The Oxford book of modern science writing

The Oxford book of modern science writing

Book - 2008

Boasting almost one hundred extracts, The Oxford book of modern science writing is a breathtaking celebration of the finest writing by scientists-- the best such collection in print-- packed with scintillating essays on everything from "the discovery of Lucy" to "the terror and vastness of the universe."

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Subjects
Science.
Scientists' writings.
Published
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press 2008.
Language
English
Other Authors
Richard Dawkins, 1941- (-)
Physical Description
xviii, 419 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. [397]-400) and index.
ISBN
9780199216802
  • James Jeans, from The mysterious universe
  • Martin Rees, from Just six numbers
  • Peter Atkins, from Creation revisited
  • Helena Cronin, from The ant and the peacock
  • R.A. Fisher, from The genetical theory of natural selection
  • Theodosius Dobzhansky, from Mankind evolving
  • G.C. Williams, from Adaptation and natural selection
  • Francis Crick, from Life itself
  • Matt Ridley, from Genome
  • Sydney Brenner, 'Theoretical biology in the third millennium'
  • Steve Jones, from The language of the genes
  • J. B. S. Haldane, from 'On being the right size'
  • Mark Ridley, from The explanation of organic diversity
  • John Maynard Smith, 'The importance of the nervous system in the evolution of animal flight'
  • Fred Hoyle, from Man in the universe
  • D'Arcy Thompson, from On growth and form
  • G. G. Simpson, from The meaning of evolution
  • Richard Fortey, from Trilobite!
  • Colin Blakemore, from The mind machine
  • Richard Gregory, from Mirrors in mind
  • Nicholas Humphrey, 'One self: a meditation on the unity of consciousness'
  • Steven Pinker, from The language instinct, and How the mind works
  • Jared Diamond, from The rise and fall of the third chimpanzee
  • David Lack, from The life of the robin
  • Niko Tinbergen, from Curious naturalists
  • Robert Trivers, from Social evolution
  • Alister Hardy, from The open sea
  • Rachel Carson, from The sea around us
  • Loren Eiseley, from 'How flowers changed the world'
  • Edward O. Wilson, from The diversity of life
  • Arthur Eddington, from The expanding universe
  • C. P. Snow, from the foreword to G. H. Hardy's A mathematician's apology
  • Freeman Dyson, from Disturbing the universe
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer, from 'War and the nations'
  • Max F. Perutz, 'A passion for crystals'
  • Barbara and George Gamow, 'Said Ryle to Hoyle'
  • J. B. S. Haldane, 'Cancer's a funny thing'
  • Jacob Bronowski, from The identity of man
  • Peter Medawar, from 'Science and literature', 'Darwin's illness', 'The phenomenon of man', the postscript to 'Lucky Jim', and 'D'Arcy Thompson and growth and form'
  • Jonathan Kingdon, from Self-made man
  • Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, from Origins reconsidered
  • Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, from Lucy
  • Stephen Jay Gould, 'Worm for a century, and all seasons'
  • John Tyler Bonner, from Life cycles
  • Oliver Sacks, from Uncle Tungsten
  • Lewis Thomas, 'Seven wonders'
  • James Watson, from Avoid boring people
  • Francis Crick, from What mad pursuit
  • Lewis Wolpert, from The unnatural nature of science
  • Julian Huxley, from Essays of a biologist
  • Albert Einstein, 'Religion and science'-- Carl Sagan, from The demon-haunted world
  • Richard Feynman, from The character of physical law
  • Erwin Schrödinger, from What is life?
  • Daniel Dennett, from Darwin's dangerous idea, and Consciousness explained
  • Ernst Mayr, from The growth of biological thought
  • Garrett Hardin, from 'The tragedy of the commons'
  • W.D. Hamilton, from Geometry for the selfish herd, and Narrow roads of geneland
  • Per Bak, from How nature works
  • Martin Gardner, The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game 'life'
  • Lancelot Hogben, from Mathematics for the million
  • Ian Stewart, from The miraculous jar
  • Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, from The mathematical theory of communication
  • Alan Turing, from Computing machinery and intelligence
  • Albert Einstein, from 'What is the theory of relativity?'
  • George Gamow, from Mr. Tompkins
  • Paul Davies, from The Goldilocks enigma
  • Russell Stannard, from The time and space of Uncle Albert
  • Brian Greene, from The elegant universe
  • Stephen Hawking, from A brief history of time
  • S. Chandrasekhar, from Truth and beauty
  • G. H. Hardy, from A mathematician's apology
  • Steven Weinberg, from Dreams of a final theory
  • Lee Smolin, from The life of the cosmos
  • Roger Penrose, from The emperor's new mind
  • Douglas Hofstadter, from Gödel, Escher, Bach: the eternal golden braid
  • John Archibald Wheeler with Kenneth Ford, from Geons, black holes, and quantum foam
  • David Deutsch, from The fabric of reality
  • Primo Levi, from The periodic table
  • Richard Fortey, from Life: an unauthorized biography
  • George Gaylord Simpson, from The meaning of evolution
  • Loren Eiseley, from Little men and flying saucers
  • Carl Sagan, from Pale blue dot.
Review by Choice Review

This is a book one reads over a prolonged period of time, being in essence written for the nightstand or the table next to a comfortable armchair. Dawkins (Oxford Univ.) has chosen around 80 of the world's most preeminent scientists and used brief excerpts of their work--some less than two pages and none more than five or six pages. Every scientific discipline is here: anthropology (Richard Leakey), mathematics (Alan Turing), astronomy (Fred Hoyle), biology (Stephen Jay Gould), and a host of others including some world-famous scientists like Einstein and other relatively obscure individuals such as ecologist Garrett Hardin. Dawkins prefaces each selection with a paragraph explaining why that particular person was chosen. He gives structure to the compilation by placing the selections under one of four categories: "What Scientists Study," "Who Scientists Are," "What Scientists Think," and "What Scientists Delight In." Thus, readers can pick and choose, but the recommendation is to read the entire work, one or two choices at a time. This book richly deserves to be in any library, public, private, or academic. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. C. G. Wood formerly, Eastern Maine Community College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Einstein unravels relativity. Schrödinger ponders life. Oppenheimer reflects on nuclear war. These three luminaries here join an impressive constellation of other modern scientists who have brightened the last century through both their research and their writing. Biologist-author Dawkins brings to his anthology-building task a perfect fusion of scientific intelligence and literary discernment, carefully selecting and annotating pieces remarkable both for theoretical acumen and stylistic grace. The range of specialties represented runs very wide astrophysics and microbiology, anthropology and computer design but discernible commonalities emerge in four thematic sections devoted to what scientists study, who they are, what they think, and even what they admire. A few selections will appeal chiefly to scholars (such as John Maynard Smith's examination of how nervous systems evolved in flying creatures); however, the majority of the pieces address topics of deep interest to general readers in language wonderfully free of jargon. Most of the writers, indeed, seem to have read and taken to heart the insights excerpted from molecular biologist James Watson's lively autobiography: Avoid Boring People (2007).--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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