The Scientific Sublime: Popular Science Unravels the Mysteries of the Universe

Gross (The Rhetoric of Science), a University of Minnesota–Twin Cities professor emeritus of communication studies, tackles the question of how successful popular science writers transmit complex ideas to a general audience, but his own work lacks a self-evident audience among either professional or lay readers. For examples, Gross chooses the writings of five physicists, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Lisa Randall, and Steven Weinberg, and of five scientists involved with evolutionary theory, Rachel Carson, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, and E.O. Wilson. Unfortunately, Gross doesn’t have the knack for clearly and simply summarizing thorny concepts that he attributes to his subjects, so their ideas become ever more abstruse as he attempts to discuss them. Although mostly adulatory, he does takes aim at Pinker’s hypotheses, but with abbreviated and generally unconvincing criticisms, such as that Pinker’s statistical argument for the historical decline of violence excludes automotive deaths. He concludes with an out-of-place chapter arguing that those who conclude that science must replace God are mistaken, an argument perhaps germane to Dawkins but less so to the other writers discussed. This frustrating book does little to advance the understanding of the nature of science or of science writing. (July)