of the The Lost Experience’s “Sri Lanka video,” the initiative’s name is an acronym for Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications, and “also stands for the one true way.” This strange blurring of science and religion (perhaps science AS religion) is a fundamental theme in the unfolding of not only the DHARMA Initiative, but also the social structure of the “Others.” The apparent abandonment of some of the stations on the island (such as the Arrow), apparent takeover of several by the “Others” (such as the Flame, the Staff, and the Hydra) and references to the DHARMA Initiative’s “failure” or “collapse” would lead the viewer to believe that the Initiative is no longer a player on the island, but this is contradicted by a number of facts, including the continued airdrops of Initiative brand food and supplies. In addition, although it was announced on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” tv show by an actor portraying Hugh McIntyre, head of marketing and promotion for the Hanso Foundation, that the Initiative was canceled in 1987, Kelvin Inman was recruited for the Swan Station after the Gulf War (in 1991) (“DHARMA Initiative” 2007). The current presumed state of the DHARMA Initiative is therefore unclear, but the Hanso Foundation’s past and present have been much better revealed. According to original form of the Foundation’s official website, its mission statement proudly affirmed that The Hanso Foundation stands at the vanguard of social and scientific research for the advancement of the human race. For forty years, The Foundation has offered grants to worthy experiments seeking to promote World Peace through improved health, prevention, vitality and longevity. The Hanso Foundation. Reaching out to a better tomorrow. (Pandora 2006a) The website listed six active scientific research programs proudly supported by the Hanso Foundation for the “advancement of the human race,” each of which is allotted a colorful and optimistic webpage containing an uplifting quotation by Alvar Hanso or one of his staff but little information of substance: Mathematical Forecasting Initiative World Wellness and Prevention Development Program Mental Health Appeal Electromagnetic Research Initiative Institute for Genomic Advancement Life Extension Project While the last two certainly raise immediate warning bells in the mind of the casual reader, the rest appear as scientifically relevant and socially responsible projects. However, as the general public sometimes fears about scientific research in general, each of these programs was actually a front for more nefarious, highly secretive operations. This was presaged for observant fans in Bad Twin, in the following description of a Hanso Foundation office complex: Almost at once he realized something was wrong. In the hallway and in the cubicles behind a glass partition, there were some dozens of busy people milling, but they weren’t wearing business suits; they were wearing lab coats. Some of the lab coats were white, some were mint green. Men and women both had neat short hair. Artisan approached a receptionist who sat behind a chrome desk so bare and clean that it might have been a dissecting table. ‘Excuse me,” he said. “Is this the Widmore Corporation?” She gave him a smile that was entirely pleasant yet somewhat robotic. “No. This is the Hanso Foundation. Widmore’s on forty-seven.” (Troup 2006, 31) The dress code, matching hairstyles, and response of the secretary smell of artificiality at best, a religious cult masquerading as science at worse (perhaps reminiscent of the deadly Heaven’s Gate cult). Feeding into the stereotype of the scientist as an automaton in a lab coat is the appearance of one of the Dharma Initiative’s scientists in the two station orientation films. In the orientation film for the Swan Station (“Orientation”), a lab-coat wearing scientist named Dr. Marvin Candle explains both the origin of the Initiative and the history and purpose of the station (currently limited to pressimg the infamous button every 108 minutes). Adding to the otherness of the narrator is the fact that he never moves his left hand during the film, which was confirmed as prosthetic by producer Damon Lindelof (Stafford 2006, 181). Candle also appears in the computer video in the Flame Station, where he has apparently prerecorded a type of menu system for all possible occurrences (for example, pressing 77 in the case of an incursion on the station by the “Others,” here called the “hostiles”) (“Enter 77”). Strangely, the same actor narrates the orientation film for the Pearl Station, but here introduces himself as Dr. Mark Wickmund and appears to have normal use of both hands (“?”). Which is the real name, and the “real” hand? The fact that the Pearl is a psychological experimentation station (involving the close observation of the other stations) can lead one to the conclusion that either (or neither) of the names is correct, depending on one’s interpretation of the psychology of the DHARMA Initiative. One of the