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I made an abortive attempt this time last year to begin my science by women project with Dava Sobel’s A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. After that I meandered off elsewhere and left the project high and dry. No bad reflection on the book, I enjoyed it with reservations but the farther I have gotten from it the more I like it. I just got distracted. You know how that goes. So I am trying again. This time I’m restarting the project with Natalie Angier’s The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. Pre-blogging I read her book Woman: An Intimate Geography and liked it very much so I had no doubt I was going to enjoy The Canon. And I did.
I already mentioned the delightfulness of learning in the physics chapter that we are basically chewing on sunshine when we eat. In the astronomy chapter I learned that we really are made of stars:
The overwhelming bulk of our mortal cargo–the carbon in our cells, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, the electrolytes of sodium and potassium that allow our hearts to beat and our cells to fire–was stoked in the furnaces of far larger stars than ours and splattered into the cosmic compost when those stars exploded. ‘We are star stuff, a part of the cosmos,’ said Alex Filippenko [a Berkeley astronomer]. ‘I’m not just speaking generically or metaphorically here. The specific atoms in every cell of your body, my body, my son’s body, the body of your pet cat, were cooked up inside massive stars.
How amazing is that?
One of the things I really liked about the book is even though Angier has separate chapters on the different sciences, more often than not they all overlapped. Physics and astronomy of course, but also astronomy and geology, geology and evolutionary biology, molecular biology and chemistry. She does a marvelous job of connecting them all together without even having to spell it out. And of course the umbrella under which all these science chapters gather is calibration (measurement), probability, and scientific thinking.
The first chapter of the book orients us to how scientists think, how they approach their subjects and research, how they make experiments and come to conclusions. Angier explains,
Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the most manicured of claws and tearing it down into sensible, edible pieces.
And math, yes math is important. It is a language in which scientists describe certain phenomena. A language that can also be translated. Angier knows people are afraid of math and makes a point to talk to a variety of scientists who admit that they suck at it and that it is ok to be bad at math and still be a successful, well-respected scientist.
I wish someone had told me all this when I was in high school and starting out in college. I got A’s in math in high school but I had to work hard for them. Faced with what looked like an overwhelming amount of math classes for a degree in the sciences (biology was my declared major at first) I felt like I could never be successful and so gave up science and took the literature road. I am glad I pursued studies in literature but sometimes I think back and wonder, what if? But that’s where wonderful science books like Angier’s come in. I may not have studied science but I can still get my science geek on.
Angier writes with a sure touch and a quick pace and doesn’t talk down to the reader. She tosses in lots and lots of jokes. Sometimes the jokes got to be a bit annoying or were eye rolling bad, but for the most part they are in the service of making a point. The Canon is a great overview of science basics, all those things you learned in high school but forgot or should have learned but didn’t because you were too busy passing notes, napping or skipping class. And there are also things I didn’t learn about like proteins. I never knew what protein did, only that you’re supposed to eat it regularly for good nutrition. Now I know how incredibly important it is and what it does and let me say, it is gosh darn amazing.
I could keep babbling on about all sorts of fascinating stuff, like how the snowy interference on your TV (sans cable) is the result of cosmic microwaves created at the time of the Big Bang. But I will stop with that and just say, if you are looking for a fun and fascinating general science book to read, you can’t go wrong with The Canon.
Oh, that warms the cockles of my scientific heart. 🙂 I was born & bred into science, so I often forget that all of this isn’t second-nature to other people. She is so right, science isn’t a box full of interesting and useful facts, it’s a method, a way of exploring reality.
Does she talk at all about science reporting? The quality of science reporting these days is appalling. I don’t believe anything I read about science or medicine in the press. If I’m interested I try to find the original published article. It’s unfortunate if that is the only place people are getting scientific information from, especially if they don’t have the tools to judge its reliability.
There is also the problem of pseudoscience, where advocates of a certain point of view selectively choose and massage (and sometimes fabricate) scientific results to support their argument. Alas, I see a lot of very nice, intelligent people falling prey to these sorts of charlatans, especially on issues to do with diet (Atkins, paleo, etc.) and health (wifi, homeopathy), because the authors mention or cite a whole bunch of articles from who knows where and claims that they prove the point. People just don’t know about all the checks and balances that there are in academic science, and how to apply them themselves. It also seems trendy these days to believe anything that goes against the majority opinion in science, whether it be climate change or the safety of vaccines. It’s ironic that often the same people say they have science to back up their wacky non-scientific beliefs. They like science when it agrees with them and not when it doesn’t. Unfortunately for them, reality always has the last laugh!
OK, I’ll stop ranting now. But if you ask any scientist they’ll rant about exactly the same things and more. I don’t know if general scientific knowledge is any worse than in the past, but it’s not good. I’m very glad this book is out there!
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Sylvia, yours is a necessary rant. Angier does talk about science reporting. In the probability chapter she talks about statistics and what they mean and how news reporting can make something with a very small probability seem dangerously large. She recommends careful reading of news reporting on science and follow up by going to the studies themselves and reading, if not the whole paper, at least the results portion. And if a study is too good to be true it probably is (like the one from a month or so again that said overweight people live longer than normal weight people–gah that was irresponsible reporting!). In the chapter on evolutionary biology she also spends a lot of time talking about the difference between a hypothesis and a theory and what lies behind each label.
