Welcome back to the Deep Doc. Today we are wrestling
with one of modern science's most confounding
and frankly explosive figures, Cary Banks Mollis.
Born in 1944, passing away in 2019, Mollis was
the American biochemist who gave the world an
invention that, and this isn't an exaggeration,
fundamentally changed the physical science. It
really did. We're talking about the polymerase
chain reaction or PCR. CCR. It's the ultimate
tool. for amplification, not just scientifically,
but, I mean, metaphorically, too, when you look
at his life. That's a great way to put it. The
New York Times, when they were discussing his
work, used this just a magnificent line. They
said his invention virtually divided the field
of biology into two distinct epochs. Before PCR
and after PCR. And that's not hyperbole. Not
at all. PCR is the bedrock of, well, almost everything
we do today. Forensics, rapid diagnostic testing,
cutting edge genetic research, even phylogenetic
studies. It's everywhere. But the core mission
of this deep dive isn't just to celebrate the
Nobel Prize winner. It's to try and understand
the man behind the invention. Right. Because
Cary Mullis presented this. intense, almost unbearable
contrast between his certified Nobel -winning
scientific genius, I mean a total mastery over
molecular structure, and his highly unconventional,
often deeply controversial views. We've used
an exhaustive biographical account to really
explore this full spectrum. We'll trace his path
from high school rocketry and some clandestine
chemistry. You'll get to that. Oh, we will. All
the way to his breakthrough at Cetus Corporation.
And then we have to dive deep into his profound
and sometimes dangerous skepticism on huge public
health issues like HIV AIDS, environmental science
like climate change, and even his documented
belief in the, well, the outright paranormal.
We're talking about a man who gave us... the
ultimate instrument for revealing objective truth
at the molecular level. Yes. Who, in his personal
life, was completely comfortable entertaining
this scientifically implausible. This includes
a widely publicized account of an encounter with
a fluorescent talking raccoon. A fluorescent
talking raccoon, he suggested, might have been
an extraterrestrial alien. You can't make this
stuff up. You really can't. It's a true study
and paradox. The genius who, as one biologist
put it, superpowered molecular biology, was at
the same time guided by anecdotal evidence and
personal belief whenever he stepped outside his
own domain. And that's why this deep dive is
so crucial for you, the learner. We're trying
to help you understand a true intolerable genius,
a case study in how world -changing innovation
sometimes springs from the most unexpected and,
yeah, sometimes erratic. So what does it mean
when the man who gave us the power of molecular
certainty was himself so, so uncertain about
established reality? Yeah. OK, let's unpack this
life story starting right at the beginning. So
Carey Mullis was born in Lenoir, North Carolina,
but he spent his formative years growing up in
Columbia, South Carolina. And his early life,
it was really marked by this deep fascination
with the natural world. He spent a lot of time
just observing organisms, which, you know, reflects
a foundational interest in biological systems.
His family had a farming background, but his
own curiosity just pulled him toward the hands
-on world of chemistry. And when you say hands
-on, his chemistry interests were anything but
theoretical. We're talking about the 1960s here.
Personal rocketry was a pretty big hobby for
aspiring young scientists back then. Mullis wasn't
just reading about it. He was actively involved
in chemically synthesizing and building solid
fuel propulsion rockets. In high school. In high
school. This early mix of intellectual rigor,
practical chemistry, and a willingness to embrace
risk, or maybe just the sheer fun of making things
go boom, it feels like a crucial foundation for
how he approached problem solving later on. Absolutely.
And he channeled that energy into formal academics.
He got a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from
the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1966.
And it's worth noting, his life was already moving
fast. He was married for the first time while
he was still an undergraduate. And he was already
dabbling in starting these small businesses.