hallmarks of the DHARMA Initiative (and indeed, the true scientific experiments of the Hanso Foundation) is utter secrecy. As Alvar Hanso explains to presumed Initiative recruits in the “Sri Lanka Video,” “you are bound by your honor and commitment to keep what you are about to hear a secret” (Pandora 2006b). He describes the island facility as “top secret,” its “precise location… known only to myself, the DeGroots, and the few high-ranking members of my organization.” As for the need for complete secrecy, Hanso explains it as due to the fact that the Initiative’s “research is intended to do nothing less than save the world as we know it” (Ibid). This statement could have been spoken decades ago, to young physicists preparing to travel to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project. But as Carl Sagan (1997, 38) warns, “science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy.” In light of the ultra-secretive (and therefore highly suspect) nature of the Initiative and its reclusive financier, the Lost Experience had as its basic plotline the undercover exploits of one Rachel Blake, who, posing as a mole named “Persephone,” hacked into the Hanso Foundation’s website and followed various leads around the world in order to expose the true activities of the Foundation. As one might expect, they were heavily involved in illegal and unethical practices, some of which follow from common conspiracy theories involving scientific laboratories, including “illegal organ harvesting, use of mathematical forecasting to start wars, questionable experiments with genetic engineering and life extension, and the international spreading of viruses to limit population growth” (Pandora 2006a). It is precisely this environment of secrecy which has allowed scientific abuses and hoaxes to exist in the real world, such as Cold Fusion. In Voodoo Science, Robert Park sagely warns that “scientists engaged in questionable research consciously or unconsciously seek to isolate themselves from critics…. Not only does secrecy contribute to scientific blunders, it allows those blunders to remain hidden” (2001, 189). In Lost, the DHARMA Initiative’s electromagnetic research project appears to be a textbook illustration of what can happen (as the nonscientific public often fears). In the Lost Experience, Persephone reveals that the Hanso Foundation has built a large off-shore antenna in the Sea of Japan for the purpose of EM research, the result of which is “deformed fish and electric interference problems for local Koreans” (Pandora 2006a). A parallel to the near hysteria concerning supposed suppression of evidence connecting cancer and cell phone usage and electrical power lines can easily be drawn here. According to the Swan Station’s orientation film, the original purpose of the station was to study the unique electromagnetic field natural to that portion of the island. After a catastrophe ominously referred to as the “incident’ by a grim-faced Dr. Candle, the mission of the station shifted to its present job of entering the string of numbers and pressing “execute” on the station computer (“Orientation”). The intense electromagnetic field in the hatch was obvious to the characters, such as when the key around Jack’s neck levitated towards a specific cement-entombed section of the station. Sayid directed the viewer to make a connection with the most in(famous) technological disaster of its kind, when he noted “the last time I heard of concrete being poured over everything in this way was Chernobyl” (“Everybody Hates Hugo”). In a flashback, a drunken Kelvin tells Desmond that the incident was a “leak” of electromagnetism, the result of which is a continually buildup of electric charge that needs to be dissipated every 108 minutes (“Live Together, Die Alone”). The dire consequences of ignoring that duty resulted in Desmond’s decision to use the failsafe key and implode the station at the end of season two, in an attempt to “save the world.” The third group of scientists connected to the island in some large-scale manner are the “Others,” as they were dubbed by Rousseau, also known as the “hostiles” to the DHARMA Initiative. Their origin is thus-far unknown to the viewer, except that some of them were apparently born on the island, and the group as a whole resided on the island before the DHARMA Initiative arrived. A great deal of confusion as to the exact relationship between the “Others” and the DHARMA Initiative/Hanso Foundation is due to the fact that the “Others” have apparently taken over several of the Initiative’s stations, and continue to use them for their own research projects. They also reside in the Initiative’s barracks, and until Desmond’s implosion of the hatch somehow disrupted all communication, used the Initiative’s system to communicate with the outside world. The focal point of many of their scientific activities appears to be the Hydra Station, located on a small ancillary island referred to as “Alcatraz” in the Lost fandom, where they work on “projects” (“Stranger in