The Scientist writes about a documentary exploring the work of "mad scientist" Robert White, whose work may have raised eyebrows but still led to some things that are commonplace now, such as organ transplants. Says documentarian Jim Fields,
[T]he viewer gets a real sense of White, the man: a religious man who struggled with the theological implications of his work, a man who was targeted by animal rights activists as a result of his government-funded research, a man who helped increase science's understanding of brain metabolism and cooling, insights crucial to the success of modern brain surgery.
"Real mad scientists...are not lone wolves like in the movies," says Fields. "They're doing things that are sanctioned in their time and place, in society, that are only considered by later values to be wrong."
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