His path was accelerated and nonlinear from the
get -go. He didn't slow down for grad school
either. He heads to UC Berkeley for a PhD in
biochemistry. A big deal. A very big deal. And
his doctoral work, which he finished in 1973,
was highly specialized. It focused on the synthesis
and structure of bacterial iron transporter molecules,
technically called siderophores. Specifically,
he characterized one called schizokinin. Okay,
let's break that down. Siderophores, what are
they doing exactly? So think of them as molecules
that microorganisms like bacteria secrete to
basically scavenge for iron in their environment.
Like little molecular claw machines. That's a
perfect analogy. Iron is essential for microbial
growth, but it's often locked up in forms they
can't use. Siderophores go out, grab the iron,
and transport it back into the cell. Melissa's
work was on characterizing the structure of one
of these. It was precise, rigorous chemistry.
So he's clearly operating at this really high
level of chemical complexity. And yet there's
this recurring story that he really struggled
with the formal academic structure at Berkeley.
He did. His time there was notoriously difficult
in terms of him fitting the mold. Colleagues
noted his unique style, but also his struggles
with standardized things like oral exams. Yeah.
One recalled that he struggled badly with his
oral exams. He said Mullis, quote, didn't get
his propositions right. He didn't know general
biochemistry. The formal discipline of academia
just it chafed against his intuitive, unconventional
way of thinking. And this tension became very
real when it was time to submit his thesis. We
have this incredible detail that his dissertation
was only accepted after his friends had to intervene.
They literally had to cut all the wacko stuff
out of it. Which beats volumes, right? It really
does. The core chemistry on Skissikinen was solid,
but Mullis's tendency to integrate these, you
know, far out philosophical or totally unrelated
scientific tangents into his formal work was
already there. He was a brilliant chemist, but
he resisted the structure. structured confines
of the scientific establishment from day one.
And if we need any more proof of just how eclectic
his mind was, think about this. Four years before
he even got that biochemistry PhD, back in 1968,
he published a sole author paper in Nature. Which
is almost unheard of for a grad student. In Nature.
And the topic was a whole different ballgame.
It was astrophysics. The title was Cosmological
Significance of Time Reversal. A biochemist writing
theoretical astrophysics in nature. It shows
he was either breathtakingly confident or a genuine
polymath or, you know, maybe a bit of both. And
yet after he gets his Ph .D. in 73, his career
path just takes these surprising, almost aimless
detours. It really does. He did a couple of postdoctoral
fellowships, first in pediatric cardiology, then
pharmaceutical chemistry. Then he just. leaves
science. Completely. He managed a bakery for
two years. A bakery. A bakery. And then he left
the technical world entirely to try and write
fiction. This is not the resume you expect from
a future Nobel Prize winner. It really emphasizes
how much chance and a little push from a friend
played a role in bringing him back to the lab.
And that return to science was directly orchestrated
by his friend and former colleague, Thomas White.
Okay, so White's a key figure here. He was instrumental.
First, he helped Mullis get a postdoctoral position
at UCSF, and then he facilitated his move to
Cetus Corporation in Emeryville, California.
Cetus was one of the early major powerhouses
of the biotech industry. And Mullis arrived there
in 1979 as a DNA chemist. It's important to remember,
as we said, he had very little formal molecular
biology experience at this point. Right, but
he was a highly capable synthetic chemist. He
ended up heading... their DNA synthesis lab.
He spent four years there, and then in 1983,
we get the legendary Eureka moment. This is the
moment that changed everything, and the setting
is almost mythological now. Mullis was driving
late one Friday night. He mentions the time was
about 10 .30 p .m., heading out of Berkeley toward
his country home in Mendocino County. He was
with his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer, who
was also a chemist at Cetus. He's driving on
Highway 128, going past a winery, and then the
idea just hits him. So what was the specific
problem he was trying to solve in his head? He
was trying to figure out a method to detect a
single, very specific base sequence within a
massive, complex sample of DNA, like the entire
human genome. Which was the holy grail at the
time. It was. Before PCR, if you wanted to study
a particular gene, you had two main options.
You could either grow the DNA inside living organisms,
a process called cloning, which was slow, labor
-intensive, and needed specialized cell cultures.