a Strange Land”). The chief administrator appears to be Benjamin Linus, who claims to have been one of the few current residents to have been born on the island (“The Glass Ballerina”). Although his scientific training is unclear, his mastery of psychological manipulation and torture is undeniable. When Oceanic 815 is seen to break apart over the island, Ben orders Goodwin and Ethan to go to the expected crash sites of the fuselage and tail, explaining that they should infiltrate the groups by masquerading as fellow survivors. “Listen, learn, don’t get involved,” he admonishes (“A Tale of Two Cities”). Although these instructions could have been directly taken from Star Trek’s Prime Directive, they also parrot the Pearl Station’s orientation film, in which it is said that Dharma Initiative co-founder Karen DeGroot believed that “careful observation is the only key to true and complete awareness” (“?”). The “Others’” use of psychological terrorism has become a constant in the series. From kidnapping children and selected other survivors (in order to provide a “better life” for them), to masquerading as native island dwellers surviving under primitive conditions and infiltrating the Losties’ camps under false identities, the “Others” were quickly established as one of the most dangerous aspects of the island (the other being the mysterious monster dubbed “Smokey” by fans). In this way, the relationship between the DHARMA Initiative and the “Others” becomes blurred. While the DeGroots based their research into behavior on the positive reinforcement techniques of B.F. Skinner (“Orientation”), the “Others” manipulated their captives with a combination of positive reinforcement and savage brutality. For example, after being captured by the “Others,” Sawyer is placed into a Skinner-esque cage that once housed genetically engineered polar bears and is able to obtain food by learning the cage’s mechanical reward system. When it becomes apparent that Sawyer refuses to cooperate with his captors, Ben takes full advantage of the public image of the evil scientist and their crazed medical experiments to modify Sawyer’s behavior. In “Every Man for Himself,” Ben is seen in a close-up studying the panopticon of the station’s surveillance system, his large round glasses magnifying his eyes in such a way as to accentuate his “otherness,” not unlike the stereotype of the myopic scientist. When Sawyer is brought into the station, Ben has him cuffed to a hard metal operating table before inserting a horrifically large and painful needle into his sternum. When Sawyer awakens, he has a scar on his chest, and Ben explains that a pacemaker has been inserted in order to make him behave. He is told that if his heart rate exceeds a certain limit, the device will make his heart explode. In order to drive home the lesson, Ben appears to do the ultimate in the public’s perceived cruel behavior of medical scientists – he kills an adorable white lab rabbit by giving it a heart attack. Later in the episode it is revealed that it is all an extremely cruel (and decidedly unethical) attempt at behavior modification – nothing has been inserted into Sawyer’s chest, and the rabbit was merely sedated for the purpose of high drama. Within the underwater portion of the Hydra station itself, Jack is also reduced to being a rat in a cage. Given Jack’s unique personality, Ben designs a far different sort of experiment to break him. Juliet, a female scientist, is assigned as his “keeper,” a blonde who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jack’s ex-wife, Sarah. She tries to gain his cooperation by appealing to his scientific training, explaining that he needs to eat and drink to counteract the effects of the medication he had been given. “I know that it feels like you’re giving up. Like you’re losing if you do anything that I want,” she offers in a well-scripted speech (“A Tale of Two Cities”). The plan begins to unravel when Jack sees Ben’s spinal x-rays when trying to save Colleen, the “Other” who was fatally shot by Sun while trying to commandeer the sailboat Sayid, Jin, and Sun had used to try and track their captive friends. Jack gains his usual control over the situation when he bluffs Ben into admitting that the x-rays are his, and that Jack was kidnapped for his surgical skills. “We had such a wonderful plan to break you, Jack,” Ben admits. “You want me to save your life,” Jack surmises. “No, I want you to want to save my life,” Ben corrects him (“The Cost of Living”). Further cruel and unusual psychological experiments have been conducted by the “Others”, both against their own as well as the Losties. When Michael was captured and brought to the faux shoreline village, he was briefly reunited with his son Walt, only to be threatened by the cold Miss Klugh. “They make me take tests,” the young boy tells his father uncomfortably. “We’re not going to talk about that,” Miss Klugh icily warns. When Walt blurts out that the “Others” are “not who they say they are – they’re pretending,” Miss Klugh