Richard Dawkins On Science Writing

otee writes "Richard Dawkins asks the question: Why hasn't a Nobel Prize been awarded to a scientist for literary work? He suspects that it simply hasn't occurred to the judges. Read the well written article at The Edge Website for information about good (science) writing."

Comments

Are scientific articles really literature?

[neglige]

I, for one, welcome our well-written scientific article overlords, but do these articles really fall into the same category as, for example, poems? The aims are very different. Scientific publications are there to make a statement, to get a point across, to share knowledge. Literature on the other hand is more emotional and less bound to "rules" (for lack of a better word), it has more freedom.

Or to put it differently: a play by Shakespeare may make you cry, because of the emotions the play has stirred in you. If you cry over a scientific article, it is mostly because of the bad writing or obvious mistakes.

The article also comments on the subject of readability of scientific publications, but this is IMHO another debate ;)

Re:Are scientific articles really literature?

[iCat]

Dawkin's article is about writing popular science texts - he's saying scientific theories presented to the lay person should be simplified for clarity only and need not be dumbed down. There is no reason why a poluar science book written this way should be disqualified as contender for a Nobel prize.

Re:Are scientific articles really literature?

[neglige]

Ok, so Hawkins "A Brief History of Time" would qualify as a popular scientific publications, as it's simplyfied in a way, yet not too much. The target audience is the average reader without a PhD.

Still, I wouldn't rate it as literature, since Hawkins intended to inform the reader, and not necessarily to "emotionalize" (the latter - in my opinion - being the prime motive for literature).

IMHO it really boils down to the emotions (other than the occasional joke) conveyed in a text. This aspects sets scientific and literature texts apart. And this aspect is (again, IMHO) what makes a text worthy to receive a nobel prize.

Russel got one

[chippo]

IIRC,

Bertrand Russel got the Nobel prize for literature. But I guess he counts as a mathematician.

Re:Russel got one

[daeley]

I guess he counts as a mathematician.

How else would he? ;)

Read Nodel's Will . . . .

[StateOfTheUnion]

From the Nobel E-museum

Literature is one of the five prize areas mentioned in Alfred Nobel's will. The will was, however, partly incomplete. Nobel simply stated that prizes be given to those who, during the preceding year, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and that one part be given to the person who "shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

Though this statement is somewhat subjective, based on Nobel's will, can anyone put together a compelling argument that any scientific publication fits Nobel's critieria for the prize in Literature? I am doubtful . . . remember, for the prize in Literature, the way that it is written is probably more important than the science that is presented . . .

I hate to rain on the parade but when has scientific writing ever taken literature in an ideal direction?

Re:Read Nodel's Will . . . .

[Finuvir]

Literature is about style rather than content, so the prize would surely go to whoever brings tha style of writing in an ideal direction. Yet the works that win their writers literature prizes rarely display the necessary element of style called simplification. That's Dawkins' point. There's a whole area of literature going unnoticed because it's too diferent from the previous winners.