Entertainment Weekly Bemoans Lack of Great Science Books

Bryan writes "A recent headline at Entertainment Weekly suggests that the '100 Best Reads' of the last 25 years do not include a single science book (not even a popular science book). In response, cosmologist Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance has given an interesting analysis of EW's disappointing list, and Soul Physics is calling for suggestions on the Greatest Physics Books of the Last 25 Years. For all the great literature that science has produced in the last 25 years, EW's list seems to represent a major shortcoming in the field: it still isn't diffusing into popular culture." I'm not sure what Entertainment Weekly's standing to complain would come from. That aside, have science books ever in modern times been a driving force greater than ones intended as (mere) entertainment, religious instruction, etc? I'd put anything by Richard Feynman on this list, though.

Comments

I don't know about books...

[xtracto]

But Carl Sagan documentaires were *a must* when I was a kid.

Oh, and Isaac Asimov's non-SF books are great too (the book about Physics and the one about Maths are great).

Re:I don't know about books...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" was, I think, a bestseller and was very good too.

Re:I don't know about books...

[Mr. Slippery]

Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" was, I think, a bestseller and was very good too.

IIRC, that was the book of which it was said, "bought by millions of people, read by thousands, understood by hundreds".

Re:I don't know about books...

[Nefarious Wheel]

Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach was a great favorite. Don't know how many people made it past the predicate calculus but though.

Tough read past that point but you can make it if you mind your P's and Q's.

In related news

[morgan_greywolf]

In related news, Cosmo whines about the lack of great intellectual thinkers.

re

[JohnVanVliet]

any and ALL books by Carl Sagan, A.C. Clark (non-fiction), A.Asimov (non-fiction) and a MUST READ Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"

THE CULPRIT: Science as Entertainment

[Illbay]

When I was a kid, and education seemed to be focused more on what was important rather than being "thick with thin things," science was considered "cool," to put it simply.

Everyone was interested in it. The Space Race was still ongoing, magazines like Popular Science proliferated, and we Cub Scout and Boy Scout kids worked hard on our radio and electricity or bridge-building experiments. We all wanted to be scientists when we grew up.

Now, everyone wants to be "in entertainment." Even the most well-known "scientists" are really CELEBRITIES more than anything else; they're famous for being famous. Instead of the staid, sober "Mr. Wizard," you have "Bill Nye the Science Guy" from about a decade ago, or the new Sid The Science Kid. It's all about fun and flash and, well, "celebrity," entertainment.

We used to be "entertained" by the IDEAS behind what we were learning. We had imagination enough to extrapolate ideas like "hey, if I can make this model rocket fly up to 500 feet, maybe one day I can make one that goes the the Moon or Mars!"

Now, it's all about what someone else is doing, for our entertainment, on TV. Don't need "hands-on," we can just watch someone else do "Science" that really just looks like an entertaining video game.

Perhaps if we could get the kids back to doing REAL science - after all, when you're eight years old the same experiments that the scientists of three hundred years ago were performing for the first time are certainly NEWS to you! - instead of just seeking to entertain them, they might start to take it seriously.

And that would be reflected in what we are reading and talking about as well.

Headline needs re-stating:

[Chris Mattern]

"Entertainment Weekly too shallow to pay attention to science, blames scientific community"

Re:Good books?

[sm62704]

Who needs books? Most scientists read wikipedia.

REAL scientists know wikipedia is unreliable. That's why they use the Uncyclopedia.

Scientific Way of Doing Things
Developed at the precise moment everyone thought science was just a passing fad, the Scientific Way of Doing Things formalized the approach scientists would take to remove knowledge from human minds, allowing the field to flourish and fully separate itself from its mystic beginnings. In the words of metascience expert John "Don't quote me on this" Smith, "The Scientific Way of Doing Things is based on the ancient divination ritual of Guess and Check. Thanks to the innovations of the past century, we've been able to remove the 'Check' phase."

The Scientific Way of Doing Things is strictly adhered to by all respectable scientists and involves 6 steps:

1. Find a piece of information you dislike. In our example, we will use the statement "1+1=2"
   
2. Form a statement which will take its place ("1+1=Dolemite")
   
3. Email this statement to everyone you know. Include the subject line "FWD: Something u didn't know!!! I no i didn't!"
   
4. Publish an article on your Myspace.
   
5. Brush your teeth. A fresh smile adds a layer of believability.
   
6. ?????
   
7. Profit.

Another place scientists go is Bob the Angry Flower. Here's another. And another. Oh look, here's one for you!