threatens to put Walt back into “the room again” (“Three Minutes”). It is interesting to ponder whether Walt meant the “Others” were pretending to be the DHARMA Initiative, which is at least partially borne out in the character of Mikhail in season three. Dubbed “patchy” by fans for his eye patch, Mikhail Bakunin, a former communications office in the Russian army, claimed to have been recruited by a DHARMA Initiative newspaper ad in 1993. He told Sayid, Kate, and Locke that he enjoyed his isolation as the ‘lighthouse keeper” at the Flame communication station because he liked computers and being alone. Although he later admitted that he was never a member of the DHARMA Initiative, but was instead one of the “Others,” he offered that his history of the event known as the “purge” was factual. In this supposed event, the DHARMA Initiative attacked the “hostiles” (the “Others”), resulting in the death of all the Initiative members (“Enter 77”). This begs several questions, the most important of which are: Was Kelvin really working for the Dharma Initiative or the “Others”? Is the DHARMA Initiative really still responsible for the airdrops of supplies? Who is the real leader of the “Others”? This final question is among the greatest mysteries remaining on the island. Thus far unidentified, the “magnificent man” who brought Mikhail to the island is the object of reverence and fear for all the “Others,” including Ben (“Par Avion”). Is he a scientist, or a religious leader, or have the lines become hopelessly blurred? Even more terrifying still, has some destructive technology become elevated to the level of a god, as the atomic bomb in Beneath the Planet of the Apes? Returning to Walt’s exchange with Miss Klugh, even more mysterious is the “room” spoken of. A possible answer is found in “Not in Portland,” where the young “Other” named Karl is rescued from an Orwellian-style indoctrination room hauntingly reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, where sound and visual stimuli are coupled with intravenously-fed mind-altering drugs. Other references to mind-altering drugs appear in the Lost Experience, where it was revealed that the Hanso Foundation owns Apollo candy (which appears among the food rations on the island), which contains “psychotropic ingredients and may aid in viral spread” (Pandora 2006a). In their unethical psychological (and medical, as shall later see) experiments, the “Others” draw parallels to atrocities committed using a perversity of the scientific method in the twentieth century. For example, in Nazi Germany, cruel experiments were done to determine how long a fighter pilot could survive in icy water once his plane was downed (Graham 1981, 299). In the 1950’s, the CIA was involved in “mind-control experiments” which inflicted human subjects with “sensory deprivation, electroshock treatment, prolonged “psychological driving”, and the administration of LSD and other potent drugs.” It is estimated that at least a hundred patients underwent a “series of brain-washing procedures,” resulting in long-term mental and physical problems including suicide (McGinn 1991, 157). If scientists could be involved in such heinous abuses of the public trust once, what is to stop them from committing similar crimes against humanity in the future, the public rightfully asks. Is the current system of peer-review and ethical oversight sufficient to prevent a repeat of these types of experiments? Lost makes us consider the possibility that the answer could be no, given the right circumstances of money and secrecy. § Paving the road to hell – Playing God and good intentions Unethical behavior by scientists in the most personal of all medical procedures, namely those surrounding birth and conception, abound within the series. For example, in “The Whole Truth,” fertility specialist Dr. Kim lied to Jin and Sun, blaming their inability to conceive on scar tissue in Sun’s fallopian tubes. He later admits to Sun that their infertility is Jin’s fault, but that he could not admit that to a man who worked for Sun’s mobster father, as Jin would “burn my practice to the ground.” Is Sun’s pregnancy the result of another medical miracle on the island, or merely a reflection of her marital infidelity? The rumor mill claims this mystery will be among the last to be resolved in the show. The “Others” have two fertility doctors among their ranks, Ethan Rom and Juliet Burke. Ethan is a surgeon, apparently specializing in obstetrics, while Juliet is a researcher (originally in her ex-husband Edmund’s lab) specializing in making impossible pregnancies possible. For example, she managed to impregnate a male field mouse, but the pregnancy did not go to full term. She stole an experimental drug from the lab in order to help her sister Rachel, who apparently has undergone chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy for cancer, become pregnant. Rachel gloats that her sister can “tell that bastard ex-husband of yours what he can do with his ethics,” as both clearly believe the end