Let’s drop the “fiction” from the requirements: what are the best science books out there in the bookstores? I should update my updated book list for evolutionists again, so give me some good leads.
Horgan lists the Ten worst science books. Here’s his criteria for a bad science book:
These books aren’t merely awful, of course, but harmful. Most have been bestsellers, or had some sort of significant impact, which often means–paradoxically–that they are rhetorical masterpieces.
I find myself agreeing with his choices, at least of the ones I’ve read.
Capra, Frifjof, The Tao of Physics. Helped inspire the tedious New Age obsession with quantum mechanics.
I remember having to read this in some liberal-artsy class in college, and deciding that this lump of silly crap had convinced me that physics wasn’t for me. Not that I’d even been tempted, but man, this was bad.
Edelman, Gerald, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire. Oliver Sacks, inexplicably, reveres the pretentious, obscure neural theories of the egomaniacal Edelman. Why, Oliver, why?
Were Edelman’s books really that popular? I agree with the assessment, but I figured laymen would find it impenetrable, and those of us who knew something about neuroscience would all find it useless jabberwocky.
Gould, Stephen Jay, Rocks of Ages. Gould at his pompous, verbose worst. He managed somehow both to pander and condescend to readers.
Some of us like Gould, but this is one book that I think most of us would agree is awfully poor stuff. I’ve encountered a few religious people who think it’s great, but they usually seem to have the impression he’s being generous to religion.
Hamer, Dean, The God Gene. Any book by Hamer, “discoverer” of the “gay gene” and “God gene,” would have sufficed. He is an embarrassment to genetics.
Amen, brother. The whole “gene for X” genre is the domain of people who think simplistically about genetics, and it feeds popular misconceptions.
Kurzweil, Ray, The Age of Spiritual Machines. Bible of the pseudo-scientific cult of cyber-evangelism.
And he keeps going and going and going, and his books get thicker and thicker! Kurzweil is a nut in more ways than one. I was just reading a review of his latest in Skeptic magazine—the man hopes to live forever on a regimen of 250 pills, chinese herbs, weekly IV supplements and chelation therapy, acupuncture, alkalinized water, and ionic filtered air, and avoids showers and sugar.
Murray, Charles, and Richard Herrnstein, The Bell Curve. The worst of the worst, ethically, scientifically, intellectually.
It’s still cited and defended by racists and eugenicists and fans of wacky genetic elitism. This is probably the most actively evil book of the bunch.
Wilson, Edward, Consilience. Sorry, Ed, but even your writerly charm cannot mitigate this misguided manifesto for scientific imperialism. Stick with ants and biodiversity!
I’m not quite as down on this one as Horgan, although I do have misgivings—I think the difference is that I like scientific imperialism.
I’d add some others. I think Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box definitely deserves a place on the list, as an example of pseudoscientific dreck that has been enormously influential, giving new life and a veneer of respectability to creationism. That issue of the Skeptic also mentions altie con artist Andrew Weil, another New Age fraud who has made a fortune with a published line of quackery. Maybe there should be a special place for generic ‘health’ books.
I think it will sink without a trace soon enough so it probably doesn’t belong on such a list, but the absolute worst book on “science” I’ve read this year is Francis Collins’ Language of God. Unfortunately, I think it’s enduring influence will be that for years to come, Collins will be listed vaguely as a Great Scientist Who Believes In God.
I get a lot of mail from publishers, and this one had me going for a moment…one thing I don’t get is much mail from right-wing sources (other than the usual excoriations, of course.) This one looks so much like authentic Republican PR that it took a moment for it to sink in.
Speaking from the heart, not from the brain, this legendary Commander-in-Chief takes us on a journey through his momentous life. The great man we hear here displays his mother’s steely resolve and vindictive temper, his father’s keen mastery of language, and his own unique gift of deciding.
That’s a work of genius…satire that sneaks up on you. I almost trashed it before I realized what it was.
