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Science

Richard Dawkins On Science Writing 50

Posted by simoniker from the make-it-so dept.
otee writes "Richard Dawkins asks the question: Why hasn't a Nobel Prize been awarded to a scientist for literary work? He suspects that it simply hasn't occurred to the judges. Read the well written article at The Edge Website for information about good (science) writing."
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Richard Dawkins On Science Writing More

Richard Dawkins On Science Writing

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  • Churchill (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No scientist has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Why not? I suspect that it simply hasn't occurred to the judges. "Literature" automatically conjures "novelist", or "poet".

    On the other hand: Winston Churchill got the Nobel prize for literature for his memoires, not really proze or poetry.
  • > Yet, could there be a better subject for great literature than the spacetime fabric of the universe? Or than the evolutison of life?
    • Of all people I'd have thought he'd spell 'evolution' correctly. Still, at least he wasn't using that Creationist keyboard which has the 'o' and 'i' keycaps switched over :-)

    • Re:This is why he's not won a nobel prize.. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It seems very highly likely to me that this wasn't an error Dawkins himself made. It is rather more likely a mistake made by someone transcribing the article.

      Dawkins actually has some fascinating ideas. Some of them happen to be great memes so you've probably heard of them even if you don't know where they originated.

      Does he deserve a Nobel prize? Well, I don't know and that's not for me to decide anyway. But he deserves better than to be berated for a spelling error he probably didn't make (on Slashdot o

  • Wow! (Score:3, Funny)

    by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:18AM (#9005496)
    Dawkins managed to go a whole article without moaning about godbotherers! Is this a record?

    • Re:Wow! (Score:3, Funny)

      by turgid ( 580780 )
      On a realted note, I'd like to seem him and Roger Penrose with tea and sticky buns sitting by a table and ranting at each other for an hour or so on TV. That would be well worth my TV License fee :-)

    • Re:Wow! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Finuvir ( 596566 )
      Dawkins has gone for whole books without mentioning "godbotherers". It really is a rather small aspect of his writing and one which he seems to have left alone for the moment.

  • Are scientific articles really literature? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by neglige ( 641101 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:27AM (#9005513)
    I, for one, welcome our well-written scientific article overlords, but do these articles really fall into the same category as, for example, poems? The aims are very different. Scientific publications are there to make a statement, to get a point across, to share knowledge. Literature on the other hand is more emotional and less bound to "rules" (for lack of a better word), it has more freedom.

    Or to put it differently: a play by Shakespeare may make you cry, because of the emotions the play has stirred in you. If you cry over a scientific article, it is mostly because of the bad writing or obvious mistakes.

    The article also comments on the subject of readability of scientific publications, but this is IMHO another debate ;)
    • This isn't about scientific publications of the kind you'd find on arxiv.org; it's about scientific publications of the kind people buy to look impressive on their coffee-table. Popularisations.
      • Dawkin's article is about writing popular science texts - he's saying scientific theories presented to the lay person should be simplified for clarity only and need not be dumbed down. There is no reason why a poluar science book written this way should be disqualified as contender for a Nobel prize.

      • Re:Are scientific articles really literature? (Score:4, Informative)

        by neglige ( 641101 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:35AM (#9005705)
        Ok, so Hawkins "A Brief History of Time" would qualify as a popular scientific publications, as it's simplyfied in a way, yet not too much. The target audience is the average reader without a PhD.

        Still, I wouldn't rate it as literature, since Hawkins intended to inform the reader, and not necessarily to "emotionalize" (the latter - in my opinion - being the prime motive for literature).

        IMHO it really boils down to the emotions (other than the occasional joke) conveyed in a text. This aspects sets scientific and literature texts apart. And this aspect is (again, IMHO) what makes a text worthy to receive a nobel prize.
        • Ok, so Hawkins "A Brief History of Time" would qualify as a popular scientific publications ...

          Stephen Hawking wrote "A Brief History of Time" [amazon.com]. Richard Dawkins, the subject of this article, wrote "The Blind Watchmaker" [amazon.com] and lots of other books on evolutionary biology. Two different authors.

          • Hawking (my typo - my mistake) was just an example I picked, I was referring to the entire genre of "popular science". I never thought about Dawkins, I've never read any book by him and I didn't realize he might also fall into this genre ;)

            Apologies for the mix-up and confusion I may have caused :)
        • What I dislike about so many of these publications is the either-or aspect. EIther there is good writing and no math, or math galore and little to no explanation. Why can't we have a book with the simple explanations AND the math side by side so we can at least try to see the beauty in what theorists accomplish by moving symbols around. Hofstader showed it could be done, see Godel, Escher, Bach [slashdot.org]. It's not an easy book to get through but it rewards you if you stick with it.
        • I don't know if _A Brief History of Time_ would count, but I don't think there is an a priori reason to exclude popular science publications from being considered literature (whether or not they qualify as Nobel Prize material...). If done correctly, they are as much about "emotionalizing" as informing the reader, or rather, at that level they are the same thing. If you can really explain science to a layman, he should be really, really amazed and awed. The world is an awesome place, and to effectively a
      • That still doesn't make it literature. Although you can differ about the definition of "literature", take a look at this [princeton.edu] definition from WordNet. I think people here are confusing meanings 1 and 3. There is no Nobel prize for any other meaning than #1.
    • Here's a recommendation: Unweaving the rainbow. If literature is 'emotional', science is the most literary. Einstein, Feynman, Dawkins, Darwin.. these folks did science because they had a burning desire to know. burning desire is as emotional as it gets. i read science to understand. i cannot sleep with the thought that i am not figuring things out when it is possible. emotionally i find that to be very rewarding.