justifies the questionable means. When Edmund discovers that the unauthorized (and highly unethical) experiment has succeeded, he calls her research “potentially genius” but with some ethical and legal concerns. But rather than report her to the appropriate ethical oversight group or the police, he demands to be in on the research, to “win prizes and drink champagne and do good for people.” One seriously suspects that it is the former two reasons which are truly driving his intentions (“Not in Portland”). When representatives from Mittelos Bioscience, apparently a front company for the Hanso Foundation, come to the lab with a lucrative job offer Juliet refuses, claiming that Edmund would never allow her to leave. The obvious subservience of the female scientist in this lab mirrors countless real-world situations, where women scientists have been undervalued and their accomplishments frequently attributed to their male counterparts (e.g. Rosalind Franklin and DNA, and Jocelyn Bell and pulsars). The fictional trials of Ellie Arroway in Contact also parallel the unhealthy power structure depicted here. It is only after Edmund is hit by a bus (shortly after the “prizes and champagne” comment) that Richard Alpert, joined by Ethan Rom, succeed in convincing Juliet to join their company for a short stint, assuring her she will return in time for the birth of her niece or nephew. In typical Lost fashion, Juliet finds herself the victim of a cruel hoax, and is still a veritable prisoner on an isolated island several years after her sister’s child would have been born. It is therefore not unexpected that she has become as devious and psychologically manipulative as the rest of her “Other” colleagues, and attempts to convince Jack to arrange a fatal accident during Ben’s spinal surgery. As previously stated, Ethan Rom was sent by Ben to infiltrate the Losties’ camp immediately after Oceanic 815 broke apart and observe the survivors for an anticipated selection of those deemed suitable for reeducation and assimilation into the “Others’” camp. Just as Hurley realizes that he is an “Other,” Ethan kidnaps a very pregnant Claire, and takes her to the Staff Station, where she becomes the subject of “a mad-scientist plot” (Card 2006, 13). She is kept in a perpetually drugged state, and very large needles are used to inject a supposed vaccine into her fetus. In this physically, emotionally, and psychologically vulnerable state, she is manipulated by Ethan into believing that she will not be harmed and that it is in her baby’s best interest for it to be given to Ethan after its birth so that it can continue to receive the rare and precious vaccine it supposedly needs. Just prior to a caesarean delivery which Claire is not intended to survive, Alex manages to remove a still-drugged Claire from the station, and Rousseau (ironically unaware that she has actually aided her own daughter in saving Claire) returns Claire to a location closer to her own camp (“Maternity Leave”). If conception and birth are the objects of unethical scientific practices in Lost, it is not surprising that further perversions of science are also being committed relative to the end of life. One of the morally questionable projects of the Hanso Foundation is its Life Extension Project, featuring as its poster child Joop, a supposedly 105-year-old orangutan (Pandora 2006a). For his part, Alvar Hanso proudly supports their work in this area, and is quoted on the project website as claiming that “given enough time, there is no end to what human beings can accomplish, no frontiers that we cannot cross, and no experience that we cannot live to pass on to future generations” (Truffula 2006). In Hanso we see the conflict between what C.P. Snow understood to be the two very different motives of the scientific experience: the understanding of the natural world, and the need to control this same world. As he noted, “Either of these motives may be dominant in any individual scientist; fields of science may draw their original impulses from one or the other” (1963, 64-5). Regardless of the intended nobility of the intentions of the individual scientist, the road to controlling nature is indeed a slippery slope. In this way, Alvar Hanso is clearly reminiscent of Jurassic Park’s wealthy and well-intentioned founder, John Hammond, who found he could neither shield the scientists from being corrupted from their intended benevolent path nor control the natural world. As Silver (1998, 482) asks, “Is the scientist to be permitted to investigate everything in nature?” Both Hanso and Hammond derive from the ultimate archetype of the tunnel-visioned scientist, Victor Frankenstein. In fact, we can find much of Hanso in Kenneth Branagh’s description of his personal portrayal of the tragic figure: This is a sane, cultured, civilized man, one whose ambition, as he sees it, is to be a benefactor of mankind… a man who was trying to do the right thing. We hoped audiences today might find parallels with Victor today in some amazing scientist who might