Popular [scientific] book must be strictly scientific. Care for the simplicity of writing should not result in simplification of the problem … presenting a hypothesis as an indestructible truth, describing one hypothesis but leaving out other ones, the popularizer nurtures in the reader primitiveness of reasoning.
Ye. Lichtenstein, Editing a scientific book, 1957.
The whole point of popular scientific books, as opposed to professional ones, is to simplify and reduce the amount of content. Even if everyone can understand the full complexity of the subject, not everyone wants to spend the time and effort studying it.
I want to learn about the accepted theories of biology and physics and chemistry, not all the competing hypotheses and caveats and special cases and supporting evidence and the history of their discovery, because I just don’t have time for all of that!
The quote seems to reduce to “scientific books should not be popular in the first place”. (In the sense of being aimed for the general population, not the sense of being bestsellers.)
I am sorry that I can’t really point you towards good English books:( but incidentally, Serebryakov’s Morphology of plants (from the sixties, I think) did start with an overview of dated theories, starting around Goethe; and he managed to write it logically and readably. (I think people should just accept that history of science is a discipline deserving popular books of it own, but so far, the best HoS stuff I’be come across was in introductions to pop-sci.)
IMO at least the cutting-edge biology today is extremely ‘model organism-oriented’, which limits its applicability. (It also seems to me that you’re not the kind of person to wish to learn about angiosperm evolution or archaeobacteriae from the deepest seas:) though I’ve read a cool monograph (1997, I think) on secondary metabolites in onion secreted when it is wounded, I can’t say it is an introductory book. It has a section on plants’ defences against infection… It’s fascinating when you think ‘wait, onions have mycorrhiza, and in other plants it was shown to influence the levels of sec. met. - I wonder how
their results would change if...’ But a layperson should be given the intro about onions in general—their observable properties, like smell when cut, and ability to keep well—maybe even their selection history (taxonomy of cultivated plants is often horribly convoluted.)
Eh. This is not generally possible for those without exceptional talent. Also personally, when I’m learning new ideas, I usually need to absorb a popularized simplification, think on it for a while, and develop nuances for it over time after gaining some experience manipulating the idea in my mind. A lot of the time the advanced intuitions which surround a subject are too vague for me to put into words (at least without strenuous effort). Metaphors and simplifications are the stuff of thought.
I do acknowledge, though, that the specific suggestions given are probably possible for almost any writer to use effectively. I just dislike the idea that popularizations need to somehow be as rigorous as actual scientific work yet more entertaining. That feels like an overly demanding standard, an excuse to sneer at the peons outside the ivory walls.
I agree. Lichtenshtein uses the following quote of Timiryazev’s as an example of appropriate style, and it’s full of metaphors. I sometimes think that ‘good’ sci-pop should just keep track of allusions and spend several paragraphs on patiently enrolling them. Then another passage of distilled wisdom...
‘The green leaf, or, more exactly, the microscopic grain of chlorophyll is the focus, the point in the world’s space where the sun’s energy flows in through one end, and from the other one take off all manifestations of life on earth. The plant is a mediator between the sky and the earth. It is the true Prometheus who stole the heavenly fire. The seized ray burns in the glowing kindling chip and in the blinding spark of electricity. The ray of the sun impels to move the monstrous flywheel of the steam machine, and the brush of the artist, and the feather of the poet.’
...but all bets are off when the author inserts a mathematical formula. Why are there so few cases when the formula is explained in its entirety, not just ‘x stands for blablabla...’? Why not spend ten lines talking about different outcomes for different parameter values, if you really need to put it there at all? I always find it so frustrating. Not only there’s usually pretty nowhere I can easily look up the coefficients, …, I’m often left stymied as to what, exactly, do other people use it for.
Since I’m unsure where else to place this recommendation, I’ll take this opportunity to put it here. I’m currently reading the book The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature and absolutely loving it. It deals with advanced topics in a way that’s so easy to understand I imagine it could be taught to fourth graders. Each chapter deals with a type of pattern, such as bubbles, or cracks, or waves, and discusses several examples of where those patterns appear and why, and what that indicates about the pattern. I’m not a physicist, but I’m reading the book because the experience is less like learning about physics and more like learning about common heuristics of thought.
