Science reading list

This actually starts with some books related to the environment that I have been meaning to get to for a while, but I like to combine things.

Books that seemed like they could accompany the environmental books well included...

The Science Class You Wish You Had by David and Arnold Brody
Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever by Hal Hellman
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren 

The Science Class was more of a historical chronicle, going by seven discoveries and the context that led to them. As many of the discoveries were related to the feuds, there was quite a bit of repetition between the two.

If you want to read one, I recommend Liveliest Disputes for two reasons. In addition to having ten feuds instead of seven discoveries -- so, three additional sciences -- there is more of a unified voice, with one enthusiast sharing his interests. 

In The Science Class, two magazine writers talked to a lot of academics and then felt smart about putting it together. What they do really well, though, is in giving that context. 

They do reference Isaac Newton's quote about "standing on the shoulders of giants" but that applied to many before and after Newton. The existing body of knowledge is what you have to build on. 

That is not only how some discoveries get made, but how some are arrived at individually around the same time period, like with Newton and Liebniz and calculus (there was a feud) or similar thoughts on natural selection between Darwin and Wallace (not a feud).

One interesting point made in The Science Class is that the era of big science names is probably over. When things happen like CRISPR or a new COVID vaccine, there is usually not a single name associated with it, unless that is a company name.

Of course, with those particular examples, you could come up with specific names, like Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for CRISPR or June Almeida identifying the first coronavirus. 

It is certainly true that there is not as much of a sense of foundational knowledge with these fairly recent discoveries, compared to what you would feel with Newton or Einstein, when there were still very new concepts. 

There is also a much greater specialization now, which is going to mean more people along the way and more specific (and perhaps limited) applications. If Charpentier, Doudna, and Almeida's names are less known, it's not necessarily because of sexism. 

Still, sexism in science's track record is not great.

Lab Girl has some examples. It's not the focus, but I am afraid I have already seen so many examples that when a few more appear, it's not at all surprising.

However, if we think about how many contributors were needed to get to where we are, and about how much further we need to go, we can't afford to lose anyone's contributions.  

If we are throwing good minds away for reasons of sexism or racism -- not even acknowledging the possibility of these being good minds for those reasons -- it is stupidly tragic.