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| The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing | 
 enlarge | Creator: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $19.50
You Save: $15.45 (44%)
New (37) Used (8) from $19.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 4316
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0199216800
Dewey Decimal Number: 500
EAN: 9780199216802
ASIN: 0199216800
Publication Date: June 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: excellent condition
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Product Description
Boasting almost one hundred pieces, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a breathtaking celebration of the finest writing by scientists--the best such collection in print--packed with scintillating essays on everything from "the discovery of Lucy" to "the terror and vastness of the universe."
Edited by best-selling author and renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, this sterling collection brings together exhilarating pieces by a who's who of scientists and science writers, including Stephen Pinker, Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Gardner, Albert Einstein, Julian Huxley, and many dozens more. Readers will find excerpts from bestsellers such as Douglas R. Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, Francis Crick's Life Itself, Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey, Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. There are classic essays ranging from J.B.S. Haldane's "On Being the Right Size" and Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" to Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" and Albert Einstein's famed New York Times article on "Relativity." And readers will also discover lesser-known but engaging pieces such as Lewis Thomas's "Seven Wonders of Science," J. Robert Oppenheimer on "War and Physicists," and Freeman Dyson's memoir of studying under Hans Bethe.
A must-read volume for all science buffs, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a rich and vibrant anthology that captures the poetry and excitement of scientific thought and discovery.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Beautiful book of science August 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a must read for every science lover. Moreover for every person who is truly interested about the wonders, mysteries and surprises of science. A book of intellectual honesty that should belong to any private or public library.
Regarding Science-Ejected Vitalism, 2008: August 1, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
What a breath of fresh air, in these times of alt.med. vitalistic spiritistic woo, to hear an actual scientist state how nonscientific vitalism and dualism actually are, and I quote:
"life is the execution of programs written using a small digital alphabet in a single, universal machine language. This realization was the hammer blow that knocked the last nail in the coffin of vitalism and, by extension, of dualism. The hammer was wielded, with undisguised youthful relish, by James Watson and Francis Crick [p.030...] for me, the greatest achievement of Watson and Crick was to turn genetics from a branch of wet and squishy physiology into a branch of information technology, in the process slaying, as I suggested above, the ghost of vitalism [p.226]."
-r.c.
Worth way more than twenty-five bucks July 9, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Folks often wonder where the scientists draw the energy to spend all those hours studying descriptive models and terminology about the natural world. The answer is in this book!
Personally, I believe we are all born curious investegators. why and how are facinating topics. But about some time in middle school, we enounter science out of the context of spirited, enjoyable curiosity. The education system serves us a bitter dish for this delightful subject of science. Most agree, it's hard to learn something you don't care for. People lose the care, thus losing the affinity for it and then they grow up looking at a scientist as elitist overacheivers.
This book aims to open your eyes and remind you of that spirited curiosity, that maybe science might become a bigger part of your life..because unadulterated curiosity is the key to learning science.
A wonderful collection of essays on science July 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Richard Dawkins has become something of an institution with his interest in biology, atheism, evolution, creationism, and religion. Its a great joy to review one of his books without having to worry about offending the proponents of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins has put together a wonderful collection of short essays on various aspects of science by a wide range of people known primarily as practicing scientists rather than writers on science.
This collection requires a bit of scientific knowledge. Like most collections, you may not enjoy all the essays. But it is a great joy to read an essay or two, and save the rest for later.
Robert C. Ross 2008
Pelucid writings from brilliant minds July 2, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
As one who is convinced that Spinoza's monism provides the philosophical basis for all the sciences, reading The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing and seeing Spinoza's view (that God and Nature are one and the same thing, under the dual aspects of thought and matter) confirmed over and over again was enthralling.
While reading it I repeatedly inserted markers into articles that I wished to re-read. In fact, I shall probably read the whole book again and refer to it repeatedly. What particularly fascinated me was the revelation that a quantum of energy appears to us under two aspects: as a wave or as a particle, but never both at the same time. This discovery accords perfectly with Spinoza's dual aspect theory.
My selection of five-star articles is as follows: `Life Itself', by Francis Crick; `One Self: a Meditation on the Unity of Consciousness' by Nicholas Humphrey; `The Language Instinct', by Steven Pinker; `Avoid Boring People' by James Watson; `Consciousness Explained' by Daniel Dennett; `The Fantastic Combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game "Life"' by Martin Gardner; `Computing Machinery and Intelligence' by Alan Turing; `The Goldilocks Enigma' by Paul Davies; `The Elegant Universe' by Bryan Green, and `Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' by Douglas Hofstadter.
Having been brought up in an evangelical environment, and having had a taste of Roman Catholicism as well, I can only say that there is no contest between the brilliance, lucidity, humility and open-mindedness of the scientists quoted in this anthology and the tendentious, hubristic, convoluted, ill-founded speculations of theologians - few of whom will have the courage to read this book.
The introductions by Richard Dawkins are excellent. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
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