Chapter 13: Idiots

In this chap­ter, the Hast­ings Research Insti­tute is in tur­moil fol­low­ing the death of their renowned sci­en­tist, Calvin Evans. The insti­tu­tion is under pres­sure from its bene­fac­tors to address the neg­a­tive press sur­round­ing Evan­s’s death, as some have sug­gest­ed that his dif­fi­cult per­son­al­i­ty may have hin­dered his sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ments. Despite the efforts to reframe his lega­cy by empha­siz­ing his progress in research, the insti­tu­tion strug­gles with a more press­ing issue: the lack of excep­tion­al tal­ent among its staff. With Evans gone, the insti­tute faces a short­age of tru­ly ground­break­ing sci­en­tists, and man­age­ment is con­front­ed with the chal­lenge of main­tain­ing both the flow of inno­v­a­tive ideas and investor con­fi­dence, which demands imme­di­ate, prof­itable results.

At the cen­ter of this insti­tu­tion­al cri­sis is Eliz­a­beth Zott, a bril­liant but under­val­ued sci­en­tist whose research on abio­gen­e­sis has begun to attract the atten­tion of a wealthy investor. How­ev­er, this investor assumes that Zott is a man, lead­ing to a mix of excite­ment and anx­i­ety among the man­age­ment team when they secure the fund­ing. The rev­e­la­tion that Zott is preg­nant and unmar­ried threat­ens to unrav­el their care­ful­ly laid plans. In an envi­ron­ment rife with sys­temic bias­es and entrenched sex­ism, the man­age­ment is now grap­pling with how to han­dle a sit­u­a­tion that risks tar­nish­ing the insti­tute’s rep­u­ta­tion.

As the plot unfolds, Zott’s preg­nan­cy com­pli­cates the management’s abil­i­ty to maneu­ver. They ini­tial­ly con­tem­plate con­tin­u­ing her research with­out her, only to real­ize the invalu­able nature of her con­tri­bu­tions and the dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing some­one who could repli­cate her ground­break­ing work. Despite her indis­pens­able role, Zott is ulti­mate­ly fired, not for her sci­en­tif­ic short­com­ings, but because of her preg­nan­cy and unmar­ried status—an act that reveals the deep hypocrisy and moral judg­ment ingrained in the institution’s cul­ture.

The meet­ing in which Zott is dis­missed is a poignant moment in the chap­ter, cap­tur­ing the con­flict between sci­en­tif­ic progress and insti­tu­tion­al con­ser­vatism. Zott, despite the emo­tion­al weight of the sit­u­a­tion, main­tains her com­po­sure and defends her work with dig­ni­ty, high­light­ing the injus­tice of her treat­ment. The chap­ter pow­er­ful­ly cri­tiques the per­va­sive gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion and moral dou­ble stan­dards with­in the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty, reveal­ing the way in which ground­break­ing research by women is often under­val­ued or over­shad­owed by per­son­al bias­es.

Zott’s resilience in the face of such an unjust dis­missal empha­sizes the broad­er soci­etal issues at play—issues of sex­ism, the under­val­u­a­tion of women’s con­tri­bu­tions, and the rigid expec­ta­tions placed upon them in both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al realms. The chap­ter under­scores the strug­gle of pio­neer­ing women in male-dom­i­nat­ed fields, expos­ing how their work is often at odds with tra­di­tion­al norms and the insti­tu­tion­al forces that seek to sup­press progress in favor of main­tain­ing the sta­tus quo.