Jun 26 2009
Science Reading: Modern Science Writing
This month’s book at the Science & Society Reading Group was The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, a fairly recent publication edited by Richard Dawkins. It’s a collection of excerpts and articles from twentieth century writing about science — mostly written by working scientists themselves.
The essays were all chosen by Dawkins so it’s not surprising that there’s quite a heavy biology and evolution bias. But there are other exciting things too — Conway’s game of life, an introduction to Shannon’s information theory, and a fair amount of physics and cosmology. There are also the strange and frivolous, poems and fantastical stories, and that category of things which Douglas Hofstadter writes.
I think the only person who finished the book had read it last year and couldn’t remember much about it. The rest of us were still working on it. I think I was the only person not reading through in order, but hopping from article to article depending on what caught my interest. It meant there was a very small overlap between what I had read and what everyone else had read.
I was worried that much of the conversation would be taken up by nature/nurture conversations (which had got quite tedious the previous session when we discussed the movie XXY). It turns out I was foolish and naive — the main topic of conversation was bitching about that Richard Dawkins. Apparently he’s quite opinionated in his introduction; too much for some of my fellow readers anyway. I didn’t really notice this belligerent tone so I guess we just read different passages…
Overall there was a general unease with the book. Many others thought it wasn’t as focussed as it could be, with too many small and disparate ideas. And some people, confusingly, thought it wasn’t challenging enough. Maybe this was a natural effect of a roomful of biologists reading many of the biology-heavy essays at the beginning of the book. I don’t know. But I do feel I have a lot more to read. Every time I brought up the articles which interested me, everyone else hadn’t read them. How disappointing.
One interesting aspect about this book — and this is something I have noticed elsewhere — is the complete absence of the third science. Where is chemistry? Where are the popular writers for chemistry? Even asking chemists seems to draw a blank.
There has been no decision made about what we’ll read next. Suggestions mooted so far have been some philosophy (particularly, Russell’s History of Western Philosophy or some Daniel Dennett, who is easier to tie in with the science focus of the group). In my own reading list I have Gödel Escher Bach and The Annotated Turing, though I fear suggesting the Turing book to a mixed group of readers would not go well!
Does anyone have other “accessible science writing” suggestions I could put forward? In the past they’ve had Bad Science and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Maybe good scientist biographies exist too?
The Character of Physical Law is good. As are the autobiographical Feynman works (surely you’re joking and What do you care what other people think).
History of Western Philosophy is hard going! Music of the Primes (du Sautoy) is quite good, although I got irritated at the repetitions of the same thing in different words and the way it was written a bit too much like a detective story. I enjoyed “The collapse of chaos” in years gone by.
I may be wrong but I think What do You Care… was one of the books they read in the year and a half that I was on the mailing list but miserably failing to go to any sessions. On the other hand, Surely You’re Joking has been in my personal pile since my mum gave me a battered old copy circa 1999 so if they’ve not ever done Feynman I’d like the impetus to read it.