Three Monkeys, Ten Minutes

When I buy pop science books, they tend to be about the physical sciences. That is where my background and interest lies. But there was a copy of The Best American Science Writing 2003 edited by Oliver Sacks at the second hand bookstore so I thought I'd give it a shot. No harm in seeing what the biological sciences are up to as well I thought. But there was very little of that or any science at all. I did get to find out what journalist who had been sent to look at scientists thought but actual science was thin on the ground.

I have no objection to looking at the human side of research as part of looking at the science. In fact, I require it. But it shouldn't be the whole focus. Two or three of the 20+ articles were more about the science but these were outnumbered by articles which were not even peripherally about scientists or science. The majority were human interest stories about scientists.

There were a number of very well written articles in this collection - so much so that the lack of any real science was irrelevant. But a bigger number that I read a little bit from and then skipped to the next one because they had nothing that interested me. A good thing I didn't pay much for this mislabelled book.