Covers what most of us would know if we'd paid attention in school. ( )

Ho trovato questo libro in un punto di scambio di libri usati e ho pensato che poteva essere un'occasione per fare un ripasso della mia istruzione scientifica, così l'ho preso. Il libro offre una panoramica per il profano della scienza e dei suoi principali risultati. Inizia illustrando certi aspetti caratteristici del metodo scientifico, parla poi di pensiero quantitativo, caso e probabilità, poi si occupa di misure e scale, e infine passa in rassegna i risultati fondamentali delle branche principali: fisica, chimica, biologia evolutiva (dedicato in buona parte ad affrontare gli antievoluzionisti americani), biologia molecolare, geologia, astronomia, un capitolo per ciascuna. Insomma sono le nozioni scientifiche che qualunque persona con un po' di istruzione oggi dovrebbe possedere. Alla fine, una buona bibliografia (libri, articoli, siti, quasi tutti americani).

È facile e accessibile, scorrevole e sintetico, e ben strutturato, anche se tende a essere poco preciso, ed è reso più vivo da frammenti di interviste con scienziati (quasi tutti americani). Ma l'autrice (giornalista scientifica americana, pluripremiata) afferma che la scienza, o almeno la sua esposizione, può essere divertente, e si sforza di renderla tale cospargendo l'esposizione di battute, umorismi, ironie, arguzie, spiritosaggini, giochi di parole, riferimenti a usi costumi cultura popolare cronaca, ecc. (quasi tutti americani). Ma il problema è che esagera: di questi piccoli artifici retorici ce ne sono dieci o quindici per pagina: se dopo due pagine la cosa diventa stancante, dopo cinque diventa irritante, e dopo dieci, insopportabile. Anche la traduzione non sembra perfetta. A parte questi difetti è un buon libro divulgativo, utile per chi di scienza sa poco o nulla e anche per chi ne sa un po' e vuole rinfrescare le proprie conoscenze (...se non gli sembra un po' troppo americano). ( )

Subtitled: “A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science.”

I read Natalie Angier’s The Canon because I wanted to bone up on areas of science where my knowledge and understanding lag behind. I’m a motivated layman when it comes to astronomy, but the other chapters here: 1. Thinking Scientifically; 2. Probabilities; 3. Calibration; 4. Physics; 5. Chemistry; 6. Evolutionary Biology; 7. Molecular Biology; and 8. Geology (Astronomy is the 9th and last chapter) promised a wealth of material to fulfill my desire. They held a lot more than that.

Angier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist covering science. She’s also quite a card. She presents her material not only with a strict, sensible logic, but she leavens it throughout with breezy throw-away lines, like: “power lines … fastened onto high-tension towers that loom phantasmically over the highway, like a procession of giant Michelin Men with arms of aluminum lace,” or in reference to the snout of the star-nosed mole: “Ringing its snout are twenty-two fleshy, pinkish-red, highly sensitive tentacles that … look like a pinwheel of earthworms, or children’s fingers poking up from below in a cheap but surprisingly effective horror movie.”

It’s easy to see why - and highly appreciated - that Angier included multiple throw-away phrases on nearly every page: she set herself a gigantic task, which would feature untold facts and theories, and she needed a way to engage general readers. As often as she quips throughout her book, it never descends into anything seriously jokey, or ironic. Her science, as you would expect, is quite up to snuff, her passion is real, and her hope for scientific literacy is fervent. These attributes add up to a very worthwhile book. If your interest extends to modern science, here is an excellent way to fill in any sketchy areas you feel you have. Take it up! ( )

The goals of The Canon are twofold. A. Describe what leaders in the scientific fields consider to be the basic concepts of their respective disciplines. B. Present the concepts such that the layman without a scientific background will find understandable and entertaining. Perhaps the hidden agenda is to allow parents to bone up on enough current science to help their daughters with their homework or to sound knowledgeable when taking the little tykes to museums of science and technology. Dinosaurs are not covered. Problems: “Understandable” means no math. Arguably this doesn’t do justice to the aesthetics and difficulty of doing science and maybe guts the concept. A number of the LT reviews didn’t like the relentless plays on words and other silliness that accompany the summary/descriptions, but the kids like it, I bet, and probably come across better at bookstore readings. Another book I’m reading, The Hindus, also is a little heavy on the humor (or just heavy humor—see, it’s catching).
The first part is on methodology: How to think scientifically. Probabilities (statistics). Calibration: how to describe the very small and the very large using mathematical notation.
The second part is chapters on Physics. Chemistry. Evolutionary biology. Microbiology. Geology. and Astronomy. In the discipline chapters the methodology chapters are put to use: the focus is on very small things: atomic structure, DNA, cell development, and very large things: planets, stars, galaxies, evolutionary time. The last chapter, Astronomy, via the Big Bang Theory, brings together the infinitesimally small and the very very large universe. The best explanatory work is on DNA and cell structure (a couple of really good pages are in the Geology chapter), but the author also does a good job relating the initial exposition on atomic structure in the Physics chapter to explain specific structures In Chemistry. ( )

A succinct tour of the foundational (key) concepts /theories in the sciences: Scientific Thinking /Method; Probability; Calibration / Scale; Physics; Chemistry; Evolutionary Biology; Molecular Biology; Geology & Astronomy. Angier impresses with her grasp of scientific subjects and her ability to communicate these through both exposition and analogy. Most of the concepts will not be new to interested readers of science books for non-scientists. Writing for a lay audience means utilizing language rather than math to communicate complex ideas. In fact, of course, some science isn't translatable into words. As one scientist interviewed by the author admits, what can be perfectly comprehensible to him mathematically (the age & size of the universe, for example) may still be incomprehensibly mind-boggling personally. My one quibble with Angier, as a writer, is that her use of analogy, which is quite helpful at times, veers too often to the overly glib. She often piles up the wise-cracks, which in the end distract from, rather than serve her purposes. Humor and felicitous analogy aid mightily in any presentation of scientific topics to non-scientists. However, there is a point at which such tools turn into tricks, where a folksy approach becomes too smart alecky for its own good. ( )