Or you could use these time -consuming, chemically
complex sequencing methods that could only analyze
tiny little snippets. Getting enough clean, specific
DNA to study was the bottleneck. It was like
trying to find one specific word in a thousand
-volume library, and the only way to read it
was to copy the entire library out by hand first.
Precisely. And Mullis realized he didn't need
to copy the whole library. The essential insight
was this. He could use a pair of short, synthetic
DNA fragments, he called them primers, to bracket
the... exact DNA sequence he wanted. So the primer
basically tells the copying enzyme, the DNA polymerase,
exactly where to start and stop copying. Exactly.
And the true genius was in the cycling. He realized
if he heated the mixture, the DNA double helix
would separate into two strands. Then as it cooled
a bit, the primers would attach to their specific
spots. Finally, at the right temperature, the
DNA polymerase would just zoom along and copy
the target segment between the primers. But here's
where the conceptual leap happened. He realized
that the newly synthesized strands could, in
turn, become the templates for the next round
of copying. Yes. The process just repeats. Separate,
attach, copy. In the first cycle, you get two
copies. In the second, you get four. The third,
eight. This is the power of exponential amplification.
Let's be really clear about what exponential
amplification means, because that's the magic
the New York Times quote was getting at. If you
start with just one molecule of DNA and run,
say, 30 cycles. How many molecules do you end
up with? Assuming the process is 100 percent
efficient, 30 cycles will yield approximately
one billion copies of that initial single segment.
One to one billion. That transformation from
one molecule to a billion means that suddenly
the tiniest trace amount of DNA from a single
hair follicle or a tiny blood spot becomes visible
and measurable. It was a feat that was utterly
impossible before 1983. It turned DNA from this
highly limited resource into an abundant one.
And Mullis managed to demonstrate. PCR on December
16th, 1983. But despite the undeniable mathematical
logic, the sources say the staff at Cetus were
skeptical. They were. It was partly methodological
and partly cultural. Colleagues were cautious,
noting that Mullis's initial results were a bit
ambiguous. They pointed to what they saw as methodological
problems, specifically a lack of appropriate
controls and repetition. So his execution was
maybe a little sloppy, even if the idea was brilliant.
His mind was often ahead of his hands. His supervisor,
Thomas White, actually had to reassign Mullis
from his other projects to focus entirely on
perfecting PCR because the technique was meeting
so much internal resistance. It's just so interesting
that this monumental scientific breakthrough
didn't solve his personal problem. problems.
He said in his Nobel lecture that while all this
was happening, he felt lonesome because his girlfriend
had just broken up with him. That detail really
speaks to the kind of whirlwind his life always
was. So PCR was invented. The exponential amplification
was proven. But the process was still incredibly
labor intensive and expensive. It was. It was
an amazing scientific proof of concept, but it
wasn't a global workhorse yet. Which brings us
to the critical improvement that made it commercially
viable. What was the major practical drawback
of the original method? The fundamental problem
was thermal stability. As we said, you need high
heat, we're talking near boiling, around 95 degrees
Celsius, to separate the DNA double helix into
single strands. Well, the DNA polymerase enzyme,
the thing that does the actual copying, is a
protein. And most proteins, they just denature.
They get destroyed by that much heat. So the
enzyme was like ice cream in a sauna. Perfect
analogy. It melted. So for every single replication
cycle, heating up to 95 degrees and cooling back
down, you had to manually stop, open the tube,
and add a fresh dose of this expensive enzyme.
So if you wanted 30 cycles to get your billion
copies. You had to manually add the enzyme 30
times. It was tedious, it was prone to contamination,
and it was prohibitively expensive for mass use.
You still needed a highly trained technician
babysitting machine all day. The breakthrough
was intellectual. But the application was still
stuck in the age of manual labor. Exactly. The
game changer arrived in 1986, three years after
Mullis' breakthrough. And it came from another
CETA scientist, Randall Saiki. Right. Saiki introduced
a DNA polymerase that was sourced from a bacterium
called Thermophilus aquaticus. Mercifully, they
shortened it to TAC. And this bacterium lives
where? It lives naturally in the extremely high
temperatures of hot springs like the ones in
Yellowstone National Park. It's a thermophile.