For all the talk in the US about the importance of science and math education nothing seems to be getting better. Sure there are pockets of schools that are doing a good job, usually in wealthy areas of the country, but for the most part it seems rather dismal. In writing the book, Angier talked to a lot of scientists in different fields and asked them what they wished the general public knew and understood about science and those were the areas she focused on for her book.
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I remember in the olden days reporters used to mention the “19 times out of 20” bit but some time ago they abandoned that. It’s unfortunate because its quite important, though I suppose most people had no idea what it means. Even worse is their increasing aversion to using numbers. They might report that something doubles your risk of cancer, but they don’t say whether that risk is 10% or 0.0000001%. It kind of makes a difference! They also seem allergic to tables, graphs, and charts these days, even though they are often the best and most concise ways to present data. Sigh. I don’t think people are as incompetent at math as news editors think they are, especially if they are regular newspaper readers.
Sounds like the book really covers all the bases. Great!
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Sylvia, heh that reminds me of old Trident Gum commercials, 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed recommend Trident for their patients who chew gum. What does that mean? You know the media tends to cater to the lowest common denominator and apparently they have decided that means no numbers, math, tables, graphs, or charts. Too complicated! But if the media reported real numbers they wouldn’t be able to get people worked up and alarmed and then no one would bother coming back to find out whether or not the new strain of SARs has been found in their neighborhood. Angier does a great job at covering all the bases. Now to get the people who really need to read a book like this to read it.
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You raise an excellent point. It’s hard for people to become alarmed and scandalized when clear, sober numbers are involved. And we all know the media are in the business of getting a rise out of people. I wish we weren’t all so addicted to freaking out but it seems our lives are dull and meaningless without it!
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Freaking out is fun! 😉 And without sensational media reports, what would we have to talk about with our coworkers other than bad reality TV shows? I know, books! 😀
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Fascinating Stefanie … I like that description of science. In Tim Flannery’s essay which I reviewed last year he said “Science is not a search for the truth. Instead, science progresses by disproving hypotheses … ” Much plainer! I like Angier’s poetic way of saying it! I’ve certainly learnt over the years that it really is a way of looking at the world …
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It sounds like a book the geekly ungifted can learn from. It is an awesome thing to try to introduce the whole of science to a popular audience in one volume. Bill Bryson’s attempt was very readable but I don’t think he ever really explains what science is and the scientific state of mind and way of looking at things (his book does often demonstate these).
I am a bit wary of Scientism and particulary a lot of evolutionary psychology but there is no question that a lot of the best reading out there is in works of popular science.
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Ian, very good book for the geekly ungifted but also untrained science geeks. There is a lot of very basic stuff but she also takes it beyond the basics and adds details and connections that go beyond what most of us probably learned in school. I too am wary of evolutionary psychology and scientism, but good, sound science makes for some really good reading.
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whisperinggums, isn’t that a good description? Tim Flannery’s is pretty good too, right to the point. It is a way of looking at the world and unfortunately in the US a lot of very loud religious fundamentalists are threatened by it and somehow manage to force schools to teach certain aspects of science as though they were not true and present religious beliefs as alternatives. Makes me crazy!
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Me too … there’s a little bit of that here too, I’ve been horrified to discover recently.
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If I didn’t have about 500 books in my TBR pile, I would certainly read this one – it sounds very good! However, one of the books in my pile now is The Swerve, which I noticed that you said you’d read and liked. Hurray! I fear modern science may always be beyond my reach, but Renaissance science is hopefully a bit easier.
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Litlove, it is a good one should you ever get through those 500 books 😉 I don’t think modern science is beyond you at all, you are a smart woman. The Swerve is loads of fun as I am sure Mr. Litlove told you since I saw he was reading it. Enjoy!
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Our university has recently appointed a Professor whose job it is to bring science to the general populace. Her actual title is Professor of Public Engagement in Science. Before she came to us she had already been responsible for a number of TV science programmes so although I haven’t seen anything coming out of the appointment as yet I’m hopeful that we might have a programme of open lectures that would fulfil the same purpose as his book. I could definitely do with my rusty science being repolished.
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Alex, oh what a great idea! I hope interesting things come out it. Open lectures would be awesome. I would totally go to stuff like that.
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I’m leaving a comment here, but not about this post. I went against my pledge to read from books I already have and found Address Unknown at the Kindle Store, and downloaded it for under 7 bucks! A bargain. I’ve got to finish a couple of things on my list to finish first, but I want to read it soon.
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Grad, woo! I am glad you were able to get a copy. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.
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Don’t you wish sometimes you could go back and start all over again with your studies (me and science and high school didn’t get on very well together), but then again maybe it’s never too late to start from scratch? I look forward to hearing more about your science reading–I need to read (was going to say more, but that’s not quite accurate) a science book or two. Glad to hear things are getting off on a better foot this year.
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Danielle, yup, sometimes I do wish that, if I could only start over knowing what I know now sort of thing. You are right, it is never too late to start. I want to dive right in to the next one, a book about physics, but I feel like I need to get caught up with my NYRBs classics and finish the Clarice Lispector bio I’ve been reading for three months. So maybe by April I will be into the next science book. Fingers crossed!
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I just learned the star thing somewhere else and isn’t it amazing?
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Bookgazing, it is indeed amazing. Also awe inspiring and humbling at the same time 🙂
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