“Enhancement” has pretty positive connotations. I mean, for a word that is just a superfluous synonym of improvement, it has certainly attached itself to some of our favorite things. Who doesn’t love breast enhancement? Or the slightly more illusive, but exceedingly more profitable, “male” enhancement. (I wonder why “female” enhancement hasn’t caught on yet?) And then we have something like “performance enhancement,” which gets baseball players dressed up in pinstriped suits and looking really uncomfortable about something. I guess, more accurately then, enhancement refers to something we are making better, but should feel guilty about.

Lately, some academics have been surprised to learn that the usage of prescription medications by scholars in competitive academic environments has risen dramatically in the past decade. I restrict my statement to “some” academics because the remaining majority are doped out of their minds. The journal Nature, which wills the scientific world to turn, recently published a poll they conducted via their readership. They asked respondents whether or not they had used stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall for enhancing their intellectual abilities. The results showed that about 20 percent had. Of those 20 percent, they split evenly between using them daily, weekly, monthly and practically never. Which can be coaxed into saying: approximately 10 percent of academics take prescription-strength stimulants very regularly.

Who cares? Apparently not the respondents. When asked whether or not healthy humans (i.e. those with no medical need for cognitive enhancing drugs) should be allowed to use stimulants, 80 percent of them thought that it was fine. That’s not 80 percent of the ones already taking the drugs, that’s 80 percent of all respondents. A reasonable question to ask at this point is why don’t they feel guilty?

First of all, why should they? A common concern in cases of medical enhancement is the health risks involved. That is to say, these drugs are controlled for a reason and any use without prescriptions is, by definition, abuse. Of course, this depends on the fact of seriously deleterious side-effects, which just haven’t reached any sort of frightening prevalence. But even if there were absolutely no side-effects, there is still something that might be sticking in the craws of those dissenting 20 percent.

It just seems unfair. These people are in the business of thinking, that is their job, that is the marketplace they subsist in. Most academics either do not have access to prescription-strength stimulants, or choose not to use them. However, the members of this good-willed majority are punished for abiding the law by being out-competed by those who illegally enhance themselves. They’re cheaters.

To me, this is a very compelling account of why we should look down on the practice of self-enhancement. It hearkens back to our righteous outrage at professional athletes engaged in similar behavior. And if congressional hearings are any indication, there are plenty of critics of the enhancement phenomenon in the sports arena. But I don’t necessarily agree that we should feel the same way about academics.

The value we derive from professional sports is inherently tied to competition. When we find a game entertaining, it is because we enjoy watching two equally matched opponents in a fair struggle, and we admire the personal and outstanding strength it takes to attain victory. We hate lopsided victories, and we root for the underdog. But, although there is competition in the academy, this is not where the value lies.

Now, I should preemptively apologize to my fellow undergraduates: I’m sorry. It’s not ethical or acceptable for you to take illegal drugs to enhance your academic performance. You see, like professional athletes, the only person that gets value out of you artificially increasing your abilities is you. Whether it should be or not, undergraduate education is a process in ranking you against your peers. And you shouldn’t cheat us.

The story is different for scientists, researchers, professors and the like. The value that arises out of real academic work exists in and of itself. I think this is especially illustrated by the great rewards the scientific community has reaped for mankind in the past century. Our lives are longer and richer, and it seems silly to say that we should undervalue this because scientists don’t play fairly with other scientists. Of course, let’s not throw ourselves too zealously into this embrace. As Nature warns us: This poll was unscientific.

Justin is a senior in religious studies. In the end, you’ll never be as smart as Steve Bezek.