It loves the heat. So its enzymes evolved to
love the heat too. They did. Taq polymerase is
naturally heat resistant. It could survive the
95 degree separation phase without denaturing.
You only needed to add the enzyme once at the
very beginning. You could put your mixture into
an automated thermal cycler, set it to run 20,
30, 40 cycles and just walk away. The Taq polymerase
would patiently wait for the temperature to drop
and get back. to work again and again. That one
small molecular detail, the heat stability of
one enzyme, fundamentally changed the entire
process. It made PCR cheap, fully automatable,
and viable for pretty much any lab on the planet.
The impact is, as David Bilder from UC Berkeley
stated, just hard to overstate. He called it
magical. He said it superpowered molecular biology
and it transformed fields from ecology, where
you can now analyze DNA from animal scat, to
evolutionary biology, where tiny preserved samples
can be amplified. PCR, thanks to TAC, became
the indispensable workhorse that made molecular
biology accessible to everyone. The second that
technique became automated and commercially viable,
the story really shifts, doesn't it? It goes
from scientific discovery to... A corporate battleground.
Yeah. When an invention can diagnose disease,
solve crimes, and generate billions of dollars,
the credit lines get very blurry very fast. Okay,
so let's start with Mullis' compensation for
this billion -dollar idea. He received a one
-time bonus from Cetus for $10 ,000. $10 ,000
for a foundational technology that would eventually
be sold for hundreds of millions? That feels
like a massive insult. It was certainly a source
of deep, lasting bitterness for Mullis. But the
tension was also fueled by Cetus's decision to
bring in other researchers. Right. The company,
understanding the immense commercial value here,
assigned what the sources call top -notch experimentalists,
people like Randall Psyche, Henry Ehrlich, and
Norman Arnheim, to work on parallel PCR projects.
So they weren't brought in to invent the concept,
but to provide the rigor and the data that Mullis,
with his, let's say, erratic style, hadn't formalized
yet. Precisely. They were tasked with generating
the critical, clean data to prove the technique
worked flawlessly. Specifically, showing that
PCR could reliably amplify a human gene, beta
-globin, from a whole genome. And they did. Sahiki
generated that data, and Ehrlich authored the
first paper describing a practical use of the
technique in 1985. Mullis, who was still working
on his own paper describing the fundamental process,
felt aggressively marginalized. And he didn't
hold back his feelings about it? Not at all.
The sources detail his condemnation of his supervisor,
Thomas White, and the members of that parallel
team. He referred to them as vultures. Vultures.
This is the core conflict, right? The inventor,
driven by intuition, versus the organization
that needs methodological rigor and speed to
secure a market advantage. And the financial
stakes were huge. Cetus eventually sold the entire
PCR patent, the initial invention, and the crucial
tech element to Roche Molecular Systems for a
staggering $300 million. $300 million. And while
Mullis shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
with Michael Smith for his conceptual work, that
corporate compensation or lack of it, it just
fueled his volatile reputation. It fed his cynicism
about institutional science. Let's talk about
the patent challenge, because DuPont tried to
contest it, arguing there was prior art from
years earlier. Who did they cite? They cited
Nobel laureate H. Gabun Karana and a Norwegian
scientist, K. Jell Klepp. Way back in 1971, that's
17 years before Mullis' breakthrough, they'd
published work on a conceptually similar idea
they called repair replication. Okay. Their work
demonstrated duplicating and even quadrupling
a small synthetic molecule using two primers
and a polymerase. So conceptually, the essential
elements, primers, polymerase, they were there.
Why didn't that invalidate Mullis' patent? The
key was application and context. Karana's experiment
worked on a small, synthetic, highly controlled
molecule. It was a very specific chemical environment.
