The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundred of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003, edited by Richard Dawkins, is another "eloquent, accessible, and even illuminating" collection (Publishers Weekly). Here are the best and brightest writers on science and nature, writing on such wide-ranging subjects as astronomy's new stars, archaeology, the Bible, "terminal" ice, and memory faults.

Natalie Angier Timothy Ferris Ian Frazier Elizabeth F. Loftus Steven Pinker Oliver Sacks Steven Weinberg Edward O. Wilson

In his introduction to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003, Richard Dawkins asks, "What is it about science that really gets your blood running?" The authors of the twenty-nine pieces chosen for this volume all offer "eclectic, provocative" answers (Entertainment Weekly).
In "Raising the Dead," Scott Weidensaul airs the faint but spine-tingling hope of one day bringing Thylacinus back from the dead through cloning pickled museum specimens. Ian Frazier's extraordinary science reporting in "Terminal Ice" makes glaciers come alive as beautiful and awe-inspiring natural forces, and as harbingers of a globally warmed future. Oliver Sacks, indelibly profiled in Steve Silberman's "The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks," contributes a piece himself, on our perennial fascination with extraterrestrial life. Timothy Ferris writes in praise of amateur astronomers; David Ewing Duncan investigates what we might not want to know about genetics; and Elizabeth Loftus takes a stand on the science of false memory.
As Richard Dawkins writes, "The science and nature writing of 2002 is not the same as it was ten years ago, partly because we now know more about what is eternally true, but also because the world in which we live changes, and so does science's impact upon it. Some of the essays and articles in this book are firmly date-stamped; some are timeless. We need both."

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundred of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003, edited by Richard Dawkins, is another "eloquent, accessible, and even illuminating" collection (Publishers Weekly). Here are the best and brightest writers on science and nature, writing on such wide-ranging subjects as astronomy's new stars, archaeology, the Bible, "terminal" ice, and memory faults.

Natalie Angier Timothy Ferris Ian Frazier Elizabeth F. Loftus Steven Pinker Oliver Sacks Steven Weinberg Edward O. Wilson

Publishers Weekly

Dawkins (A Devil's Chaplain), the Cambridge University evolutionary biologist, has selected 29 pieces from a broad array of sources to demonstrate the health and vitality of American science writing. His introduction, presenting his defense of science as a way of knowing what is true about the world, is as engaging as any essay in the collection. Given his long-standing defense of evolutionary theory against attack by creationists, it's not surprising that many of the articles he has opted to include have strong political overtones. Explaining his most controversial selection, an essay by space scientists Clark Chapman and Alan Harris, which uses statistics to argue that our reaction to September 11 was out of proportion to the actual loss, Dawkins argues that their piece is "an example of how the scientific way of thinking might influence our lives for the better." Among his fine choices, a number stand out, such as Gary Taubes's much-talked-about article (originally in the New York Times Magazine) calling into question all we have been told about diet and nutrition; one by Daniel Lazare, reprinted from Harper's, asks readers to reconsider what we know about the origins of Judeo-Christian culture; and a column by Audubon's Ted Williams reassesses the logic offered for killing coyotes in Maine. The anthology is provocative and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. (Oct. 10) Forecast: This will be marketed by Houghton along with other titles in the Best American series, but will also compete with Ecco's Best American Science Writing 2003, edited by Oliver Sacks (Forecasts, June 30). Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Richard Dawkins taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. Among his previous books are The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil's Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with his wife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.

TIM FOLGER is a contributing editor at Discover and writes about science for several magazines.