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Part of A Golden Age of Science Writing: Author(s) : Robin Dougherty Date: December 26, 2004 Page: D9 Section: Books

Steven Pinker edited a collection of science writing called "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004". As an evolutionary psychologist, Pinker included a broad range of essays beyond just traditional science topics. He discussed the criteria for selecting essays, which included being published in 2004 by an American outlet, having clear writing about some phenomenon, and helping readers think like scientists. Pinker found surprising essays such as one about multiple parallel universes. He believes we are in a golden age of science writing as more scientists create literate works to fill a niche left by less rigorous humanities fields. However, Pinker also notes that much science journalism today portrays scientists in a presumption of guilt rather than as heroes.

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19 views1 page

Part of A Golden Age of Science Writing: Author(s) : Robin Dougherty Date: December 26, 2004 Page: D9 Section: Books

Steven Pinker edited a collection of science writing called "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004". As an evolutionary psychologist, Pinker included a broad range of essays beyond just traditional science topics. He discussed the criteria for selecting essays, which included being published in 2004 by an American outlet, having clear writing about some phenomenon, and helping readers think like scientists. Pinker found surprising essays such as one about multiple parallel universes. He believes we are in a golden age of science writing as more scientists create literate works to fill a niche left by less rigorous humanities fields. However, Pinker also notes that much science journalism today portrays scientists in a presumption of guilt rather than as heroes.

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Adrian Guzman
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

PART OF A GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE WRITING


Author(s):

Robin Dougherty Date: December 26, 2004 Page: D9 Section: Books

If there were a physical bridge joining the sciences to the humanities, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker might
be standing on it. The author of such books as "The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language," Pinker has
famously made connections between neuroscience and language. As editor of a new anthology of science writing, he
now brings together readers and the scientists who explain the world to them.
"The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004" (Houghton Mifflin, paperback, $14) allowed Pinker to assemble
physicists, linguists, molecular biologists, sociologists, archeologists, and others between two covers. Their essays
range from the causes of suicide terrorism to the randiness of DNA code cracker James Watson. Pinker, who is the
Johnstone Family Professor in the department of psychology at Harvard, talked from his office in Cambridge about
assembling the anthology.
Q. I just finished reading Michael O'Connor's column "Bird Watcher's General Store," originally published in The Cape
Codder, and it's hilarious. I got the sense you had a good time putting this collection together.
A. [The essays] are not dominated by The New York Times and Scientific American. . . . I did have fun. Because my
branch of science is evolutionary psychology, it allowed me to include articles on the mind and things not generally
considered science. I took a broad characterization of science. I believe that science in the 21st century will have to
do with the human mind, with genetics and neuroscience having to do with the human mind.
Q. Can you talk about the criteria for choosing essays for this book?
A. The final list was culled from 150, a combination of ones that Houghton Mifflin sent me last January and those that
I had collected since I knew I was going to be doing this. They had to have come out in an American journal or
website in 2004. . . . The writing had to be good some phenomenon . . . that could be made clear. . . . Does the
article help people think like a scientist? . . . I looked for humor, I looked for breadth. . . . I liked the surprising and the
far-flung, as opposed to article after article on the ecosystem of the rain forest.
Q. What surprises did you find?
A. Max Tegmark's essay on multiple universes is one of the most mind-boggling things I've ever read. Not just one
level of parallel universes but three or four. . . . Nicholas Wade's essay on click languages [which suggests that
existing primitive languages may hold remnants of the first language used by humans].
Q. Are we in a golden age of science writing?
A. I think there is an increase in science and in writing by scientists. Starting in the '70s, Stephen Jay Gould and E.
O. Wilson created a niche for literate scientists. Lewis Thomas is another. People read them the way they read other
great essayists. More newspapers and magazines have columns by scientists. . . . With the takeover of humanities
departments by postmodernists and deconstructionsts, we are not getting the great writing in the humanities that we
might have. Scientists have filled that gap.
Q. You say that "much science journalism today is hostile to scientists." What do you mean?
A. I think there is a presumption of guilt about scientists, that they are . . . experimenting on innocent victims, or
tricked by drug companies into making drugs we don't need. The old notion of the scientist as hero has been replaced
by the idea of scientists as amoral nerds at best. [There's less focus on] the reduction of suffering that biomedical
science can achieve. Nothing in life is risk free. You see that with the recent brouhaha over drugs like Vioxx or
hormone replacement therapy. [There's the perception that] anything that has risks should be banned . . . where, in
fact, we take risks to our health whenever we eat or walk across the street.
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