Mullis' breakthrough was demonstrating that the
exponential nature worked on complex biological
mixtures like genomic DNA. That's a whole different
ballgame. And Carana himself refused to testify
for DuPont. He perhaps saw the patent battle
as a distraction, or maybe he recognized the
huge practical difference between his conceptual
demonstration and Mullis' functional application.
A jury upheld the Mullis patent in 1991. But
the legal battles weren't over, especially regarding
the tack component. That's right. In 1999, years
after the Nobel, the Roche patent Specifically,
the part concerning the use of TAC polymerase
was actually found unenforceable. On what grounds?
It was based on evidence of prior art. There
were articles published on the heat -stable polymerase
itself back in 1976 and 1980, which predated
the work done by the CETIS team that had patented
its purification process. It just highlights
the layered nature of scientific progress. Mollis
had the conceptual leap. Psyche provided the
critical enabler with TAC. But the underlying
component, TAC polymerase, was already part of
the public scientific record. So the invention
that revolutionized biology was the product of
a singular moment of genius, years of testing,
complex corpor - And even if you set aside the
patent drama, Mullis's reputation for erratic
behavior at CETUS was profound. His supervisor,
Thomas White, noted that his behavior was so
outrageous that colleagues thought White only
kept him on because they were friends. That tells
you something about the corporate culture. They
tolerated extreme volatility because the genius
was just undeniable. What specifically are we
talking about when we say outrageous behavior?
Well, the sources cite specific examples that
paint a picture of intense instability. Mullis
once allegedly threatened to bring a gun to work.
Wow. OK. He engaged in these highly public lovers
quarrels with his girlfriend, who, again, was
a chemist working on the same floor. So uncomfortable
for everyone else. Immensely. And the source
also details how he. nearly came to blows with
another scientist at a company party. His emotional
intensity just bled over into his professional
life, which made him a truly difficult yet indispensable
colleague. He eventually resigned from Cetus
in 1986, right after the TAC discovery, but he
didn't stop working. He continued inventing and
consulting, often blending this high -level science
with some really unconventional commercial ventures.
His next stop was a company called Zytron Inc.
in san diego he was the director of molecular
biology there for two years he invented a uv
sensitive ink a practical chemistry application
but you know a far cry from dna right and it
was during this period that the source notes
he became actively skeptical of the existence
of the ozone hole which was a major environmental
concern at the time this marks a really early
concrete shift toward him questioning scientific
consensus outside his own domain he then transitioned
into consulting focusing on nucleic acid chemistry
and becoming this high -profile expert witness
in DNA profiling. A field that, ironically, depended
entirely on his own invention to even function.
And this brings us to one of his more bizarre
commercial ventures. In 1992, around the time
he was cementing his reputation as a DNA forensics
expert, he founded a business to sell celebrity
DNA jewelry. You have to explain this. Amplified
DNA inside a trinket. That's it. He wanted to
sell pieces of jewelry containing the amplified
DNA of deceased famous people. He cited Elvis
Presley and Marilyn Monroe as examples. That
is almost surreal. It's taking the pinnacle of
high -tech molecular biology, the ability to
amplify the smallest trace of life, and using
it to create morbid novelty items. It just reveals
this incredible commercial impulsivity combined
with his unique technical skill. But in the same
year, he also founded Atomic Tags, which shows
his mind was still operating at the absolute
cutting edge. Atomic tags was a serious, complex
idea. It was a venture to develop highly multiplexed
amino assays using advanced tech, specifically
atomic force microscopy, where you'd tag antibodies
with heavy metals. And the goal was? The goal
was to identify multiple disease markers at the
same time with incredible precision. So within
the same calendar year, Carey Mullis was simultaneously
trying to sell Elvis's DNA and launch a highly
sophisticated next generation diagnostic platform.
The contrast is just astonishing. Years later,
in 2011, Mullis founded Ultramune LLC to pursue
ideas about the immune system. This concept,
far removed from DNA synthesis, it just shows
his continued ability to conceptualize these
innovative molecular solutions. Let's try to
unpack this claimed breakthrough, Ultramune.