Don’t miss the movie! I may have to buy the book.
My review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) (currently at #4 on Amazon’s bestseller list!) is in the latest issue of Seed, which showed up at my door while I was flying out East. They changed my suggested title, which I’ve at least used on this article, in favor of the simpler “Bad Religion”. You could always buy the magazine to read it, but I’ll give you a little taste of what I thought.
Oh, yeah…Seed does that nice plus of having an artist render a portrait of the author, so there’s also a picture, artfully ruggedized and made much more attractive than I am in reality. Not that I’m complaining.
The British seem to have good taste. Look who is at the top of the UK bestseller list:
I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith? Aside from that, though, it’s impressive that The God Delusion has shot to the top so quickly. When I looked at the list of American best sellers, I saw that it wasn’t as depressing as I feared:
Chomsky and
Frank Rich on top,
Sam Harris is at #5, and
Dawkins is at #12 and climbing fast. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all—at least the literate segment of our population is pondering interesting views.
We still always get our Pratchett much, much later than the English and the Australians, though, which is so unfair.
Hrm. Well. Since so many people are emailing me about this (I guess the book is officially out now, since so many are reading it), I’ll come clean: I am mentioned briefly but flatteringly in Dawkins’ new book, The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). I’ll spare you all the mystery, and quote it here, blushingly. It’s on page 69, in a section titled “The Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists” (no, I’m not one of the members, I’m a critic; but as you can tell from the title, it’s a strong criticism of a school of thought that says we must appease the fence-straddlers who fear the godlessness of evolution). He cites a couple of things I’ve posted here: The Dawkins/Dennett boogeyman,
Our double standard, and
The Ruse-Dennett feud.
A page worth of the relevant section is quoted below the fold. Hey, if you like it, buy the book!
Oh, no. I’ve got to add another book to my growing stack: Frederick Crews’ Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). If you knew how many books are piling up on that shelf…
Here’s a piece of Jerry Coyne’s review:
The quality of Crewss prose is particularly evident in his two chapters on evolution versus creationism. In the first, he takes on creationists in their new guise as intelligent-design advocates, chastising them for pushing not only bad science, but contorted faith:
Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away some fourteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company?
But after demolishing creationists, Crews gives peacemaking scientists their own hiding, reproving them for trying to show that there is no contradiction between science and theology. Regardless of what they say to placate the faithful, most scientists probably know in their hearts that science and religion are incompatible ways of viewing the world. Supernatural forces and events, essential aspects of most religions, play no role in science, not because we exclude them deliberately, but because they have never been a useful way to understand nature. Scientific truths are empirically supported observations agreed on by different observers. Religious truths, on the other hand, are personal, unverifiable and contested by those of different faiths. Science is nonsectarian: those who disagree on scientific issues do not blow each other up. Science encourages doubt; most religions quash it.
How can I possibly resist it?
At least book memes are easy for me.
A book that changed my life: John Tyler Bonner, On Development: The Biology of Form(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). This just happened to be the first book on developmental biology I read.
A book I’ve read more than once: Herbert Mason’s translation of the Gilgamesh(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). I still bring this one out now and then, for the resonance of it’s sorrow over human mortality.
A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: An impossible decision. First choice: Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Second choice: Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), because editing it would pass the time.
A book that made me laugh: Joseph Heller, Catch 22(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Funniest book ever.
A book that I wish had been written: My own. <sigh> Classes have started, it’s a struggle to find the time.
A book that I wish had never been written: Various frauds and swindlers and sanctimonious pissants, The Holy Bible. I’m so predictable.
A book I’ve been meaning to read: Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It’s on the table right now.
I’m currently reading: Wallace Arthur, Creatures of Accident: The Rise of the Animal Kingdom(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). There will be a review here sometime. I love it from the title on.
I’m supposed to pass this one on, but infections aren’t made by the virus’s choice, so if you leave a comment here, consider yourself contaminated.
