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Explaining without explanation
Go into any bookshop (at least in the UK) ad under Popular Science you will find Science majorly represented by things like String Theory and then maybe Cosmology and Prime Numbers or very fundamental (particle) physics and then quantum philosophy. There is far less interest in things you might suppose concern the citizen (or should) say DNA technology, cloning, genetic engineering, environmental and climate change issues. In other words they are not representative of present day Science as a whole. (That said, popular science magazines cast their net much wider. But they would soon run out of material otherwise.)
Possibly my impression is unbalanced because I myself am a sucker for these books. At one time I seemed to have bought about half of all of them.
I would not even be too snobbish about this. As I say I am a sucker myself. Why something non-mundane appeals was explained by Hardy. You have to remember why some people get interested in science at all. There is nothing to be gained by telling the public ‘most of it is duller than that’.
But what gets to me after a bit is the amount of what I call ‘explanation without explanation’. Handwaving. I doubt that anyone not a physicist who already understands the theory in a professional way can really understand the popular 'explanations' of the Standard Model, though you get to know the music, there are these quarks that have ‘colours’ and you, well they, can make certain predictions which are/are not verified. How these things can be predicted, renormalized – you meet a lot about that and just learn it is done- no idea how. The worst examples I have seen are pop number theory. Several books recount the story of how two Japanese famously conjectured that all snarks are boojums (might as well be that) and that leads through many equally semi-defined steps and terms to proving Fermat’s last theorem.
I do not say this is all bad. It informs the reader what has been going on important in the mathematical/scientific world or a sector of it. Rightly what it is about and that is something (and something most scientists are bad at BTW). You get the interesting biographies and human stories and it is made personal which is good not bad. It is fascinating to read even when you aren't really told what a snark or a boojum is; perhaps handwaving is more fascinating than real science.
But there is a problem. No doubt it has all to do with mathematics. But I wonder if better explaining jobs could not be done.
For example
Anyway I have had enough. I don’t think I’ll buy any more books like that. A book I intend not to buy, which seems the worst handwaving is The Grand Design which as everyone knows is by Stephen Hawking and some other guy.
There is a masterpiece of a review of it here which attacks this sort of thing http://www.economist.com/node/16990802
22 years ago “then we would know the mind of God.” But the professor didn’t mean it literally. God played no part in the book, which was renowned for being bought by everyone and understood by few
Whereas now cosmological “string” …if it is confirmed by observation, “we will have found the grand design.” … And once more we are told that we are on the brink of understanding everything.
The authors may be in this enviable state of enlightenment, but most readers will not have a clue what they are on about. … whenever the going threatens to get tough, the authors retreat into hand-waving, and move briskly on to the next awe-inspiring notion.
Like the explanations without explanation there are jokes … only without the laughs.Philosophy – tables turned Another point I lurved in this reviewer his knowledgeable counter-attack on the authors’ very amateurish philosophy. We often get straw man attacks on philosophy on this site and of course scientists in academia are prone to it too. Often in the form of telling someone asking fundamental questions sometimes, as well as others asking stupid ones, that they are 'doing philosophy not science’. You get the impression that they imagine philosophy must be roughly the same thing as bad poetry.
The quotes:
The authors rather fancy themselves as philosophers, though they would presumably balk at the description, since they confidently assert on their first page that “philosophy is dead.”
It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.
… Once upon a time it was the province of philosophy to propose ambitious and outlandish theories in advance of any concrete evidence for them. Perhaps science… has indeed changed places with philosophy
Finally
Could we do a bit? We do not have a specific book review sector here though suitability for persons of different books are often discussed. Perhaps room for reviewing pop books too?
Just some ideas for reaction.
Go into any bookshop (at least in the UK) ad under Popular Science you will find Science majorly represented by things like String Theory and then maybe Cosmology and Prime Numbers or very fundamental (particle) physics and then quantum philosophy. There is far less interest in things you might suppose concern the citizen (or should) say DNA technology, cloning, genetic engineering, environmental and climate change issues. In other words they are not representative of present day Science as a whole. (That said, popular science magazines cast their net much wider. But they would soon run out of material otherwise.)
Possibly my impression is unbalanced because I myself am a sucker for these books. At one time I seemed to have bought about half of all of them.
I would not even be too snobbish about this. As I say I am a sucker myself. Why something non-mundane appeals was explained by Hardy. You have to remember why some people get interested in science at all. There is nothing to be gained by telling the public ‘most of it is duller than that’.
But what gets to me after a bit is the amount of what I call ‘explanation without explanation’. Handwaving. I doubt that anyone not a physicist who already understands the theory in a professional way can really understand the popular 'explanations' of the Standard Model, though you get to know the music, there are these quarks that have ‘colours’ and you, well they, can make certain predictions which are/are not verified. How these things can be predicted, renormalized – you meet a lot about that and just learn it is done- no idea how. The worst examples I have seen are pop number theory. Several books recount the story of how two Japanese famously conjectured that all snarks are boojums (might as well be that) and that leads through many equally semi-defined steps and terms to proving Fermat’s last theorem.
I do not say this is all bad. It informs the reader what has been going on important in the mathematical/scientific world or a sector of it. Rightly what it is about and that is something (and something most scientists are bad at BTW). You get the interesting biographies and human stories and it is made personal which is good not bad. It is fascinating to read even when you aren't really told what a snark or a boojum is; perhaps handwaving is more fascinating than real science.
But there is a problem. No doubt it has all to do with mathematics. But I wonder if better explaining jobs could not be done.
For example
Anyway I have had enough. I don’t think I’ll buy any more books like that. A book I intend not to buy, which seems the worst handwaving is The Grand Design which as everyone knows is by Stephen Hawking and some other guy.
There is a masterpiece of a review of it here which attacks this sort of thing http://www.economist.com/node/16990802
22 years ago “then we would know the mind of God.” But the professor didn’t mean it literally. God played no part in the book, which was renowned for being bought by everyone and understood by few
Whereas now cosmological “string” …if it is confirmed by observation, “we will have found the grand design.” … And once more we are told that we are on the brink of understanding everything.
The authors may be in this enviable state of enlightenment, but most readers will not have a clue what they are on about. … whenever the going threatens to get tough, the authors retreat into hand-waving, and move briskly on to the next awe-inspiring notion.
Like the explanations without explanation there are jokes … only without the laughs.Philosophy – tables turned Another point I lurved in this reviewer his knowledgeable counter-attack on the authors’ very amateurish philosophy. We often get straw man attacks on philosophy on this site and of course scientists in academia are prone to it too. Often in the form of telling someone asking fundamental questions sometimes, as well as others asking stupid ones, that they are 'doing philosophy not science’. You get the impression that they imagine philosophy must be roughly the same thing as bad poetry.
The quotes:
The authors rather fancy themselves as philosophers, though they would presumably balk at the description, since they confidently assert on their first page that “philosophy is dead.”
It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.
… Once upon a time it was the province of philosophy to propose ambitious and outlandish theories in advance of any concrete evidence for them. Perhaps science… has indeed changed places with philosophy
Finally
Could we do a bit? We do not have a specific book review sector here though suitability for persons of different books are often discussed. Perhaps room for reviewing pop books too?
Just some ideas for reaction.
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