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carduelia_carduelis 's review for:
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
by Richard Dawkins
DID NOT FINISH
My dislike of this book can be boiled down to: it wasn't what I thought it was. Two stars, then, because if we evaluate the book on what it is doing, then it does it fairly well.
Let me explain. I picked this up becuase I thought it was going to be an anthology of the best of modern science writing. And, at the time of publication, that meant John Gribbins, Roger Penrose, Brian Greene, James Gleick, Oliver Sacks, E. O. Wilson, Feynamn, more Gribbins. I like to read variety and essentially was planning to use this to shop for a new topic and author.
So, I was expecting popular science writing: a snippet that explains a concept and brings it to life; an excerpt that entices me to pick up more. And a selection of topics. My preferences trend towards the physical sciences and those fascinating cross-disciplinary topics like neuroscience but I was open to entertained by anything. Bring on the smörgåsbord!
But this.. this has some problems.
Firstly the length of the included pieces. Each one is usually no more than 2 or 3 pages, and some are less. That isn't really enough space to cover anything in depth, unless it is very focused. However, none of these pieces have that focus, instead they feel like the material in the opening chapter of a book. The kind of writing that is meant to reassure the everyday reader and draw them in before the hard science starts. And, because of that, the pieces in the first 100 pages I read felt strangely lacking in content even when they were talking about subtle concepts.
For example, there is a section of a book by R. A. Fisher that hints at problems Darwin saw with the variability of characteristics in domesticated species that seemed to contradict his premise that variability arises from natural selection. This problem is outlined in about half a page and then just.. vanishes. The next paragraph, from the same book, instead disusses particulate inheritance (i.e. genes cause inherited traits). Now look, I could surmise that particulate inheritance contains the seeds to resolving Darwin's difficulties with domesticated variability. I could go off and do some reading elsewhere (which inevitably I did) to try and figure out why these two tiny snippets (less than a page each) were put in this book. But isn't that what the intro from Dawkins to this snippet is meant to be for?
Dawkins puts an intro out the front of every excerpt. Rather that elaborate on or provide context to the piece that follow, each just talks about Dawkins's personal relationship to it. I skipped reading them after the first dozen.
And this brings me to my next point, the unevenness of the collection.
I understand that a chocolate box anthology is going to have some pieces that appeal to me more than others. And that, with my profession, I will understand some more than others. But there is a really hard line between the pieces that are about evolutionary biology and those that are not. The line delineates both multiplicity (there are far too many genetics snippets) and detail. The pieces not explicitly about evolutionary biology felt really surface level, and, to be honest, boring. The pieces that were about evolutionary biology were either navel-gazing poetic musings or editorials that didn't really explain themselves. It's a surprisingly uneven mix.
At one point I read a snippet about trilobite eyes. How cool! They're made of CaCO3 (limestone) - did you know that? I didn't! I couldn't wait to learn more about them: how they work, what path we think led to this, what other animals have a similar eye structure. But no, the snippet spends its allotted space listing all the other things that are also made of limestone: chalk, the "frigid purity"(???) of the Seven Sisters islands, the scaglio rosso of Italian churches. And then starts quoting the Tempest. That's when I decided to call it a day.
Who is this for then?
I think if you are a professional in STEM who doesn't like reading fiction but wants a nightstand book to lull you to sleep with comforting musings, you might like this.
If you are a geneticist you might like this even more.
If you are a member of the general public who has very limited knowledge on science you might learn something new but only get a hint of it, because nothing is really explained.
I dunno, a lot of these reviews are glowing, so this one is probably just me. I'm going to go back to my Gribbins, Penrose, and dear Ed Yong for science writing rich in content.
Let me explain. I picked this up becuase I thought it was going to be an anthology of the best of modern science writing. And, at the time of publication, that meant John Gribbins, Roger Penrose, Brian Greene, James Gleick, Oliver Sacks, E. O. Wilson, Feynamn, more Gribbins. I like to read variety and essentially was planning to use this to shop for a new topic and author.
So, I was expecting popular science writing: a snippet that explains a concept and brings it to life; an excerpt that entices me to pick up more. And a selection of topics. My preferences trend towards the physical sciences and those fascinating cross-disciplinary topics like neuroscience but I was open to entertained by anything. Bring on the smörgåsbord!
But this.. this has some problems.
Firstly the length of the included pieces. Each one is usually no more than 2 or 3 pages, and some are less. That isn't really enough space to cover anything in depth, unless it is very focused. However, none of these pieces have that focus, instead they feel like the material in the opening chapter of a book. The kind of writing that is meant to reassure the everyday reader and draw them in before the hard science starts. And, because of that, the pieces in the first 100 pages I read felt strangely lacking in content even when they were talking about subtle concepts.
For example, there is a section of a book by R. A. Fisher that hints at problems Darwin saw with the variability of characteristics in domesticated species that seemed to contradict his premise that variability arises from natural selection. This problem is outlined in about half a page and then just.. vanishes. The next paragraph, from the same book, instead disusses particulate inheritance (i.e. genes cause inherited traits). Now look, I could surmise that particulate inheritance contains the seeds to resolving Darwin's difficulties with domesticated variability. I could go off and do some reading elsewhere (which inevitably I did) to try and figure out why these two tiny snippets (less than a page each) were put in this book. But isn't that what the intro from Dawkins to this snippet is meant to be for?
Dawkins puts an intro out the front of every excerpt. Rather that elaborate on or provide context to the piece that follow, each just talks about Dawkins's personal relationship to it. I skipped reading them after the first dozen.
And this brings me to my next point, the unevenness of the collection.
I understand that a chocolate box anthology is going to have some pieces that appeal to me more than others. And that, with my profession, I will understand some more than others. But there is a really hard line between the pieces that are about evolutionary biology and those that are not. The line delineates both multiplicity (there are far too many genetics snippets) and detail. The pieces not explicitly about evolutionary biology felt really surface level, and, to be honest, boring. The pieces that were about evolutionary biology were either navel-gazing poetic musings or editorials that didn't really explain themselves. It's a surprisingly uneven mix.
At one point I read a snippet about trilobite eyes. How cool! They're made of CaCO3 (limestone) - did you know that? I didn't! I couldn't wait to learn more about them: how they work, what path we think led to this, what other animals have a similar eye structure. But no, the snippet spends its allotted space listing all the other things that are also made of limestone: chalk, the "frigid purity"(???) of the Seven Sisters islands, the scaglio rosso of Italian churches. And then starts quoting the Tempest. That's when I decided to call it a day.
Who is this for then?
I think if you are a professional in STEM who doesn't like reading fiction but wants a nightstand book to lull you to sleep with comforting musings, you might like this.
If you are a geneticist you might like this even more.
If you are a member of the general public who has very limited knowledge on science you might learn something new but only get a hint of it, because nothing is really explained.
I dunno, a lot of these reviews are glowing, so this one is probably just me. I'm going to go back to my Gribbins, Penrose, and dear Ed Yong for science writing rich in content.