Edited by best-selling author and renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, this sterling collection brings together exhilarating pieces by a who's who of scientists and science writers, including Stephen Pinker, Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Gardner, Albert Einstein, Julian Huxley, and many dozens more. Readers will find excerpts from bestsellers such as Douglas R. Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, Francis Crick's Life Itself, Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey, Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. There are classic essays ranging from J.B.S. Haldane's "On Being the Right Size" and Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" to Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" and Albert Einstein's famed New York Times article on "Relativity." And readers will also discover lesser-known but engaging pieces such as Lewis Thomas's "Seven Wonders of Science," J. Robert Oppenheimer on "War and Physicists," and Freeman Dyson's memoir of studying under Hans Bethe.

A must-read volume for all science buffs, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a rich and vibrant anthology that captures the poetry and excitement of scientific thought and discovery.

Table of Contents

PART I What Scientists Study

PART II Who Scientists Are

PART III What Scientists Think

PART IV What Scientists Delight In

Review

"Impressive...There's no fluff here, it's all solid scientific thought, research and writing." --Wired.com

Book Description

The gold standard of science writing-the quintessential anthology, filled with dazzling pieces on the physical and natural world, and the nature of science itself

About the Author

Richard Dawkins is the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and is a Fellow of New College, Oxford. His bestselling books include The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and The Ancestor's Tale. Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature.