I just starting reading this book, and it seems very interesting and something I’d like to read. It was recommended to me as a book with a bit of science knowledge that would appeal to someone without a science background (like me).
But, along with many positive reviews I’ve seen for this book (some here and some elsewhere on the internet), I’ve seen some negetaive reviews too. I’ve come across several reviews that lead me to believe it may contain some inaccurate information. It seems like the book contains some almost “urban legend” types of information. I am concerned that if I read the book, I may pick up some incorrect ideas.
I’ve only read the first few chapters so far, and already I’ve come accross some things that I find almost unbelievable, and don’t make sense to me. One example would be how Bryson compares the size of Pluto to the size of the Earth. On page 22 he says that if you set Pluto down on top of the United States it would cover not quite half of the lower 48 states. But, on page 24 he says that if the Earth were the size of a pea, that Pluto would be about the size of a bacterium. The reason I think these 2 analogies don’t agree is that I can imagine a pea sized earth, and I can imagine an even smaller Pluto to the same scale that would only cover half of the lower 48 states, but I think I could still at least see the scale Pluto (which would make it significantly larger than a bacterium).
For the record these specific analogies about Pluto of course wouldn’t ruin the book for me, even if they are incorrect, I’m just concerned that there could be a lot more, and maybe some I wouldn’t pick up on and may believe.
So, I guess my question in a nutshell is: Can I take this book at face value and consider it to be factual, or should I take the book with a grain of salt and assume that some of it may be not entirely true or even wrong?
I can’t speak to that book, but his books dealing with word/phrase origins are full of inaccuracies. I think he writes an interesting book first, an accurate one second.
I happen to know one place in ASHONE where Bill simply “vectored” an urban legend. In 1929, he wrote, the Cleveland Clinic caught fire and 125 people died, mostly from breathing toxic fumes. Bryson wrote (as have others) that the cause was faulty electric refrigeration. In fact, nitrate film plates in the X-ray room went up in flames, spreading deadly nitrogen dioxide through the ventilation system.
I haven’t read the book, but AFAIK the main criticism is that he presents information that is controverisal as though it is orthodoxy, and that he tends to simplify things with too many ‘illustrations’ that tend to confuse rather than illuminate.
The idea of using a bacterium as a scale of measuremnt seems like a good example of the latter. If the world were the size of a pea (however big that is exactly) then it’s perfectly plausible that half the lower 48 states would be the size of a bacterium. You just need to pick your bacterium. As scm1001 pointed out for me in this thread bacteria can get to comparitively massive sizes.
The problem is that ‘bacterium’ football fields’ and ‘chihuahuas heads’ are not standardised units of meauremnts. They are at best ways to give general ‘meaningful’ comparisons for units like microns and hectares that are meaningless to most people.
I know quite a few people who have read Bryson’s book, people who have expertise in a range of areas. The strong impression I get is that nobody who works in a field will be happy with is treatmentof their field, but they seem pretty happy with his treatment of other fields. That probably tells us something. It’s a general science book written by a non-scientist for a non-scientific audience. It seems to be easily consumable without any glaring errors or omissions but not always entirely accurate.
IOW it’s probably comparable to Cecil’s own columns (what sacrilege). But don’t expect to use it as a clincher refernce with any of the resident experts on these boards.
It’s not the most accurate of books, I didn’t notice anything outrageously wrong but a lot of it came across as if Bryson (who is obviously not a scientist ) slightly misunderstood a concept as it was explained to him by someone else. I suspect it might work better as a sort of general history of science/ beginners guide than it might as a serious science book. As others have pointed out he has a tendency to present contentious topics as absolute and relate every urban legend under the sun, but this happens in the rest of his books as well. I certainly found it an enjoyable read though, just don’t automatically assume everything in there is the absolute truth.
If Mother Tongue, in which he repeats stupid gosh-wow canards like “The Eskimos, as is well known, have fifty words for snow…” is anything to go by, I won’t be using him as a cite any time soon: anyone who uses the phrase “as is well known” as evidence for a statement which is patently false and oft-discredited should be taken out and beaten with a big stick.
