Margie Profet: A Promising Scientist Vanishes Without a Trace

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The most striking thing
about biologist Margie Profet used to be her unconventional theories about
evolution and pregnancy, conceived as she surfed the perilous waters of
academe with neither tenure track nor PhD.

Now, more than 15 years after she made headlines as a young scientific "It
Girl," the most striking thing about Profet is how her life suddenly stopped.
One day she was at Harvard University and the next day she wasn't. The
prodigal prodigy vanished into thin air, disappeared without a trace.

What happened to this anti-establishment thinker whose Sheryl Crow looks and
beautiful mind made her a media darling? Weekly Scientist tackles that
question in an exclusive in-depth report, "Margie Profet's Unfinished
Symphony."

Almost single-handedly recasting a trio of everyday curses into a trinity of
evolutionary blessings, Profet argued that menstruation, morning sickness, and
allergies are highly-adaptive protective mechanisms. In a series of notable
papers for the Quarterly Review of Biology, she did what the best scientists
do -- overturn the conventional wisdom with insightful thinking and rigorous
defense.

In two popular but controversial books, 1995's "Protecting Your Baby-To Be"
and a 1997 sequel, "Pregnancy Sickness: Using Your Body's Natural Defenses to
Protect Your Baby-To-Be," Profet warned pregnant women to avoid certain
vegetables like cauliflower and Brussels sprouts because they contain traces
of a carcinogen.

After Profet won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1993, Scientific
American, The New York Times, and even Time Magazine swooned. People Magazine
featured her in the Shannen Doherty "secret wedding" issue. Elle covered her
in a "Good Hair Day" edition. Harper's Bazaar asked if she needed the
magazine's hair and make-up artists for a photo shoot.

Google Profet's name today and you'll see thousands of entries, debates,
conversations, and news, all but ending a few years ago. Unmarried, fit and
healthy, no reports of ill health or death have ever surfaced. No out-of-sorts
boyfriends or obsessive stalkers. No dangerous pursuits, at least not
involving life and limb.

Featuring over a dozen interviews with the friends, co-workers, and colleagues
who knew her best, "Margie Profet's Unfinished Symphony" chronicles Profet's
celebrated life, from her meteoric rise in scientific and media circles to the
days just before she disappeared.

Laying waste to various myths about her enigmatic persona, the story reveals
that Profet was not the maverick she was portrayed to be. Word of her
disappearance has brought forth praise, bewilderment, and sorrow from the very
establishment she purportedly shunned. Margie Profet had powerful mentors who
shaped and shepherded much of her work, and cared deeply about her life and
well-being.

"Very sad," said U.C. Berkeley biochemist Bruce Ames, who worked closely with
Profet on some of her groundbreaking research.

"We tried desperately to find Margie a few years ago, but came up empty
handed," Ames' executive assistant Teresa Klask said from the Children's
Hospital Oakland Research Institute, where Ames maintains a lab.

"Shocked and saddened to hear that Profet had disappeared and might even be
dead," Donald Brown, who taught anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, got to know
Profet when she stayed with his friend and colleague, UC Santa Barbara
evolutionary anthropologist Donald Symons. Famous for his theory of "human
universals," which posits that certain behavioral traits are common to all
human beings regardless their culture or ethnicity, Brown remembers Profet as
"attractive, bright, and a little eccentric, but unfailingly pleasant and
upbeat."

He was also a fan of her work. "It seemed an insightful, well-thought-out, and
very useful application of evolution," he said.

Don Symons -- considered one of the founders of evolutionary psychology --
echoed his friend Donald Brown. "I was honored to have helped Margie shape her
ideas," Symons explained. "No one has more respect and admiration for her
amazingly creative intellect than I do."

And few people had more insight into Margie Profet the person -- and why she
vanished, so suddenly and completely.

To find out more about the life and disappearance of Margie Profet, please
read the entire story at:

Margie Profet's Unfinished Symphony
A Promising Scientist Vanishes Without a Trace
http://www.weeklyscientist.com

Alternative link: http://weeklyscientist.blogspot.com

Provided by Newswise, online resource for knowledge-based news at
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SOURCE Weekly Scientist

Michael Martin of Weekly Scientist, +1-573-874-1744,
mike.martin@weeklyscientist.com