I forgot to contribute to your list of things to read! While he doesn’t write in the essay form as often as Gould did, I think you would enjoy John McPhee .
SJG is the man. When he tired of short essays, he wrote an entire book on intelligence testing: The Mismeasure of Man in response to the controversy around The Bell Curve. Check it out.
Carl Sagan, Bill Bryson, Richard Feynman. Sagan is the only one who can really hold a candle to Gould in terms of accessibility, though. Feynman is interesting but he’s a jerk.
Agree with you about Sagan & Gould.
Two of my favorite articles by Gould were Evolution as Fact and Theory, where he takes on the creationists, and What is a Species? about punctuated equilibrium.
Thanks for sharing this. It speaks eloquently to the power of great, accessible science writing.
As for the OP, I have nothing to add that hasn’t already been said.
I have nothing to add, really, but I absolutely feel that no-one has ever written popular science books as well as Stephen Jay Gould. Carl Sagan comes a close second, however, and then probably Richard Dawkins at a distant third (as a theist, I disagree with a lot he has to say, but he writes about fascinating stuff nonetheless). I personally also like Martin Gardner’s “debunking” books, but those are probably not so much what you’re looking for.
I’ve been meaning to read “Song of the Dodo” for some time now, as island biogeography is a subject that really fascinates me (I’m an ecology/evolutionary biology undergrad), but I haven’t taken the time to get a copy yet- maybe tomorrow will be a good day!
By the way, I’m glad someone else lists Gould as a personal hero. He’s actually what got me into majoring in evolution. I started with “Bully for Brontosaurus” and quickly devoured everything else he ever wrote.
gotta love a general-knowledge message board that, in response to a thought on a specific science writer, leads to personal stories and statements of life-changing events. Very cool…
And thanks for the recommendations - definitely going to check many out…
WordMan
But Gardner is indeed worth mentioning here. For many years he wrote the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American, and these have been collected into several books’ worth of essays on recreational mathematics. In addition, he’s written many other essays and articles (also collected in various books) on math, puzzles, science, pseudoscience and flim-flam, philosophy, religion, literature, etc.
The Mismeasure of Man was published more than a decade before The Bell Curve They tend to get mentioned together because the latter book is an egregious example of the same tired old fallacies Gould was debunking in his earlier book.
Another plug for Ley, if only because I had a lunchbox covered with what I later found were his spaceship designs. He defined my tastes and everything from NASA has looked clunky to me.
Can you link to pictures?
I found my old dog-eared copy of The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan the other day and I’m re-reading it again. I forgot how good it was. Definitely recommended.
Finished my re-read of The Demon Haunted World today. I think the final chapter (Real Patriots Ask Questions) is the single best chapter I’ve ever read in any book period. So important, so relevant, and so many people will never read it or take its message to heart.
Thirsting for more thrilling science-non-fiction and thinking of this thread, I stopped at a used bookstore after work and picked up Bully for Brontosaurus. My thoughts to follow.
The cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris would probably appeal to you guys too. I first heard about him on the Straight Dope, and now I’m currently working my way through Our Kind, sort of a history of evolution and everything else. I just started three grad classes, so it’s going to take me forever to get through it, though. I’ve always meant to read Gould and Diamond, but I won’t be getting to them anytime soon.