Ultramune is a highly complex mechanism that
proposes to revolutionize immunotherapy by leveraging
the immune system's pre -existing memory. So
not waiting for it to develop new memory, which
is what a traditional vaccine does. Exactly.
The basic idea is molecular redirection. So instead
of creating new antibodies to fight a new flu
strain, you trick the antibodies you already
have into fighting the flu for you. That's it.
The core tool is a synthetic chemical linker
he called an alphamer. The goal is to divert
a robust pre -existing immune response toward
a new immediate threat. The analogy is like this.
Imagine your body has a standing army that is
already highly trained to fight one specific
rare enemy. Let's call them alpha gulls. This
army is massive. It's deployed and it's waiting.
And every human has this alpha gull standing
army. Yes. All humans have a strong natural immunity
to something called alpha -1 ,3 -galactosyl galactose
bonds or alpha -gal bonds. They're found in certain
animal products. So the linker, the alphamer,
is synthesized with an alpha -gal bond on one
end. Okay. That alpha -gal end instantly attracts
and binds to that massive... pre -existing antibody
army. And the other end of this molecular bridge?
The other end of the linker is designed to bind
specifically to the new target, say, a surface
protein on a deadly new strain of flu or maybe
an anthrax spore. So the alphamer acts as a chemical
bridge. It connects the massive pre -existing
anti -alpha -gal antibodies directly to the surface
of the new threatening pathogen. So you have
literally as Mullis claimed, fooled your immune
system into thinking that the deadly new pathogen
is the common safe target it was already trained
to destroy. And that offers immediate mass scale
immunity. That's the theory. He claimed significant
success. He stated the U .S. government paid
$500 ,000 to use this technology against anthrax
in preliminary trials. He claimed it resulted
in a 100 % effective treatment, which was a huge
increase from the previous treatment's 40 % effectiveness.
Wow. He was also personally driven to apply it
against a pathogenic strep bacterium because
it had tragically killed a close friend of his.
This invention just demonstrates that even late
in his career, Mullis' capacity for high -level
foundational molecular innovation was absolutely
intact. He maintained his technical genius even
as his personal philosophical views drifted further
and further into controversy. And now we arrive
at the heart of the paradox. This is the most
difficult section to reconcile. Cary Mullis was
undeniably brilliant, operating at the highest
level of chemistry and molecular biology. No
question. Yet at the same time, he was guided
by this profound and sometimes dangerous skepticism
that led him to embrace views that weren't just
scientifically rejected, but they carried real
world tragic consequences. The scientific community
actually has a term for this phenomenon, which
is highly relevant here. The skeptical inquirer
coined the term Nobel disease. Nobel disease.
That sounds ominous. What exactly is it? It's
not. Not a medical condition, it's a tendency,
an intellectual hazard that's been observed in
some Nobel laureates. These are individuals who
have reached the absolute pinnacle of achievement
in one incredibly specialized field. Okay. And
having received that ultimate validation, they
often begin to believe that their specialized
insight and critical genius applies universally
to everything well outside their domain of expertise.
So their certainty in one area becomes intellectual
hubris in others. Precisely. They start to embrace
scientifically implausible, often marginal or
unsubstantiated ideas. And what guides this shift?
It's rarely new, rigorous data. The Nobel disease
often manifests as adopting views based on anecdotal
evidence, conspiracy theories, or personal bias
that overrides the very skepticism that defined
their award -winning work. And Mullis is cited
as a classic example of this. His ability to
synthesize complex molecular data just seemed
to vanish when he decided to weigh in on public
health or environmental science. Let's start
with the most serious implication. His views
on HIV AIDS. Wallace became a vocal and influential
figure in the HIV AIDS denialist movement. It's
a position that placed him in direct opposition
to the global scientific consensus. He expressed
profound doubt that the HIV virus causes AIDS.
