Language, style? They're odd don't you think?
I was reminded of this by a book (which I heartily recommend) which I have just read by one Richard Fortey, he of 'Trilobite' fame, which is about some of the survivors of the great extinctions of the past; I've been perusing recent palaeontological texts as I am sure you can imagine or can work out for yourself from recent posts. The book is called 'Survivors'; in case you want to look it up on Amazon.
Fortey is that rare gift to science writing; a Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins or Richard Feynman, who makes you want to read about things that you may not be remotely interested in. Who cares about trilobites, horseshoe crabs, velvet worms or bacteria that live in profoundly acidic and almost boiling water? And yet Fortey sucks you in with his prose so that, whether you will or no, you are drawn inextricably to turn the page.
I suspect that the 'gift' for writing is largely innate; Alexander Pope did not learn to write well, although constant criticism from his peers may have refined his style, but perhaps it requires a different sensibility to early experience. There are few exponents of 'real' science who can articulate their views as well as Gould, Dawkins or Feynman (I acknowledge the others, Darwin, Huxley, Born, Gell-Mann, et al) but too often the 'layman' is forced to wade through a densely statistical analysis, full of unfamiliar terminology, regarding the whichness of the why to gain any insight whatsoever (McGhee's analysis of the late-Devonian extinction event, though interesting and informative, is a recent case in question - God, it is hard work!)
Yes, promulgators of 'popular science' do simplify and dress down controversy within the scientific community, but the best exponents of the genre, in the main, do not. They apply the same criteria to their writing for a general audience as they do to the papers which they publish in peer-reviewed journals (and I would emphasis peer-reviewed). Where there is dissent, it is acknowledged; where the author is biased, that too is acknowledged; where there is only speculation, it is not dressed up as 'fact' or the latest 'trend'. (Journalists please take note!)
However, what separates the gifted from the mundane is their enthusiasm for the subject; whether it be trilobites, quantum electrodynamics or the wonders, and idiosyncrasies, of the natural world. Interestingly, although you would never guess it from their books, Stephen Jay Gould was actually a palaeontologist specialising in fossil sea snails and Feynman was a safe-cracker and bongo player! (And a bit of a 'ladies-man' in the latter case, if the rumours are to be believed.) It is a pity that not all books for the non-specialist can be so entertaining as well as educational.
I well remember the first time that I picked up a book, lying on the shelves in the station, about science; Nobel Laureate Max Born's book about special and general relativity. I wasn't particularly interested in what Einstein had to say about the nature of time and space, such things are somewhat irrelevant down here when you have to concentrate very hard just to stay alive, but Bohr detailed the history (Newton, Maxwell etc) so succinctly and explained Einstein so well (without going into arcane mathematical jargon) that I soon became an avid reader of all things scientific, although without the background it can become all a bit 'hit or miss'; still, once I had cracked the station's Amazon account, I wasn't paying for anything so I could afford to buy the 'with hindsight, not so good' books.
If today's blog post has any point, which I sincerely doubt, it is this: science, whether biological, physical, economic, social, mathematical, environmental, is important to every sentient creature on the planet. It's a way of understanding the world which does not rely on blind faith, dogma or age-old customs; it's a route to empirical, observational knowledge that, in Popper's words, is 'falsifiable'. Too few humans in my view take the time or the effort to learn about what impacts your life in so many ways; EVERY single day.
So, take a chance; buy a science related book TODAY! You may even enjoy it.
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