It should be noted that he wrote a long “disclaimer”, in which he explained that he was just a layman explaining this stuff, and that he’d run his chapters by various friendly scientists, whom he lists by name. He didn’t write it in a vacuum.
Still, there’s bound to be bunk getting through occasionally. Good book nonetheless, and if it inspires someone who knows nothing about a certain subject to learn more about it, who then returns to find old Bill was slightly wrong, all well and good.
Incidentally the diameter of Pluto is very close to 1400 miles which is very close to the distance between Chicago and Miami as well as the distance between New Orleans and New York. So, that part of his analogy is perfectly apt.
Of course, it’s not like that is much in the way of support for the accuracy of the facts in the book. Take it for what it’s worth.
At first I thought it was me since 1) I am in no way a scientist; therefore, 2) I have no way of knowing how accurate he is. Someone earlier said that he admits that he’s a nonscientist explaining everything in layman’s terms. That is certainly correct.
There’s something about the style in which he wrote it. I usually find Bryson quite witty, a bit dry at times, but always, always entertaining. Granted, a science book is NOT a travelogue. It’s not language history. It’s a subject which doesn’t easily lend itself to that particular style of writing. I was expecting Bryson to somehow find his usual voice throughout * A Short History* , and was continually disappointed.
Bill, stick to what you know. I think it’s wonderful that you branch out every so often, but this time your reach truly exceeded your grasp.
I’m in the midst of listening to that book on CD (Xmas present). I can’t contribute anything as to the accuracy, but I’m really put off by his accent. He was born and raised in Iowa, was on a hiking trip in England at age 22, met and married his wife there, and lived there for about 20 years. I would think that after spending your entire young life in the US, you wouldn’t acquire an English accent as an adult, but that’s what he has. It is incredibly annoying, since it is obviously an affectation.
Are you kidding? Have you ever spent any time in a place where people talk with a different accent from where you’re from? Accents are incredibly addicting; within a week or two I can listen to myself speak and realize that my accent is starting to skew.
I find it completely believable that someone living in a foreign country for 20 years - especially one where the native language is the same - would start sounding like the people around him or her.
Look at it another way. If someone born in the deep south who has a deep south accent moves to, say, Chicago, and lives there for 20 years. don’t you think the deep south accent would mellow out? Is that considered an affectation?
Funny how that works. I speak Upper Midwest which has remained largely untouched after 17 years in the Northeast, but I suffered permanent damage to my broad Midwest “ow” sound after only 2 weeks in British Columbia. I think it has to do with how hard you fall for the place. I went head over heels for Vancouver, but as far as New York, I’m basically an emigré.
RE: accents - I think it depends on the individual and their age and personality, not necessarily the length of time. I studied abroad in Perth, Western Australia in college. On my way there, some Brisbane girls were returning home after they’d studied abroad in the U.S. One of them was bragging that she’d lost her Australian accent in favor of an American one. Yet I didn’t lose my upper-Midwest American accent for an Australian one based on the six months I spent there (although I am much better at imitating an Aussie accent than I was).
When I was in Australia, I visited my flatmate’s parents. They were from Germany and Canada originally, and had been in Australia for over 20 years. They still spoke with distinct German and Canadian accents without a trace of Aussie.
My parents-in-law are originally from Oklahoma. They moved to Wisconsin 20 years ago. They still speak with a distinct Oklahoman accent, and strangers often comment on it. I don’t notice it much anymore, but that’s probably because of familiarity.
I certainly don’t notice my accent skewing, at all, when I spend time in an area where a different accent predominates. I mean no offense, but I think that people who don’t have a strong sense of self or who are eager to fit in are the most likely to “lose” their accents, as it were.
It also depends what direction you are looking at it from, as Jjimm has already pointed out he still sounds pretty american to someone who isn’t that familiar to local american accents (for example me) and doesn’t sound very british at all to someone who is more familiar to the accents here (me again), in fact if anything I would be expressing suprise that his accent hasn’t changed more after 20 yrs.