And it's crucial to underscore this point, which
really speaks to the Nobel disease. He never
conducted any scientific research on either HIV
or AIDS himself. None. His skepticism was entirely
philosophical, not empirical. So what was his
reasoning? In his 1998 autobiography, he explained
it was highly anecdotal. He claimed he started
questioning the consensus when he was compiling
a report and couldn't find a single published
reference that definitively stated HIV was the
cause of AIDS. A reference he insisted should
have been easy to locate if the science was settled.
For him, the lack of an immediate simple citation
became proof that the entire scientific establishment
was wrong. That sounds less like scientific inquiry
and more like a massive confirmation bias. His
personal inability to find the exact source he
wanted instantly led him to reject decades of
evidence. That's the danger of the Nobel disease.
He published an alternative hypothesis in 1994
claiming AIDS was just an arbitrary diagnosis
used when HIV antibodies were found in a patient's
blood. He just dismissed the vast complexity
of retroviral infection and immune collapse.
And his position put him in alignment with other
controversial figures. Yes. Seth Kalichman, an
AIDS researcher who tracks denialism, named Mullis
among the who's who of AIDS pseudoscientists.
He was a vocal supporter of Peter Duisburg, another
molecular biologist who championed denialism.
And this is where the story shifts from personal
eccentricity to profound tragedy. His scientific
notoriety gave his fringe views a massive, destructive
megaphone. The source material details some very
serious implications. Specifically, the influence
he had over the world leader. Yes. Mullis' HIV
skepticism allegedly influenced the thinking
of Thabo Mbeki, who was the president of South
Africa from 1999 to 2008. And Mbeki, listening
to denialists like Mullis, refused to implement
life -saving antiretroviral drug programs nationwide.
He preferred to focus on traditional, unproven
remedies instead. And the cost of that policymaking,
fueled in part by the intellectual weight Mull
has provided to the movement, was just staggering.
It's hard to calculate the full scope, but estimates
from sources analyzing this period suggest Menelik's
policies contributed to as many as 330 ,000 unnecessary
deaths in South Africa. 330 ,000? The inventor
of PCR, the tool that could rapidly diagnose
HIV, became one of the most visible voices denying
the cause of one of the 20th century's deaths.
And his skepticism wasn't just limited to virology.
He also took aim at environmental science, expressing
disagreement with the scientific evidence for
our role in climate change and ozone depletion.
He had a specific cynicism about the motivations
of scientists themselves. His perspective was
fundamentally conspiratorial. He claimed that
theories on these topics were the product of
scientists and government bureaucrats conspiring
to secure funding. So a jobs program for scientists.
Essentially. He said, quote, science is being
practiced by people who are dependent on being
paid for what they're going to find out instead
of searching for truth. For Mullis, the consensus
on climate change wasn't the result of overwhelming
evidence, but a collective economic effort to
keep research grants flowing. To understand the
source of this highly idiosyncratic worldview,
this extreme skepticism toward consensus, combined
with a deep acceptance of personal unverified
experience, we really have to look at his own
detailed accounts of altered states of consciousness.
We've already noted his background in chemistry
at UC Berkeley. Mullis practiced clandestine
chemistry throughout his graduate studies. Specifically,
he was synthesizing LSD. And his friend, Tom
White, the one who got him the Cetus job. knew
about this he was not only aware of it he cited
it as evidence of mollusk's chemical skill he
knew mollusk was a good chemist because quote
he'd been synthesizing hallucinogenic drugs at
uc berkeley that's an incredible inversion mastery
of illicit chemistry proving his fitness for
a professional biotech job and he didn't just
synthesize psychedelics He was a very active
user. He detailed it all in his autobiography,
synthesizing and testing various psychedelic
amphetamines. He talked about a particularly
difficult trip on something called D .E .T. And
he spoke openly about how important these experiences
were for him. He said in a 1994 interview that
taking LSD in the 60s and 70s was a mind opening
experience. But what's really significant is
the direct connection he made to his Nobel winning
invention. Right. He said what? He said taking
LSD was certainly much more important than any.