be an inch away from curing AIDS or cancer, and needs to make some difficult decisions. Without this investigative bravery, perhaps there wouldn’t have been some of the advances we’ve had in the last hundred years. (Turney 1998, 203) Despite Alvar Hanso’s presumed noble intentions, Persephone discovers that medical atrocities are being committed in his Foundation’s name. Organs are being illegally harvested from coma patients in one of the Foundation’s “charitable hospitals” in South Africa (a chilling parallel to John Locke’s being tricked into donating one of his kidneys to his absentee, con-man father) (Pandora 2006a; “Deus Ex Machina”). In the end, Alvar Hanso himself falls victim to the unscrupulous life extension research being conducted by his Foundation, and becomes a prisoner in his own home in Norway while undergoing experimental treatments (Pandora 2006a). One of the ways in which science can fly under the public radar while conducting questionable experiments is by disguising their work in scientific language. This language is not only verbal, but mathematical as well. Speaking in this foreign tongue further separates science and its practitioners from the rest of society, and adds to the inherent intrigue and mystery (and mistrust) that can surround the scientific process. For example, when Shannon is shown the map that Sayid stole from Rousseau, the blonde whines “You never said anything about math,” the inherent message being a reinforcement of the unfortunately all-too common stereotype that pretty blonde girls can’t be expected to have anything but an aversion (and fear) of numbers (“Whatever the Case May Be”). Adding to the mystery of the ultraviolet map on the hatch’s blast door (seen by Locke during the lockdown) are a series of equations, including variations of Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism (“Blast Door Map Equations” 2007). By far, the most important equation in Lost is a fictional one whose name is completely unknown to the casual viewer, namely the Valenzetti Equation. According to a show-related website publicizing a fictional exposé written about the equation and its discoverer by Gary Troup of Bad Twin fame, the equation is a “mathematical formulation designed to predict nothing less than the exact number of years left before the extinction of the human race” (“The Valenzetti Equation” n.d.). The equation is a series of “core environmental and human factors” which describe various possible means of annihilation such as nuclear war, overpopulation, and biological warfare. Each of these core factors is represented by one of the infamous numbers well-known to Lost viewers: 4,8,15,16, 23, and 42 (Pandora 2006b). In his narration in the “Sri Lanka video,” Alvar Hanso explains that the DHARMA Initiative was actually formed to try and find a means of changing one of the numerical values of the core factors. This is the reason for the continuous radio broadcast of the numbers which Sam Toomey, Hurley’s fellow resident in the mental hospital, heard while stationed in the South Pacific. The broadcast was meant to continue until one of the numbers had been successfully changed “through science,” which would signal that “the one true way has been found…. Change the core values of the Valenzetti equation, and you will change the course of destiny. The fate of the world is in your hands” (Ibid). In order to keep the project secret (and presumably prevent panic over the equation itself), the Hanso Foundation bought up all copies of Troup’s book (Pandora 2006a). The “Sri Lanka video” then turns to a present-day lecture by Dr. Thomas Werner Mittelwerk, who is addressing an audience of fellow scientists in some undisclosed location. Persephone is surreptitiously taping this event, because she has discovered that Alvar Hanso is missing, and that Mittelwerk, “a mad scientist with a Messiah complex” is actually running the Hanso Foundation in his absence (Cecilia 2006). Careful viewers have already come across Mittelwerk in Bad Twin, where he is described as having “everything but morals…. Everything except a conscience” (Troup 2006, 150). Among Mittelwerk’s unethical plots that Persephone uncovers is the Hanso Foundation’s treatment of supposed autistic savants in the Vik Institute in Iceland. In reality, the savants are accompanied by mathematicians, all incarcerated in a secret ward in the Institute against their will, in order to work on the Valenzetti equation. Among their discoveries was the suggestion that a virus with a 30% mortality rate was “optimum” for Valenzetti research (Pandora 2006a). This number is chilling when one realizes that it is the same as the mortality rate for men involved in the unconscionable forty-year Tuskegee syphilis experiment perpetrated on African-American men in Alabama beginning in 1932 (McGinn 1991,157). The idea of some artificially created virus being manipulated by scientists is a common urban myth and conspiracy theory related to science. In fact, there is a significant portion of the