Ye. Lichtenstein, Editing a scientific book, 1957.
The whole point of popular scientific books, as opposed to professional ones, is to simplify and reduce the amount of content. Even if everyone can understand the full complexity of the subject, not everyone wants to spend the time and effort studying it.
I want to learn about the accepted theories of biology and physics and chemistry, not all the competing hypotheses and caveats and special cases and supporting evidence and the history of their discovery, because I just don’t have time for all of that!
The quote seems to reduce to “scientific books should not be popular in the first place”. (In the sense of being aimed for the general population, not the sense of being bestsellers.)
I am sorry that I can’t really point you towards good English books:( but incidentally, Serebryakov’s Morphology of plants (from the sixties, I think) did start with an overview of dated theories, starting around Goethe; and he managed to write it logically and readably. (I think people should just accept that history of science is a discipline deserving popular books of it own, but so far, the best HoS stuff I’be come across was in introductions to pop-sci.) IMO at least the cutting-edge biology today is extremely ‘model organism-oriented’, which limits its applicability. (It also seems to me that you’re not the kind of person to wish to learn about angiosperm evolution or archaeobacteriae from the deepest seas:) though I’ve read a cool monograph (1997, I think) on secondary metabolites in onion secreted when it is wounded, I can’t say it is an introductory book. It has a section on plants’ defences against infection… It’s fascinating when you think ‘wait, onions have mycorrhiza, and in other plants it was shown to influence the levels of sec. met. - I wonder how their results would change if...’ But a layperson should be given the intro about onions in general—their observable properties, like smell when cut, and ability to keep well—maybe even their selection history (taxonomy of cultivated plants is often horribly convoluted.)
Eh. This is not generally possible for those without exceptional talent. Also personally, when I’m learning new ideas, I usually need to absorb a popularized simplification, think on it for a while, and develop nuances for it over time after gaining some experience manipulating the idea in my mind. A lot of the time the advanced intuitions which surround a subject are too vague for me to put into words (at least without strenuous effort). Metaphors and simplifications are the stuff of thought.
I do acknowledge, though, that the specific suggestions given are probably possible for almost any writer to use effectively. I just dislike the idea that popularizations need to somehow be as rigorous as actual scientific work yet more entertaining. That feels like an overly demanding standard, an excuse to sneer at the peons outside the ivory walls.
I agree. Lichtenshtein uses the following quote of Timiryazev’s as an example of appropriate style, and it’s full of metaphors. I sometimes think that ‘good’ sci-pop should just keep track of allusions and spend several paragraphs on patiently enrolling them. Then another passage of distilled wisdom...
‘The green leaf, or, more exactly, the microscopic grain of chlorophyll is the focus, the point in the world’s space where the sun’s energy flows in through one end, and from the other one take off all manifestations of life on earth. The plant is a mediator between the sky and the earth. It is the true Prometheus who stole the heavenly fire. The seized ray burns in the glowing kindling chip and in the blinding spark of electricity. The ray of the sun impels to move the monstrous flywheel of the steam machine, and the brush of the artist, and the feather of the poet.’
...but all bets are off when the author inserts a mathematical formula. Why are there so few cases when the formula is explained in its entirety, not just ‘x stands for blablabla...’? Why not spend ten lines talking about different outcomes for different parameter values, if you really need to put it there at all? I always find it so frustrating. Not only there’s usually pretty nowhere I can easily look up the coefficients, …, I’m often left stymied as to what, exactly, do other people use it for.
Since I’m unsure where else to place this recommendation, I’ll take this opportunity to put it here. I’m currently reading the book The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature and absolutely loving it. It deals with advanced topics in a way that’s so easy to understand I imagine it could be taught to fourth graders. Each chapter deals with a type of pattern, such as bubbles, or cracks, or waves, and discusses several examples of where those patterns appear and why, and what that indicates about the pattern. I’m not a physicist, but I’m reading the book because the experience is less like learning about physics and more like learning about common heuristics of thought.