I was able to get a considerable amount of reading done this past week (I read Glorified Dinosaurs, Feathered Dragons, Fossils, and Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution cover-to-cover), but I ended up being greatly disappointed by one of the books I read. Although I wasn't expecting a popular review like Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates, a number of the entries in Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution were beyond my comprehension. I'm sure it's a valuable book with plenty of good information inside it, but the authors of the various papers didn't seem like they cared much for making their reviews accessible.
I realize that Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution, part of the "Life of the Past" series, is a technical book, but unless you're well versed in developmental biology or a number of specialized disciplines, much of the book might be opaque to you. It certainly was to me. Many terms go unexplained, as if the authors were writing for people who were already specialists rather than people who wanted to get up-to-speed on the state of studies on major evolutionary events in the history of vertebrate life. The only chapter that I felt fairly expressed technical details in an understandable fashion was the chapter on bird evolution by Luis M. Chiappe and Gareth J. Dyke, which was essentially a short summation of Glorified Dinosaurs (which was published the same year).
What most aggravated me, however, was the discussion of the evolution of the jaw in vertebrates in the chapter "Homologies and Evolutionary Transitions in Early Vertebrate History," by Philippe Janvier. In the piece, Janvier says that the narrative of gill arches being exapted to become the first jaws is naive and should be discarded, the notion hanging on for too long in textbook treatments of the subject. That's fine, but rather than plainly explain the current hypotheses for the evolution of the jaw, Janvier keeps the discussion technical in such a way that if you don't have a background in embryology it is difficult to tell what is being said. Janvier could have kept this sort of treatment, but why not add a paragraph explaining the same concepts unclouded by jargon?
Indeed, it's strange that Janvier criticizes a long-held evolutionary narrative but does so in a technical work in a collection of technical papers, his explanation of the alternatives being beyond the reach of most people. Who is going to notice what he is saying? It might be fashionable to look down upon popularizers of science for making mistakes, but I get pissed off when working scientists contribute nothing to popular treatments that will help a larger audience understand science. Maybe part of this has to do with the sense that popularization = vulgarization, or that it's disrespectful to other scientists to make something plain as if they were a layperson with no scientific background. Speaking for myself, I have some amount of specialized understanding in paleontology, but as far as chemistry, physics, cosmology, soil science, botany, etc. goes, I'm essentially just another member of the public. It doesn't matter that I understand some aspects of another discipline. If someone is trying to explain physics to me, for instance, I need them to address me plainly and not assume that I'm going to follow various theories or equations just because I have a background in another field.
Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution, as far as I'm concerned, represents why we need more scientists who are also skilled writers. There is so much good information buried in technical papers and symposium books, but many people never get back the multisyllabic names of organisms that seem to have been purposefully constructed to make the eyes of the layperson go cross just trying to read them. Blogging about science is one way to start to turn things around, but I hope that it's only a beginning step. Writing here I'm mostly writing for people who are already interested in what I enjoy talking about, and as I've stated elsewhere I hope scientists with good communication skills "infiltrate" more traditional media outlets and start getting interesting descriptions of science back into the hands of the public. If our research is really as important as we continually say it is, shouldn't we be trying harder to help people understand it?
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Amen. It is constantly frustrating to me that people mistake dense prose for a sign of high intellectual content.
Grrr.
I haven't read Janvier's ideas on jaw evolution (as noted, it's published in a somewhat obscure place), but I remember Janvier's name causing frustrated eye-rolling in my comparative morphology prof over 20 years ago. I think he's a professional iconoclast.
I read quite a few books every year intended for a reasonably educated audience. The seemingly deliberately-obtuse book you describe is one end of a continuum -- the other end is made up of flippant and over-simplified books with no index or references. The happy medium? Books by Carl Zimmer, David Quammen, Michael Fortey (his trilobite book is a gem), and Richard Dawkins, at least when he doesn't succumb to his consistent impulse to sneer at religion. I should also mention E.O. Wilson, a fine prose stylist who works hard to convey his fascination with and respect for the natural world.
"popularization = vulgarization"
I would argue that it is relatively rare to find a field that is so complicated that you cannot say the same thing using simpler language. And if doing that is possible, and the meaning is the same, it is facile to argue that you have somehow made it 'less scientific' by eschewing technical jargon.
Larry's list of good writers is an excellent one and I particularly like the mention of E.O.Wilson.
Into that mix, I'd definitely add Charles Darwin himself. The Origin of the Species is largely understandable to non-specialists and I reckon that a bright schoolkid could get through it. And if the most important biological publication of the last few centuries can be written in an accessible way, that should surely act as a inspiration for all budding science writers.
I'll second Larry's list and petition to add John McPhee.