African-American population who believe that the AIDS virus was intentionally invented by scientists and/or the government (Younge 2005). This fear has apparently been given a real face in the world of Lost. Rousseau’s rants about a virus, Ethan’s injections of Claire’s baby, and the “quarantine” warning on the hatch door all seem to point to the existence of some virulent agent on the island. However, as Stafford (2006, 332) notes, the current inhabitants of the island seem too healthy. Besides surviving a horrific plane crash, Locke’s paralysis is reversed, Rose’s cancer is apparently cured (or at least in remission), and Sun is pregnant. Locke’s leg fracture healed in a fraction of the time predicted by Jack’s knowledge of modern medicine (“SOS”). The only person who has become sick is Aaron, who received some unknown medication or vaccine from Ethan while in utero. In addition, Ethan exhibited superhuman strength on several occasions, including dragging both Claire and Charlie off into the jungle (“All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”) and breaking Scott’s neck, arms, and fingers with his bare hands (‘Homecoming”). The possibility that some virus (perhaps native to the island) has been isolated by the Hanso Foundation and utilized for unethical scientific research would certainly be an ominous spin on the “Worldwide Wellness and Prevention Development Program” (Truffula 2006). During her undercover investigation, Persephone uncovered two letters from the Global Welfare Consortium to the Center for Disease Control dated September 2005. The first accused the Hanso Foundation’s primate research station in Zanzibar of being somehow responsible for the appearance of a “new strain of meningococcal disease” in Tanzania that has “successfully breached the simian/homo sapiens barrier.” This fictional conspiracy mirrors current fears about the bird flu, namely that its most virulent strains might mutate in such a manner as to easily pass from birds to humans. A second letter, written several days later by new “Acting Director” Peter Thompson, apologized for the “heated and alarmist” letter previously sent by his predecessor, and assured the CDC that the “benign, non-invasive research” being conducted by the Hanso Foundation was innocent of all charges” (Ibid). However, as Thompson was also a vice president at the Hanso Foundation, these results were not merely suspect, but represent a severe and obvious conflict of interest, thus smacking of an obvious cover-up. Returning to Mittelwerk and the “Sri Lanka video,” the last section of the tape captures Mittelwerk instructing the scientific audience on his plans to purposefully infect two unsuspecting villages with a virus disguised as a vaccine that targets specific genetic targets and has the required 30% mortality rate. When one horrified scientist argues that the intended experimental subjects are “innocent human beings,” Mittelwerk launches into a speech worthy of Dr. Moreau, Victor Frankenstein or John Hammond: If you knew, with mathematical certainty, that you could end all famine, war, and poverty, what would you do? Exactly, you’d find the best way to get it done – precisely, surgically, without allowing for any more suffering that is absolutely necessary. It’s not fair that innocents have to die so that we can perfect this virus but I promise you, someone is going to help…. (Pandora 2006b). At this point Persephone’s presence is discovered and the tape ends in a scuffle. Mittelwerk’s plan is exposed to the proper authorities and Alvar Hanso (who turns out to be Persephone’s – aka Rachel Blake’s – biological father) is released from his home arrest. He is returned to the helm of his foundation, and posts an apology letter on its website, explaining that “the path of secrecy is a slippery slope” and that “habitual secret-keeping can mire even the noblest intentions in shadow” (Hanso n.d.). However, in a secret message hacked into Hanso’s official apology, Mittelwerk vows to continue his work with the virus, claiming “Humanity needs me, now more than ever. I have the virus, I have the will, and I will not fail” (Pandora 2006a). Mittelwerk is a classic example of the public’s worst scientific fears, namely a rogue, truly “mad” scientist. In light of the potential for such abuses, McGinn (1991, 158) reminds us that “‘freedom of scientific inquiry’ is not an absolute, unconditional, or inviolable right… [and] may, under certain conditions, have to take a backseat to other important values, such as protection of the dignity and welfare of each and every individual human being.” Can Mittelwerk be stopped? Can his real-life counterparts? Only the future will tell. But as Turney (1998, 13) argues, if we are going to have an earnest dialogue on debates of science and society, “fictional representations [of science] matter…. We need to attend, not just to the internal development of science, but to the history of science in popular culture.” § Conclusion: Have we learned anything? Throughout the series, interactions