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Reviewed by:
  • The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
  • Robert L. Perlman
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Edited by Richard Dawkins. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009. Pp. xv + 419. $18.95 (paper).

This lovely book comprises about 80 excerpts from the writings of 20th-century scientists, selected and introduced by Richard Dawkins. As Dawkins explains the purpose of the anthology:

Our ability to understand the universe and our position in it is one of the glories of the human species. Our ability to link mind to mind by language, and especially to transmit our thoughts across the centuries is another. Science and literature, then, are the two achievenrents of Homo sapiens that most convincingly justify the species name. In attempting, however inadequately, to bring the two together, this book can be seen as a celebration of humanity.

(p. 3)

The selections cover the gamut of the natural sciences, from mathematics and astrophysics to ecology and animal behavior. The authors are distinguished scientists, not science writers, although a few—Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, Martin Gardner—are probably better known for their popular writing than for their scientific work. The only nonscientist in the book is Daniel Dennett, whom Dawkins describes as "the scientist's philosopher" (p. 254). The list of authors is a Who's Who of scientist-writers; the one glaring omission is Dawkins himself, [End Page 648] but he makes up for this by writing charming, personal introductions to each of the selections.

The book is organized into four sections: "What Scientists Study"; "Who Scientists Are"; "What Scientists Think"; and "What Scientists Delight In." Although the chapters don't fit neatly into these categories, the section names do give a sense of the scope of the volume. The writings, which are mostly taken from books and are mostly single-authored, provide a striking contrast with the typical formulaic, multi-authored scientific journal articles. Many scientists whose technical journal articles are painful to read can, when given freedom from the word limits and other constraints of journal writing, write beautiful prose that conveys the joys and excitement of science as well as the specialized technical concepts of their own work. Almost all of the works were written in English; Primo Levi is, I believe, the only author whose writing appears in translation. As Dawkins points out, however, a number of scientists for whom English is not their first language—Jacob Bronowski, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and Niko Tinbergen, among others—write more gracefully than many native English speakers. The excerpts are short, mostly on the order of four to five pages, and they don't need to be read in order; the book makes good bedtime reading.

The book is framed by astronomers. Dawkins begins by "cutting humanity down to size" (p. 3) and helping us appreciate our place in the universe. The collection opens with an excerpt from The Mysterious Universe by James Jeans. After describing the immensity of the universe and its unsuitability for life like our own, Jeans writes: "Into such a universe we have stumbled, if not exactly by mistake, at least as the result of what may properly be described as an accident. The use of such a word need not imply any surprise that our earth exists, for accidents will happen, and if the universe goes on for long enough, every conceivable accident is likely to happen in time" (p. 4). And the book ends with Carl Sagan's description of the "pale blue dot," the Earth as it would be seen from outer space: "It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known" (p. 395). Dawkins mourns Sagan's untimely death as "a grievous loss to science and the whole world of reality-based thinking" (p. 239).

Several writings deal with the anthropic principle, the idea that the physical constants in our universe have values that are conducive...

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