The Novel Intuition By Allegra Goodman Literature Review

Within the book “Intuition,” by Allegra Goodman, it is very important to consider the roll of Marion Mendelssohn because she is Cliff Bannaker’s lab partner, and therefore works very close with him and his research. Within the book, Goodman gives the reader details and insight that allow the reader to believe that Marion is a scientist who is known for being very detail oriented and rule abiding within the scientific community. This is a very key piece of information for the reader to pick up on, because it shows how even though Marion is detail oriented and rule abiding, she gets caught up in the whirlwind of Cliff’s experiment and allows herself to overlook the possibility of error within Cliff’s lab notes. It is a critical moment within the book when the author says that “"a line of inquiry can't be right just because it matches the investigator's intuition,” because it tells the reader, before the chaos ensues, that Marion is well aware of scientific ethics, and she believes that it is wrong to cheat/misinterpret scientific findings. This is a very important thing to understand at this point in the book because it will set the stage for the rest of the story. It is imperative that the reader understand Marion’s stance on scientific integrity, because now the reader knows that Marion is against cheating in the lab, yet the reader them self is left questioning why Marion is overlooking the sloppy lab notes and questionable results that Cliff finds in his experiment. Marion, like other characters in the story, as well as the reader, are all left to determine whether to believe Cliff’s research or not.