One of the odd things about the C-list celebrity life of a semi-pro blogger is that I get a bunch of requests to review books on physics-related topics. Some of these take the form of a book showing up out of the blue, others are preceded by a polite request from the author. Aaron Santos’s… Continue reading How Many Licks? or How to Estimate Damn Near Anything by Aaron Santos
Category: Science Books
Unscientific America: The Pluto Thing
I’ve been really surprised at the number of people writing about Unscientific America who are confused by the discussion of the Pluto incident (Mad Mike is the latest, but it’s not hard to find more). For those who haven’t read the book, the first chapter opens with a description of the public reaction to the… Continue reading Unscientific America: The Pluto Thing
Scientists vs. the Scientific Community
This isn’t actually about a literal or metaphorical smackdown– it’s more about a distinction in language, related to a number of the comments that have been made regarding Unscientific America. (Yeah, I know. I’ll find something else to talk about soon.) The issue is most clearly laid out by Janet, who writes: In addition to… Continue reading Scientists vs. the Scientific Community
Scientist PACs and Judges
One of the most interesting suggestions made by Chris and Sheril in Unscientific America is the idea that science needs to play political hardball (page 158, in the endnotes): Why not form a nonpartisan science political action committee, or PAC, devoted to funding candidates who are either scientists themselves or who make science a strong… Continue reading Scientist PACs and Judges
Wikis Are Not the Answer
Matt Leifer had a good comment to yesterday’s post about how the editing function, in my opinion, adds considerable value to a book that you don’t get with a blog. I got distracted and didn’t reply to it, and since a day in blog-time is like a week in the real world, I’ll promote it… Continue reading Wikis Are Not the Answer
Popularization Is Its Own Reward?
One of the major problems contributing to the dire situation described in Unscientific America is that the incentives of academia don’t align very well with the public interest. Academic scientists are rewarded– with tenure, promotion, and salary increases– for producing technical, scholarly articles, and not for writing for a general audience. There is very little… Continue reading Popularization Is Its Own Reward?
Why Traditional Publishing Is Better Than Blogging
There’s another round of “science blogs will make traditional journalism obsolete!” going on in connection with last week’s World Conference of Science Journalists— see Mad Mike, for example. This wouldn’t be interesting except that it happened to collide with my reading Unscientific America, and it struck me that the book is, in many ways, one… Continue reading Why Traditional Publishing Is Better Than Blogging
Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future is the new book by Chris and Sheril of The Intersection (formerly on ScienceBlogs, now at Discover), and they were kind enough to include me on the list of people getting review copies. It turned up on Friday (after I’d already started Newton and the Counterfeiter). I… Continue reading Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum
Death to the Un-Noted Endnote
This is a rare weekend in which I’ve completed two serious books– the aforementioned Newton and the Couterfeiter and Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America (a review copy showed up Friday, thanks guys), about which more later. They’re very different books, but both excellent in their own way. While they have very different subjects,… Continue reading Death to the Un-Noted Endnote
Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson
I’ve been enjoying Tom Levenson’s “Diary of a Trade Book” series quite a bit (the latest post is on cover art), so when I say a stack of copies of Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist at the bookstore the other day, I snapped one up. As the… Continue reading Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson