The Island of Doubt

I've only read the introduction to Natalie Angier's The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science but everyone else is blogging about it, and what I've read so far is so damn good that I'm going to add my precipitous two cents now.

Angier has long been a favorite of mine, ever since 1988's The Search of the Oncogene, in which the author immerses herself in a Boston laboratory to shed light on the scientific process -- warts and all -- during what turned out to be one of the biggest breakthroughs in cancer research. Now the New York Times journalist has pulled back to offer an overview of the biggest ideas in each of several branches of the hard sciences.
Everyone I know who has read even a few chapters of The Canon are more than a little enthusiastic. The thing I love about the intro is Angier's ultimate reason for why everyone should understand science better. Not because "many of the vital issues of the day have a scientific component" although that's very true (climate change, embryonic stem cells, etc.); not because "a scientifically astute public would be relatively shielded against superstitious wishful thinking," although that's also a good argument; and not "so they appreciate how important the scientific enterprise is to our nation's economic, cultural, medical, and military future," although it most certainly is.

No, the big justification for trying to do her little bit to improve the scientific literacy of the public is "These things are fun, and fun is good."

You gotta love that. There's also the inclusion the clever little joke about the cop who pulls over Werner Heisenberg for speeding. The cop asks if Heisenberg knows how fast he's going, and Heisenberg replies ...