The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

by Walter Isaacson

But even if we agree that we want to rid humanity of schizophrenia and similar disorders, we should consider whether there might be some cost to society, even to civilization. Vincent van Gogh had either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. So did the mathematician John Nash. (And also Charles Manson and John Hinckley.) People with bipolar disorder include Ernest Hemingway, Mariah Carey, Francis Ford Coppola, Carrie Fisher, Graham Greene, Julian Huxley (the eugenicist), Gustav Mahler, Lou Reed, Franz Schubert, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Pauley, and hundreds of other artists and creators. The number of creative artists with major depressive disorder is in the thousands. A study by schizophrenia-research pioneer Nancy Andreasen of thirty prominent contemporary authors showed that twenty-four had experienced at least one episode of major depression or mood disorder, and twelve were diagnosed with bipolar disorder.