      Let me put it differently for you: a scientific article may make you cry, because of the emo

  • Russel got one (Score:4, Informative)

    by chippo ( 33851 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:40AM (#9005724)
    IIRC,

    Bertrand Russel got the Nobel prize for literature. But I guess he counts as a mathematician.

  • newspaper drivel (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RalfM ( 10406 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @08:16AM (#9005814) Homepage
    It's obvious why this was published in The Telegraph first. It's not obvious how it made it to The Edge.
    However useful science may be, and however relevant to everyday life, that is the least important thing about it. Science is, above all, wonderful. You may write to inform. You should write to inspire.

    As a scientist, I have to interpret this as being about entertainers, not scientists and not novelists: "What is your motivation? Writing, inspired by science? Science, inspired by the search for knowledge? Entertainment, inspired by wanting to inspire people?"

    Personally I suspect that he is wanting to strike back at literature for having both artistic and academic outcomes. :-)

    R

  • Translation (Score:3, Troll)

    by b-baggins ( 610215 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @09:49AM (#9006457) Journal
    I'm smarter and more talented than any of the idiots you gave prizes to literature for. My books are way more important than theirs. The only reason I haven't won the prize every year for the past twenty years for literature (see my classic work: The Blind Watchmaker) is because the Nobel committee is too stupid to realize that my writing is of equal, no, superior worth than some tripe written by Joseph Conrad.
    • I think his most classic work is actually "The Selfish Gene". Ever heard the word 'meme'? It's one of those books that everyone should read regardless of silly/prestigious prizes. A claim that his work is more important than many is not all that unjustified, ;)
    • Seen in a way, that's pretty much what he says. And, I think he's right.

  • Then I'll Nominate: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bhima ( 46039 ) <(Bhima.Pandava) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday April 29, 2004 @10:15AM (#9006745) Journal
    I'd have to Nominate Kip Thorne and John Gribbon. Mostly for proving to my younger brother than all of my blathering about science *was* fascinating, well that and teaching him how stars work (blinded by the light). I suppose Brian Green's "Elegant Universe" should be in the list.

    But sadly my hero Carl Sagan never was able to capture any of my siblings interest due to the fact that they could never get over the "billions & billions" thing.

    Anyone else have suggestions?

  • Don't get greedy... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beeplet ( 735701 ) <beeplet@gmail.com> on Thursday April 29, 2004 @11:38AM (#9007676) Journal
    When someone writes a popular science book that is breathtaking in the way of, say, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," I would be happy to see the author win a Nobel Prize. In the meantime, there are plenty of other prizes specifically for non-fiction. They don't have million-dollar awards, but if you're only doing it for the prize money, chances are your writing doesn't meet the criteria of "idealistic tendencies" that the Nobel literature prize specifies...

  • Read Nodel's Will . . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StateOfTheUnion ( 762194 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @11:54AM (#9007926) Homepage
    From the Nobel E-museum

    Literature is one of the five prize areas mentioned in Alfred Nobel's will. The will was, however, partly incomplete. Nobel simply stated that prizes be given to those who, during the preceding year, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and that one part be given to the person who "shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

    Though this statement is somewhat subjective, based on Nobel's will, can anyone put together a compelling argument that any scientific publication fits Nobel's critieria for the prize in Literature? I am doubtful . . . remember, for the prize in Literature, the way that it is written is probably more important than the science that is presented . . .

    I hate to rain on the parade but when has scientific writing ever taken literature in an ideal direction?

    • Re:Read Nodel's Will . . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Finuvir ( 596566 ) <rparle@noSpAM.soylentred.net> on Thursday April 29, 2004 @01:36PM (#9009139) Homepage
      Literature is about style rather than content, so the prize would surely go to whoever brings tha style of writing in an ideal direction. Yet the works that win their writers literature prizes rarely display the necessary element of style called simplification. That's Dawkins' point. There's a whole area of literature going unnoticed because it's too diferent from the previous winners.
      • Literature is about style rather than content

        This couldn't be further from the truth. Literature is about the sharing of information: thoughts, ideas, feelings, memories. This information enriches the lives of the readers. It stirs emotion, brings cause to arms, makes you think, teaches you something. This is what Nobel had in mind when he willed the prize, not a superfluous style of writing.

  • Has a science fiction author (self classified) ever won a Nobel Prize either? Wait, let's check Google, the fount of all knowledge.

    Hmmm. L. Ron Hubbard won an Ig Nobel in 1994 for "Dianetics"! Is that close enough?
  • That's an amazing coincidence, because the question I was just asking myself was why aren't any Nobel prizes ever awarded to comments in online forums?
    • The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to kwoff, for his tireless pursuit of the approval of his peers in online forums; for his relentless posting in response to all manner of information; for his commitment to sharing his ideas to an unwanting public.
  • I know Bertrand Russell [nobel.se] wasn't quite a scientist, but he certainly wrote quite a bit about it.

    Now for my rant... Why it's hard to view scientific literature as literature.

    I'm taking a break from finishing my term paper for an English class. In fact, this semester, I'm a part-time student, and I'm only taking English classes (gasp!). One of the things I have noticed this semester is how English professors solve problems. Sure, English professors like to examine problems, just not in a rigourous way. Wh

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