between self-identified dichotomous groups are characterized by fear, mistrust, and violence, and classical stereotypes tossed around with ease. But as the characters and viewers reflect upon in “One of Them,” “otherness” is in the eye of the beholder. Jack Shephard (the archetypical representation of the logic of science in the series) reminds John Locke (the archetype of the faithful man of religion) that Rousseau tortured Sayid in season one because she had mistaken him as one of “The Others.” Locke retorts that Sayid “is one of them. To Rousseau, we’re all others. I guess it’s all relative, huh.” The moment of realization passes in a flash, and characters and viewers both settle back into the comfort of their respective definitions of “otherness,” to be briefly set aside only in moments of uneasy alliances (such as that between Rousseau and the “Losties”) or the occasional blurring of definitions (such as the still ill-defined relationship between the DHARMA Initiative and the “Others.” But this is more than merely unfortunate, as Snow (1963, 13) would argue, for “The individual condition of each of us is tragic. Each of us is alone…. Each of us dies alone.” But a unification of the two cultures can bring some hope to the situation, because although our solitary death “is a fate against which we can’t struggle… there is plenty in our condition which is not fate, and against which we are less than human unless we do struggle.” Individual characters in Lost may agree with Snow, and say “Live together, die alone,” but for the moment, each man and woman remains something of an island unto themselves. We, and those and the island, would do well to heed the warning of C.P. Snow, namely that “The number 2 is a very dangerous number: that is why the dialectic is a dangerous process. Attempts to divide anything into two ought to be regarded with much suspicion” (1963, 15). Perhaps this is a message we would all do well to take away from our time on the island. References: Anonymous (February 14, 2007) “The Lost Experience.” http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience (accessed February 15, 2007). Anonymous (February 28, 2007) “Blast Door Equations.” http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Blast_door_map_equations/ (accessed March 1, 2007). Anonymous (February 14, 2007) “DHARMA Initiative.” http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/DHARMA_Initiative (accessed February 15, 2007). Anonymous (n.d.) “The Valenzetti Equation.” http://www.valenzettiequation.com (accessed February 18, 2007). Card, Orson Scott, ed. (2006) Getting Lost. Dallas: Benbella Books. Cecilia (October 2006) “The Lost Experience: the Summary.” www.lostblog.net/lost/tv/show/the-lost-experience-the-relatively-short-summary-for-nonplayers (accessed February 8, 2007). DiLullo, Tara (May/June 2006) “Man of Faith.” Lost: the Official Magazine #4, 12-17. Graham, Loren R. (1981) Between Science and Values. NY: Columbia University Press. Hanso, Alvar (n.d.) “Statement from Alvar Hanso.” The Hanso Foundation. http://thehansofoundation.org (accessed March 12, 2007). Larsen, Kristine (2007) “The Art of World-making: Lost and Time Travel.” To appear, Lost Online Studies, 2.1. McGinn, Robert E. (1991) Science, Technology, and Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Mendelsohn, Everett (1983) “Knowledge and Power in the Sciences.” In R.W. Howe (ed.) Science Under Scrutiny. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 31-47. O’Conner, Rebecca and Jim Stewart (2006) Lost: The Ultimate Unofficial Guide. Riverside, CA: Equity Press. Pandora (August 28, 2006) “The Lost Experience.” SledgeWeb’s Lost… Stuff Forum. http://lost.cubit.net/forum/index.php?topic=2204.0 (accessed March 12, 2007). Pandora (September 27, 2006) “DHARMA and the Sri Lanka Video.” SledgeWeb’s Lost… Stuff. http://lost.cubit.net/essentialsView.php?id=97026 (accessed March 12, 2007). Park, Robert (2001) Voodoo Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Porter, Lynette and David Lavery (2006) Unlocking the Meaning of Lost. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Sagan, Carl (1997) The Demon-haunted World. NY: Ballantine Books. Sallee, Wayne Allen (2006) “Who’s Who and What’s What for Everybody Who is… Lost.” In Orson Scott Card (ed.) Getting Lost. Dallas: Benbella Books, 171-260. Silver, Brian L. (1998) The Ascent of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Snow, C.P. (1963) The Two Cultures: and a Second Look. NY: Cambridge University Press. Stafford, Nikki (2006) Finding Lost. Toronto: ECW Press. Troup, Gary (2006) Bad Twin. NY: Hyperion. Truffula (2006) “Truffula Surfs the Lost Webmaze.” Lost Online Studies 1.1, http://loststudies.com/1.1/truffula/maze.html Turney, Jon (1998) Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics, and Popular Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Younge, Gary (January 26, 2005) “Conspiracy Theory.” http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/26/blacks_aids/index.html (accessed April 1, 2007). PAGE 19