courses I ever took. And he made this connection
public. Oh, yes. During a symposium in Switzerland
for Albert Hoffman, the man who first synthesized
LSD Hoffman publicly recounted that Mullis had
told him directly that LSD had helped him develop
the polymerase chain reaction. He explicitly
credited a psychedelic experience with one of
the most crucial scientific inventions of the
20th century. This profoundly nontraditional
path to innovation is just central to his entire
story. And if synthesizing LSD and crediting
it with PCR wasn't enough to define his worldview
as non -traditional, his interest went even further
into the realm of the truly paranormal. He was
definitely open to esoteric ideas. He professed
a belief in astrology, for example, which is
a pretty big departure from conventional scientific
thinking. But the anecdotes in his autobiography,
Dancing Naked in the Minefield, there would really
stick with you. That title alone tells you so
much. It does. He detailed two specific paranormal
anecdotes that just defy logic. The first involves
a ghostly visitation. He detailed witnessing
what he called the non -substantial form of his
deceased grandfather. And what did he do? He
casually offered the apparition a beer. Offering
a ghost a beer. That incredible comfort level
with something outside empirical reality, a total
suspension of disbelief, is amazing. It's the
exact opposite of the hyperskepticism he applied
to climate change data. And the second anecdote
is the one that has truly entered the scientific
folklore surrounding Carey Mullis. His encounter
with a fluorescent... Talking raccoon. A talking,
glowing raccoon. Mullis, the Nobel laureate,
detailed this in his autobiography and suggested
the animal might have been an extraterrestrial.
The detail itself is just astounding. He recounts
being at his cabin in the woods, and this raccoon
walks up and starts speaking to him. The raccoon,
he noted, was fluorescent. And Mullis didn't
dismiss this as a hallucination or some elaborate
joke. He integrated it into his reality, suggesting
it was pre - that reality itself is far stranger
than consensus science allows. This detail just
perfectly encapsulates the fundamental conflict
in his life. He was a molecular master whose
scientific discipline gave him exponential certainty
in the lab. Yet his personal philosophy was a
free -for -all, embracing the most far -fetched
possibilities imaginable. As we conclude this
deep dive, the figure of Carey Mullis remains
profoundly difficult to categorize. On one side,
you have the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry and the Japan Prize, honored for
providing a technology that fundamentally changed
medicine and forensics. Indispensable technology.
And on the other side, you have... a man who
wielded his scientific authority to promote scientifically
unfounded claims especially his aids denialism
which through political influence likely resulted
in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths
he was a character defined by these massive contradictory
energies right up until his death in 2019 at
the age of 74 from complications of pneumonia
we know he loved surfing he was married four
times played guitar and sang he was constantly
moving The story of Cary Mullis really forces
you, the learner, to confront the crucial difference
between domain expertise and general critical
thinking. Mullis was a world -class technician.
His ability to innovate within molecular chemistry
was peerless. It gave us PCR and the highly innovative
ultramune concept. But his skepticism outside
his precise field was not guided by the same
level of evidence and rigor. When he talked about
broader public issues, he was guided by anecdote,
personal convenience, and a consistency. And
that brings us to our final provocative thought
for you to chew on. PCR is a tool of almost surgical
precision. It allows scientists to analyze the
smallest traces of DNA to determine objective
truth in medicine, in forensics, in genetics.
It leaves almost no room for ambiguity. Given
Carey Mullis' deep personal belief in the paranormal,
in astrology, and in a fluorescent talking raccoon
that might have been an alien, what does it truly
mean when the man who invented one of our greatest
instruments for revealing scientific certainty
was so actively comfortable embracing the scientifically
implausible in his own life? It makes you wonder
if that very willingness to entertain the absurd,
to discard conventional wisdom entirely, was
a necessary prerequisite for the brilliance that
led to PCR in the first place.